Thanks for your input TwilightOfTheSoul.
Yes, in fact I am asking for 50% of the created revenue and, on contrary to your opinion, I am not of the opinion that this is too much. Here is why:
1.) Porting the visual novels is not simply a process of throwing your renpy project into my engine, let some magic happen and TADA - we have the app. (And I am happy that it's not - if it was no one would need IOS developers anymore ^^) It is true, that I have some degree of automation, that at least provides me with the basic setup of the visual novel (this textblock after that textblock, change background here...). Nevertheless this is only the starting point. I have to manually go over the visual novel then, fix errors that were made during parsing, insert decisions and set up the different paths of the story. I then usually test the app several times to make the "small changes", that in my opinion make all the difference in atmosphere (e.g. play music after/with background change, animation durations...).
Furthermore visual novels with a very low amount of interaction need to be added interactive elements, so that they even can be published as apps (apple is very strict concerning this matter - if you do not have enough interaction you are simply rejected and will be sent to iBooks - which isn't really an option...)
2.) This is my job. I am a professional IOS developer. I have been developing for IOS devices for approximately 3,5 years now and founded my own company 1,5 years ago. I don't want to sound cocky, but I am really good at the things I do and therefore also want to be paid for it. I am not expecting to get my usual wages from porting the visual novels - and I am not even expecting to get them.( I will not state any number here, but if you are interested google can tell you)
I really like to do this and working with artists is a really pleasant change from working with company guys all the time
Nevertheless my bills (sadly) don't pay themselves so I have to at least get a minimum income to feed myself and pay my rent.
3.) I don't know where you got those numbers (12% and 20%) could you give me a link to a source? I ported some German magazines to the iPad and those were basically only a store system with pdf files in them and we got a 50% share of the revenue as well. So I was quite confident, that 50% would also be OK, or even quite low in the visual novel department.
4.) As the apps are published over my account I have to steadily keep track of sales and send reports/money to the artists on a regular basis. Also it is not all that much this is also an ongoing process, eating away my time.
To also answer the question between the lines: Of course I also provide tech support after the app is released. This includes answering support tickets from users and also updating the app in case bugs are discovered or the artist wants to add/change content.
I want to be as honest here as possible: The IOS port might eat away some of your revenue, generated by the versions for other operating systems (also I doubt it is all that much). On the other hand you open up a whole new market for your visual novels. There are more than 100 Million iPads out there (source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad) and the vast majority of those iPad users also uses the apple app store.
In the end the 50% share is not set in stone, there is some small room to negotiate, but 20% is just so low, that porting the visual novel does not pay for me at all and that I just simply cannot do it, then.
