#Digital Distribution

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Onward (2020, Dan Scanlon)

20/10/2024

[newblvotg]

[askagamedev]

What would it take to have a resurgence of physical games (for PC mostly)? I recall multiple times of digital only games being taken away by companies and there being an uproar about it. But it was never enough to create change.

Honestly, there's two major things that need to happen for physical media to be a bigger thing on PC. Think about things from a game publisher perspective and what kind of costs are associated with making physical media.

First, retail stores take a 20% cut of sales while digital doesn't. That's a big chunk of money that the retail stores need to sustain themselves, but that the game publisher also doesn't have to pay when they sell games digitally. This was the largest initial driver to go digital in the first place - digital games represented a significant rise in revenue for game publishers, so it was a new way to obtain sizable growth. Going back to physical media would require a similar kind of kickback.

Second, we need to do something about installation and used games. Digital games are easy to authenticate and difficult to pirate. You can't transfer or resell the game because it is attached to your account. Physical media doesn't have this restriction. This has moved forward more in recent years due to the prevalence and desire for ongoing content development - you need an internet connection and account in order to pay and obtain the DLC.

Overall, these two things would need to get ironed out before game publishers would be willing to push for physical media again. The authentication, DLC distribution, and ongoing development/live service game model helps push down the market for used games, but the largest obstacle remains the retailer cut.

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[captaingimpy]

Preservation, Piracy, and the Illusion of Ownership: A Critical Examination

In the modern digital age, the line between ownership and access has been intentionally blurred. The rise of streaming services, digital distribution, and corporate consolidation has created a media landscape where consumers no longer truly own the games, movies, and other media they purchase. This reality challenges the traditional narrative that “piracy is theft,” a simplistic and often…

[garvescope]

How to Use YouTube to Create Buzz Before Your Film Premieres

Most filmmakers use YouTube wrong. They drop a trailer, maybe a behind-the-scenes video, and then disappear for months. But YouTube isn’t just a place to host video content, it’s a full-fledged platform for community building, narrative teasing, and audience activation. Done right, YouTube can create buzz before your film hits festivals, lands distribution, or premieres online. It can grow your…

[gamebuoy]

http://gamebuoy.org/episode-174/

This week, Captain Spike and First Mate Slaggy McWaggy discuss the changing landscape of games distribution! As part of the Game Buoy Remake Project initiative, they take a look back at��Game Buoy Podcast Episode 3 – Digital Distribution and DLC. Back in 2012, the idea of digital distribution was a new concept – but now it’s so widespread that the majority of new games on home consoles are purchased digitally. The Podcast Pirates discuss how their games consumption habits and preferences have changed since 2012, how comfortable they are with digital purchases in 2025, as well as the Game Key Card kerfuffle. Finally, they wrap up the discussion by discussing the outlook for the future of digital distribution and whether their current digital purchases will remain playable.

[thexube]

DistroKid vs TuneCore vs CD Baby: Which One Do Musicians Actually Prefer?

DistroKid vs TuneCore vs CD Baby: Which One Do Musicians Actually Prefer? As an independent artist, choosing the right music distribution platform is a critical step toward getting your music heard. With so many options—like DistroKid, TuneCore, and CD Baby – how do you know which one suits your music career best? In this article, we explore what these platforms have to offer, how they differ,…

[tagnoob]

The Shoot Digital Horses, Don't They?

Maybe it’s just the whole world is like central casting. They got it all rigged before you ever show up. -Gloria, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Warning: The post below answers none of the questions it asks and arrives at no satisfying conclusion.  It is also rambling, laced with emotion and bile, and may not be 100% factually correct.  Proceed with caution. Somehow digital ownership has come…

[musicinfooy]

Under the current “pro rata” model held true in Spotify and Apple, money from your dedicated fans goes into a giant pool that’s paid out to artists based on their share of total streams. This mostly benefits mega stars.

Spotify figures out how many streams came from a given country and then calculates the portion of those streams that went to specific artists. This causes smaller artists who might not have such a massive reach, but have a dedicated loyal audience, not getting much money because they share a smaller portion of the overall streams.

Effectively, if The Weeknd or Harry Styles gets 5% of all streams on Spotify in any given period they and their labels will get 10% of your monthly subscription fee, even if you never listened to any of their songs.

Rolling Stone reported in 2020, that the top 1 percent of streaming artists end up getting 90 percent of the revenue.

If you were to take the more than 1.6 million artists who released music to streaming services in the past year and a half and ranked them by their total streams, you’d find that the top 16,000 of those artists pulled in 90 percent of the streams. And it doesn’t take more than a basic grasp of math to realize that this leaves 1.6 million artists with just 10 percent of the streams.

FYI the current number of artists on Spotify has now grown to about 9 million, this means more share less.

This “pro rata” model typically benefits the major labels and the most popular artists. When you listen to music on the streaming services what do you hear on these platform generated playlists, radio stations and suggestions: More of the same top artists represented by the biggest labels. This has changed very little if at all over the last 3 years.

Obviously this is not acceptable. Not only from the view of the music creator, independent label and self-publisher but also from the fan’s’ point of view. It too sucks knowing that these superstars are taking money away from your choice artists.

Yet, I cannot feel too bad about using streaming services. The subscription fee is for using the service. No longer do I need to carry around all my CDs or be limited to the storage capacity in my device. And new releases are automatically available. But there must be a better way to focus user and fan activity and payments in a more meaningful way.

Lets see how the biggest record labels will get their fingers into the new payment models. We’ll take a look at the most recent deal with Universal and Deezer, as well as the first change in the “pro rata” model founded by Soundcloud and Warner.

Micropayments and Tips: A Better Way to Pay Your Artists

If only there was a way for a fan to pay directly to the artist. Wait, hold up there is. Though Netease and Tencent in China use the “pro rata” model, they calculate the accumulated streams of a given artist and pay out according to the type of user: free, subscribing, or VIP. So the pay per stream varies from user to user. Already there is a distinction between users. But even, is the possibility for the listeners and fans to give gifts directly to their artists.

Yet another advance in China that the western services are lacking and struggling to “catch up to”, if that is even a tangible consideration for the streaming services to implement?

Micropayments and digital tips are common in China. There are apps that allow people to tip or give monetary gifts. However, many platforms have this function built into their system as they do in the music platforms in China like QQ and Netease as well as Douyin and others. And you can always use a 3rd party app to send a gift to the ones you choose. How awesome would it be to go to Spotify or Deezer or Apple and leave your thoughts and show your love as comments to your artist as you listen to their music, as they do on Netease and QQ. And also showing your support by giving them a tip or virtual gift.

Moving Beyond Pro Rata

Universal has struck a deal with Deezer or is it vice versa? Deezer CEO Jeronimo Folgueira says that the deal is the “most ambitious change” to the economies of music streaming since it first started.

Focusing on artists who have a minimum of 1,000 streams per month with a minimum of 500 unique listeners will get a “double boost.” Is that 2x per stream?

They will get another “double boost” if the song was actively searched for by the user rather than suggested by the system or on a playlist. Is that 4x times per stream?

This Artist Centric streaming model is definitely a move forward. It seems though that the ones it benefits the most are the artists who are already taking the majority of the royalties. So any artist who has more than 1000 monthly streams and 500 different listeners will now be taking double of what they are already taking. Where is this coming from?

Denis Ladegaillerie of Believe, expressed his concerns that this 1000 streams/500 listener threshold will increase over time. Essentially squeezing out any upcoming artist with fewer than the threshold.

Jeronimo Folgueira of Deezer has addressed a very sore point in the streaming world, “There is no other industry where all content is valued the same, and it should be obvious to everyone that the sound of rain or a washing machine is not as valuable as a song from your favorite artist streamed in HiFi.”

Deezer is planning to replace non-artist noise content with its own content as functional music which won’t be included in the royalty pool. And of course tackling fraud by driving a better new and improved fraud detection system, making it less attractive to fraudsters and protecting the royalties.

So at least we can count on 2 things: Artists will receive a smaller payout if their songs play as part of an algorithmic playlist and will not need to compete with background noise tracks. Please remember this is only on Deezer. And how about all artists that are not part of Universal Music Group do they share pro rata of whatever is left over?

As of now Spotify is not on board, “We are willing to make the switch to a user-centric model if that’s what artists, songwriters, and rights holders want to do. However, Spotify cannot make this decision on its own; it requires broad industry alignment to implement this change. The research we’ve seen to date suggests that a shift to user-centric payments would not benefit artists as much as many may have originally hoped.”

Another possibility implemented by Tidal is their Direct-to-Artists payment model established in 2022. As a listener and subscriber your monthly fee will be allotted to a pool of royalties based on your subscription tier. As a premium HiFi plus subscriber it is estimated that 10% of your fee will go directly to your artists you listen to.

At the forefront we have Soundcloud and their Fan-powered royalty model since 2021. This is only available to independent artists who monetize directly with SoundCloud. The more time your dedicated fans listen to your music, the more you get paid. So a user paying $10 a month only listens to five artists, those five artists will get a split of that $10, after SoundCloud takes its cut, no matter how many times the user listens to each of them.

This model that seems to benefit independent artists is a collaboration with Warner Music Group, having cut a licensing deal with SoundCloud to adopt the streamer’s Fan-Powered Royalties system. WMG is the first major label to adopt the system, and its embrace of the model could signal a larger shift for the industry. Warner and independent artists are like oil and water, could there still be a light at the end of the tunnel for independent artists?

Conclusion

The structure of payments between streaming services and labels or independent artists are in need of change.

There is an inability to distinguish premium content, any stream over 30 seconds in length counts the same. This means that the music that has a higher value is not recognized.

An alternative is a more flexible artist-centric model that seeks to distribute payouts based on the value an artist creates and provides for the platform.

Fan-powered royalties means a subscriber’s subscription fee or advertising revenue will be shared among the artists they actually listen to, rather than going to a big pot and being split up among the platform’s most popular artists.

Streaming platforms have more pricing power than they have demonstrated in prior years as several major music streaming platforms have increased their prices on their standard services; however, the average revenue per user on paid streaming music services has fallen by 40% since 2016.

Apple Music and Spotify have essentially lowered the value of their catalogues by introducing family plans and smaller prices for bundled users, but maybe they are preparing for the next generation of users.

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[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Another year has passed, and with it the opportunity to reflect back on all that has happened. While my growth was not as dramatic as last year, I can still see lots of positive change.

I'll never have enough ways to say thank you for all the love and support you have given me this year. On to 2025!

(2023 summary here!)

[aaeeart]

I do need to draw more of these two

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Onward (2020, Dan Scanlon)

24/05/2024

[2-dsimp]

Since URIEL isn't ready Seraphi is off limits and Azrael isn't a good father figure.... *👹 UMPS ON JERICHO👹* "👹👹GIVE ME UR BABUIESSS 👹"

𝚌𝚠: 𝙽𝚜𝚏𝚠 𝙼𝙳𝙽𝙸 𝚜𝚞𝚐𝚐𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎

➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵

𝙿𝚘𝚟: 𝙹𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚑𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙻𝚘𝚜𝚎𝚛 𝙰𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚕 𝙶𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚝𝚑𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚊𝚐𝚎

➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵

[wormstowarts]

Illari doodle! (I always feel like I’m spelling her name wrong cause of autocorrect )

[fedyavoidart]

[garvescope]

What to Post on TikTok to Promote Your Film (Day-by-Day Plan)

Most indie filmmakers think about marketing in terms of festivals, trailers, and press kits. TikTok? It’s often an afterthought. But for indie films, TikTok isn’t just social media, it’s a distribution tool, a discovery engine, and the best shot you have at reaching a new audience organically. But like filmmaking, success on TikTok isn’t about luck, it’s about structure. That’s why we built this…