Viveport celebrates it’s first birthday with holiday benefits for committed developers.
With the holidays just around the corner everyone is starting to get into the giving spirit. This includes HTC, who despite selling its Pixel smartphone team to Google last week is now giving 100% of its holiday app revenue directly to Vive developers.
Normally the Taiwanese company extracts 30% of the profits from the sale of a Viveport title, leaving 70% to the developer. However in an interview conducted with GamesBeat, Rikard Steiber, the president of HTC’s Viveport VR store, has now announced plans to give up the company’s share, distributing 100% of the earned money to the developer during this critical holiday quarter.
“The holiday is the most important time for developers, and we want to show our appreciation for them,” stated Steiber. Since opening last year with 60 different launch titles, the Viveport Store has accumulated over 1,000 apps and games and gained the support of over 26,000 developers. 
Pretty generous move by HTC, huh? Well sit back down because they’re not done yet. In their continuing support of VR arcades employing the use of Vive headsets, HTC will increase arcade profits by lowering the company’s profit share from 50% to 30%, leaving 70% of the profits to arcade owners. Not only that, but they’ll be updating their Viveport Arcade Manager with the Viveport Scene SDK. The brand new software developer kit delivers a new way to entice customers to try certain games, such as 360-degree previews of experiences by simply hovering over its icon.
“Our research has shown that customers vastly prefer VR previews over screenshots and videos to inform their purchasing decision,” said Drew Bamford, corporate vice president of HTC Vive’s Creative Labs, in a statement. “We are thrilled that the Viveport Scene SDK will provide developers with a new avenue for discoverability and engagement on the Viveport store.”
Finally, HTC made one more generous contribution to the industry by leading an impressive round of investment in social VR company, VRChat. Rallying support from investors such as Brightstone VC, GVR Fund, and Rothenberg Ventures, the group managed to gather $4 million for the social VR experience.
So there you have it. A very Merry Christmas and Hanukkah thanks to the wonderful folks at HTC. Developers can expect to receive 100% of the profits for their app for the remainder of the holiday quarter at which point the revenue will revert to it’s previous distribution model.
