Re:Launch HN: MagnaPlay (YC W23) – Indie gaming subscription...
by Pedro_Magna on Friday January 13, 2023 @12:11PM
(#34370659)
User retention is quite tricky, especially for gaming. We think that it won't be too hard adding new content, since there are so many titles releasing each year, but getting highly anticipated titles might be tough.
We think part of the solution will be adding features to MagnaPlay which go beyond just the games. A good example is Spotify, they have a great content library like many other services, but they also have your curated playlists, artist-specific radios, Spotify wrapped, etc. I think getting good user retention will ultimately depend upon the kind of community we can build, not just the content (although it also is a key part).
Similarly, how do you plan to retain devs, especially once they become established and choose to sell directly instead? I think your most “similar” competitor, Apple Arcade, gave out contracts to larger studios to build games, which isn’t really sustainable in the longer term as far as I can tell, especially when they can simply sell their games instead. Is this more of an alternative revenue stream for studios? One of the main draws of a subscription for customers is exclusivity, which would kind of contradict that.
In general though, I really like this concept; it can solve a lot of issues with getting indie game dev going in a sustainable manner, which is a market neither Game Pass nor Apple Arcade really address. Best of luck!