HTC Vive giving devs 100% of Viveport revenue for holidays
Company also increasing rev share on Viveport Arcade Manager and leading $4m investment into VRChat
Fresh off its $1.1 billion deal with Google, HTC Vive today made more announcements concerning its Viveport business on the service's one-year anniversary. Importantly for developers, the revenue share is going up to 100% for the holidays.
"To mark the one-year anniversary, Viveport has made enhancements that benefit both customers and developers alike. Based on user feedback, Viveport has made significant upgrades to improve the customer experience when using the app store. Furthermore, from October through the end of the year, Viveport is foregoing its platform fee. To thank the developers who have contributed to the success of Viveport during its first year, developers will keep all the profits during the 2017 holiday season," the company stated.
Viveport president Rikard Steiber added, "From launching the first-ever subscription model for a VR app store to exceeding 1,000 titles available globally, to over 26,000 registered developers in our community, Viveport has grown by leaps and bounds over the past year. We enter year two with exciting new features and improvements to continue our commitment to providing the best VR experience for Viveport customers and the most monetization options for developers."
In addition to the holiday promotion for developers, HTC is making a change to the Viveport Arcade program, increasing total revenue share from 50% to 70%. The Viveport Arcade Manager has been in trial with over 50 operators in more than 15 countries, with a library that now exceeds 700 titles. It's now entering open beta.
While the rev share changes are certainly the most notable for developers, Vive also announced the early release of Viveport Scene SDK, a new toolset to enable developers to create VR previews for people to demo content in Viveport. Additionally, HTC mentioned that it had become a key investor and strategic partner of VRChat, leading the social VR platform's $4m Series A investment round alongside Brightstone VC, GVR Fund, and Rothenberg Ventures.