What kind of money does Kontakt Player cost developers?

[NekujaK]

Speaking for myself, as a plain old composer and user of Kontakt libraries, I HATE Kontakt Player libraries, mostly because I have to rely on NA to install, update, move, etc. them, and also because I usually have to pay a premium price compared to Kontakt Full libraries. And for what? Just to have a pretty icon in a browser panel that I never use?

When I see a library is for Kontakt Player, I honestly think twice before purchasing, and often decide not to pull the trigger.

 

[Mike Greene]

With NI offering to wave the encoding fee, one would think that K player would grow substantially for version 7.

The encoding fee is only $1,000, so it's not that big of a deal. (Personally, I go ahead and pay the $1,000 so I can encode in K6, thus keeping my instruments available to a wider audience.)

The more substantial money paid to NI is in the licenses, which need to be purchased in advance, so although waiving the encoding fee (assuming they're still doing that) is helpful, a developer still needs to write a check for a few grand to buy the serials.

 

[ReelToLogic]

The encoding fee is only $1,000, so it's not that big of a deal. (Personally, I go ahead and pay the $1,000 so I can encode in K6, thus keeping my instruments available to a wider audience.)

As someone who is often a "late adopter" I think that making libraries available in Kontakt 6 is a great idea. I wish all developers would do that.

 

[Uiroo]

As a still new developer, the encoding fee was very much a big deal.

But even without that
- the licenses are expensive and they're not giving me any data on what that buys me
- paying forward is a big no for me financially, and I frankly don't see why I should put up with it, seems unnecessary, the could just do it like most other companies, which is they just get their share as you sell stuff. Also I'm also not keen about having to check if I need to re-stock on licenses.
- I didn't upgrade to Kontakt 7 because I read so many bad things about it and dislike where they're going with it, so obviously I don't develop for it
- HISE seems like an ever more tempting alternative as a business model and as a development environment

Regarding the license prices, in practice they are even more expensive since you'll probably constantly have a bunch of unused ones and never want to get to 0 licenses.
Which is especially an issue for small developers.

Let's say your 39$ library sells its hundredths copy but you don't expect to sell much more. Are you paying 351$ to hopefully get more than 18 more copies to get that money back (on 19$ sale) or removing it from the store?

And they're in practice even more expensive since the license for a 39$ library is 9% of the full price, so if you sell a copy at 50% off they ultimately get 18% of that, right?

I thought about it a couple of times, but no matter how I look at it, it all seems like such a terribly bad idea to me. Before Pulse it might have somewhat made sense, but not now.

 

[David Kudell]

Seems like NI is waving the fee for K7 player if it's exclusively for K7 not 6, is that right? Not sure if that's only for free instruments - everyone's coming out with free libraries for K7 player so that's my guess.

 

[lutheal]

Seems like NI is waving the fee for K7 player if it's exclusively for K7 not 6, is that right? Not sure if that's only for free instruments - everyone's coming out with free libraries for K7 player so that's my guess.

They're waving the fee for any library developed for K7. Free or paid.

 

[Andrew Aversa]

As a still new developer, the encoding fee was very much a big deal.

But even without that
- the licenses are expensive and they're not giving me any data on what that buys me
- paying forward is a big no for me financially, and I frankly don't see why I should put up with it, seems unnecessary, the could just do it like most other companies, which is they just get their share as you sell stuff. Also I'm also not keen about having to check if I need to re-stock on licenses.
- I didn't upgrade to Kontakt 7 because I read so many bad things about it and dislike where they're going with it, so obviously I don't develop for it
- HISE seems like an ever more tempting alternative as a business model and as a development environment

Regarding the license prices, in practice they are even more expensive since you'll probably constantly have a bunch of unused ones and never want to get to 0 licenses.
Which is especially an issue for small developers.

Let's say your 39$ library sells its hundredths copy but you don't expect to sell much more. Are you paying 351$ to hopefully get more than 18 more copies to get that money back (on 19$ sale) or removing it from the store?

And they're in practice even more expensive since the license for a 39$ library is 9% of the full price, so if you sell a copy at 50% off they ultimately get 18% of that, right?

I thought about it a couple of times, but no matter how I look at it, it all seems like such a terribly bad idea to me. Before Pulse it might have somewhat made sense, but not now.

That all depends on your audience. There are still a lot of people who don't own full Kontakt, or who don't even know what Kontakt is, so they certainly will not buy non-Kontakt Player libraries. Or they will, but they will ask for a refund

 

[gsilbers]

Kontakt 7 free encode!? wow.. what's going on? or more exactly, what does fransisco partners want?

 

[QuiteAlright]

Kontakt 7 free encode!? wow.. what's going on? or more exactly, what does fransisco partners want?

Free encoding doesn't mean much when the licenses still cost money (unless the library is free), but I think the strategy is obvious. Get more users in the ecosystem, and make money from those users buying 1st party software.

 

[Uiroo]

That all depends on your audience. There are still a lot of people who don't own full Kontakt, or who don't even know what Kontakt is, so they certainly will not buy non-Kontakt Player libraries.

Yeah good point, the type of libraries you make play a huge role in the equation. And how and where you advertise them.

But "There are still a lot of people who don't own full Kontakt" is still a big question mark. To make a proper assessment, I'd need to know at least roughly how many people who use Kontakt have the full version. Is it 5%, 10%, 20%, 40%? Then I could make a proper guess if it's worth it, but would still be a rather costly speculation to see how many of those people I could actually reach with a very limited marketing budget.

Or they will, but they will ask for a refund

That depends on your website

 

[David Kudell]

They're waving the fee for any library developed for K7. Free or paid.

In that case, if I was a developer I'd definitely create for K7 Player since even users who don't have K7 Full could still use the free K7 player. Unless I'm missing something.

 

[lutheal]

In that case, if I was a developer I'd definitely create for K7 Player since even users who don't have K7 Full could still use the free K7 player. Unless I'm missing something.

Yeah thats it. Except K7 still seems to have some serious performance issues. Im sticking with K6 for as long as possible. And its only $1,000 they waive. Still gotta pay for serials, which is the lion's share of the cost.

 

[thesteelydane]

In that case, if I was a developer I'd definitely create for K7 Player since even users who don't have K7 Full could still use the free K7 player. Unless I'm missing something.

Yes, but you'd still have to buy serials up front for paid libraries, it's only the $1000 encoding fee they're waiving, meaning you have to guess how many copies you're going to sell - and you're forever locked into the pricing tier you pick at the start, so you can't be cautious and just buy 200 licences, since the fever you buy, the more expressive they are. In other words, if the library becomes a smash hit, you will have to buy new licenses at the same high price as the first batch....

 

[Fleer]

you're forever locked into the pricing tier you pick at the start, so you can't be cautious and just buy 200 licences, since the fever you buy, the more expressive they are. In other words, if the library becomes a smash hit, you will have to buy new licenses at the same high price as the first batch....

That’s a PITA right there indeed

 

[Uiroo]

In other words, if the library becomes a smash hit, you will have to buy new licenses at the same high price as the first batch....

Oh wow, I didn't know this. That's fucked up.

 

[David Kudell]

Yes, but you'd still have to buy serials up front for paid libraries, it's only the $1000 encoding fee they're waiving, meaning you have to guess how many copies you're going to sell - and you're forever locked into the pricing tier you pick at the start, so you can't be cautious and just buy 200 licences, since the fever you buy, the more expressive they are. In other words, if the library becomes a smash hit, you will have to buy new licenses at the same high price as the first batch....

So Native Instruments has a policy in place to penalize small developers who want to make an innovative instrument that would make the Kontakt platform better. If I were them, I’d really rethink that policy, especially since a lot of the bigger developers are creating their own players.