Cave, the Japanese developer behind such shmup classics as Mushihime-sama Futari, recently announced a revolutionary way to release arcade games in Japan: For free.
Not free for me or you, we've still gotta pay. But rather, free for arcade owners. Instead of having arcade owners buy costly arcade set-ups and then trying to make money back on the machines, Cave is planning to offer its arcade games for free. Nothing is free, what's the catch? Cave gets a percentage of the take earned by game center operators.
This means arcades have much lower risk than with traditional arcade games.
Cave is planning to kick off its "Revenue Share Plan" with Gothic Lolita shooting game DEATHSMILES II. Arcade operators getting "free" arcade games, thus reducing the risk and increasing incentive for them to carry the games and Cave to keep making them? Now that's something to smile about.
Another thing is smile about is the DeathSmiles prequel getting a console release developed by Cave and not ported by someone else. Hooray.
『デススマイルズII』を0円で店舗に設置!? ケイブ新作発表会で新プラン発表 [Dengeki Online]