gramps
5d836aecbb
Creator ruling 2026-11-01. One SKU, one price, Steam does the selling. - Pro is a one-time Steam DLC on the free app: $79 introductory, $99 on a stated date, announced where the price is shown and actually raised. - The subscription is retired. The reasoning is in decisions.md: no service behind a monthly fee (no servers, no cloud, no content), ~1-3 subscribers per 1,000 installs against 5-8% churn, and it carried the most expensive code in the product. - Polar goes dormant. Its customer-portal design is recorded, not built. The "freemium on Steam, convert on Polar, Valve gets nothing" proposal is rejected: in-app purchases must use the Steam Wallet, so it risks the listing to save ~$24 a sale. - Entitlement collapses to `steamDlcOwned`. No lease, no key, no portal, no device limit; the greyed tier opens the Steam store overlay, so every purchase stays inside Valve's own surface. - The site publishes the model and links the store page. It takes no payment and hosts no binaries. - The $400 lifetime died with the subscription it anchored. Founding 200 died with the coupons and passes it needed. Costs: $115 fixed year one; $79 nets $55.30 after Steam, so three sales cover the year.
194 lines
12 KiB
Markdown
194 lines
12 KiB
Markdown
# Commercial: pricing, entitlement, channels, support
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The single source of truth for what LlamaCasty charges, what a licence entitles, how it ships and
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what support it does and does not include. Read before any pricing, licensing, distribution,
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storefront, support or promo work. Cause of death for every retired path:
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[`decisions.md`](decisions.md). Release mechanics (build, depot, SteamPipe upload):
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[`Distribution.md`](../../Distribution.md).
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## Model — one purchase, one price
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- **Free tier — every feature, every scene, every overlay**, free forever, no account, no
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watermark, nothing nagged inside the output. It is not a trial.
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- **Pro is a one-time Steam purchase: a DLC on the free app.**
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**$79 introductory → $99** on a stated date before launch. No subscription, no lifetime SKU, no
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third-party checkout.
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- **The only delta is output quality.** Features are never gated; a payment buys pixels.
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- **No watermark, ever**, in either edition. The branding flash is retired as a paid delta and
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stays off (`ShowBrandFlash`, default `false`).
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- **Clean numbers, no `.99`**, no discount codes, no countdowns. **The one dated exception** is the
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introductory price: it is announced in advance, shown where the price is shown, and actually
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raised on the date — otherwise the next announcement is worthless.
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- **The site publishes the model, never the numbers** — "free forever, every feature unlocked, a
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paid edition with higher output quality at launch". Price, tier name, cap and frame rate are
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published by the **app**, at the point of sale, not by the page.
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## Output profile — the one entitlement rule
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The cap is a pixel budget plus a frame rate, not the word "720p":
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| | Free | Pro |
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|---|---|---|
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| Pixels | ≤ **921,600** | any shipped tier |
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| Frame rate | ≤ **30 fps** | any shipped tier |
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| Landscape | 1280×720 @30 | 1280×720 @60 · 1920×1080 @30 · @60 |
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| Vertical 9:16 | 720×1280 @30 | 1080×1920 @60 |
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- **Records too.** The cap governs the file the creator keeps as well as the stream; otherwise
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free 1080p recording is a re-upload hole. **There is one ffmpeg process with two output blocks**
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(FLV to RTMP, MP4 to disk) fed by one `EncoderOptions`, and the profile is resolved once when
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those options are built (`MainViewModel.Streaming.Operations.cs` → `Models/OutputProfile.cs`).
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There is no second encoder to keep in step and therefore no second check to forget.
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- **Fail closed.** Unresolved, unreadable or unvalidated entitlement = free tier. Never Pro.
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- **The development override exists and never ships.** `MainViewModel.DeveloperMode` bypasses the
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budget in a Debug build only; the Settings row that toggles it is **excluded from the Release
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compile** (`ytLive.csproj` removes its Page and code-behind), and the setter refuses the value
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when `Helpers/DevBuild.IsDevelopment` is false. Not a hidden row — an absent one.
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- **Never downgrade a running stream.** The gate applies to the next start; pulling quality out
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of a live broadcast is a worse bug than one free 1080p session.
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- **The greyed menu entry is the sales surface.** It stays clickable, says what it costs, opens
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checkout, and is labelled ("720p30 · free tier") — never silently missing, because silence
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reads as broken.
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- **Activation is live**, not restart-gated: activating enables the high tiers and a lapse
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(cancel, revoke, sign-out, channel switch) greys them again on the next refresh.
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- **Bitrate follows the profile** — a capped user is not offered a 1080p bitrate.
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## Entitlement — one source
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**Pro is `steamDlcOwned`, and nothing else.** It resolves to the `OutputProfile`; it never touches a
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feature. Fail closed: anything unresolved is the free tier.
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- **Steam owns the SKU.** `BIsDlcInstalled(dlcAppId)` after `SteamAPI.Init`, behind
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`IEntitlement` (`Services/Entitlement/`). It is a local check against Steam's own state — no
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server, no key, no lease, no account, no email.
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- **Fail closed, four ways:** no DLC app id configured, `SteamAPI.Init()` false (no client), a
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thrown native load (missing `steam_api64.dll`), and "not owned" all resolve to the free tier.
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None of them may crash the app or grant Pro.
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- **Steam down or not running** → free profile, with a line explaining why, never a refusal to
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start. A Steam build launched outside Steam is the common case for people who pin shortcuts.
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- **No licence key exists**, so nothing to paste, email, lose or reclaim. A refunded DLC simply
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stops reporting ownership on the next start.
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- **The upgrade path is the Steam store overlay** (`ActivateGameOverlayToStore`) from the greyed
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tier menu — Valve's own surface, so the purchase stays inside the Steam Wallet rules. Never a
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checkout of ours, never an external payment page.
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- **No leases, no dunning, no portal, no device limits.** A one-time purchase has one state:
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owned or not.
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⛔ **Subscriptions and third-party checkout are retired for launch** — see
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[`decisions.md`](decisions.md). Polar stays dormant; its design is recorded there so it is not
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re-derived.
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## Channels — Steam only
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**Steam is the distributor.** One free app on the store, the paid edition as a Steam **DLC**, and
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no other vector: no direct download, no winget, no Scoop/Chocolatey, no Microsoft Store. The store
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page is the single authoritative source for the download, the stats and the reviews.
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- **Pro = Steam DLC, one-time.** Bought on the **store page**; the app only reads ownership
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(`ISteamApps::BIsDlcInstalled`). No purchase flow, no Wallet code, nothing to reconcile.
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- **The website sends people to Steam.** It publishes the model and links the store page; it takes
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no payment, collects no email, and hosts no binaries. One shop, one price, one receipt.
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- **No in-app checkout of ours, ever.** Steamworks requires in-app purchases to use the Steam
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Wallet, so the only purchase surface is Steam's own store overlay.
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- **Boot shape:** the app ships `steam_api64.dll` beside the exe and calls `SteamAPI.Init`. That
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is a functional dependency, not the rejected "native helper DLL for IP protection" — Steam
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ownership cannot be checked without it. Launched without Steam running, the app must fall back to
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the **free profile** and say so, never refuse to start.
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- **Updates are Steam's.** The depot push is the update; the app keeps no updater and no version
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banner (the old "no self-updater" rule stays, for the same reason: it works differently).
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- **Portable mode is no longer a distributable.** `portable.txt` remains as a feature for anyone who
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copies the installed folder; it is not a delivery mechanism.
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- **Steam Direct** is **$100 per app**, recoupable after $1,000 adjusted gross revenue.
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- **Price parity is trivially satisfied** — there is no off-Steam price to keep in step.
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**Not channels, ever:** direct download, winget/Chocolatey/Scoop, the Microsoft Store, Patreon or
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any subscription platform of our own, paywalled early access, a paid beta, a Discord. Content is
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the funnel; Steam is the checkout.
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**Support surfaces this creates:** the Steam store page's support contact, Steam **Announcements**
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for known issues and release notes, Steam Discussions left pinned and unread, and one public issue
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repo for bugs that survive the friction of needing an account.
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## Signing — not needed for the Steam channel
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- **Steam installs never meet SmartScreen.** Valve's client delivers the files, so there is no
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browser download, no Mark-of-the-Web and no "unknown publisher" wall. The certificate that
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existed only to soften that wall has nothing to do.
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- **Artifact Signing** (renamed from "Trusted Signing") stays on the shelf: Azure Artifact
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Signing, $9.99/month Basic, requires a paid Azure subscription, individual identity validation
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is the slow part. Buy it the day a non-Steam download exists — the zip case, not this one.
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- **Never EV, never a certificate with an HSM.** Microsoft removed the EV SmartScreen instant-bypass
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in March 2024; it buys nothing.
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- **Steam does not sign our exe either** — it just never puts it through the browser gauntlet.
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Windows may still show a UAC prompt for the app; that is elevation, not publisher trust.
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## Support
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**Email. Best effort. No SLA. Refunds granted on request, without argument.**
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- **There is no training service.** "I want people to succeed" is not "I will train them". The app
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teaches itself — one-click go-live, five scenes, nothing to configure. A how-to question means
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the app or its docs fell short; the answer is a fix or a video, not a conversation.
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- **No helpdesk.** No ticketing system, no live chat, no onboarding calls, no hand-holding.
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- **A repeated question is a video, not a ticket** — see `MARCOM.md` → support → content loop. The
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training channel is the support surface.
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- **The issue tracker is a filter, deliberately.** Bugs go to the public releases repo on GitHub,
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which requires an account; Steam Discussions stay pinned and unread; Announcements carry known
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issues and release notes. Steam refunds are Valve's own (2 h / 14 days) and cost us nothing.
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- **Nobody is locked out over a licence.** A billing hiccup drops the app to the free profile with
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a banner and a portal link — never a blocked stream, never a modal.
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## The introductory price — the only promotion
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Cash cost **$0**. With one SKU there is no coupon, no founder tier, no pass and no reminder cadence.
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- **$79 until a stated date, then $99.** The date is announced at launch on the store page, the
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site and the in-app upgrade panel, and it is honoured — an introductory price that never rises
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makes the next announcement worthless.
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- **No launch discount stacked on top.** Two overlapping stories ("introductory" plus "15% off")
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muddy both, and the increase afterwards triggers Steam's 30-day discount cooldown.
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- **No coupons, no keys, no founder badges.** A one-time Steam purchase has nothing to administer.
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## Costs
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| Item | Cost |
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| Domain | ~$15/yr |
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| Droplet | $0 — serves the existing site |
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| Steam Direct | **$100 once**, recoupable after $1,000 AGR |
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| Steam revenue share | 30% → **$79 nets $55.30**, **$99 nets $69.30** |
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| Polar | **$0 — dormant.** No subscription at launch |
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| Steamworks, public issue repo, Gitea | $0 |
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| Azure Artifact Signing — **not needed** | Steam installs don't meet SmartScreen |
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| Microsoft Store — **not used** | — |
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Fixed year one ≈ **$115** (domain + Steam Direct, one time). At $79, **three sales cover the year**.
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The Steam cut is the price of not running a storefront, a certificate or an update path.
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**Signing is now moot as a launch cost.** Steam installs never meet SmartScreen, so the certificate
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that existed only to soften that wall has no job. Artifact Signing stays on the shelf for the day a
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non-Steam download exists.
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## Anti-piracy posture
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**Any check that runs on the user's machine can be removed.** The goal is a crack that is
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pointless and a leak that is traceable — not an unbreakable binary.
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- **The free tier is the real defence.** If the only delta is pixels above 921,600, a cracked
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build buys almost nothing and forfeits updates, support and the publisher's signature.
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- **Steam DRM is optional and not needed.** The DLC check is already the entitlement; adding
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Valve's DRM wrapper buys nothing a determined crack respects, and it can break an exe on a
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machine that never runs Steam.
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- **The distribution is not a handout.** Steam deliveries go through Valve's client and account, so
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there is no public zip for a mirror site to repackage, and no hash pin for us to maintain.
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- **Steam is the licence state** — a refunded DLC stops reporting ownership the next time Steam is
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asked, and the app drops to the free profile on the next start. Nothing to revoke by hand.
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- **The Steam purchase is in About** — a leaked build traces back to a Steam account, which Valve
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can action; we hold nothing to trace.
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⛔ **Rejected, do not re-propose:** a native helper DLL for "IP protection", obfuscation, hardware
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locking, remote code that downloads and executes, and gating asset downloads as an auth check.
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None of them make a licence enforceable; the first three add failure modes without buying
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anything, the fourth needs the server this plan exists to avoid, and the fifth is Store policy
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10.2.2.
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