09 Nov 2014 15:33
First: 'tis a tease!
Second: This is something we've thought about, but there is a major caveat that forces us into one cross-platform purchase model. That caveat comes from the distribution platforms we have to use (iTunes, Google Play, eventually Steam). Each distribution platform has its own set of rules, and each one makes money by taking a ~30% cut of ours. What we are getting from the 30% cut is the infrastructure for dealing with huge numbers of downloads, easy accessibility for our players, and some potential for discoverability that would all otherwise be extremely difficult or impossible. We are completely dependent on them for success. Conversely, these companies are completely dependent on developers in general (not us specifically) for their financial success. And so they don't want to distribute stuff for free that has been paid for via some other platform (since they won't get their cut!).
To continue using these distribution platforms, we have to play by their rules.
As an example, the entire BscotchID system may violate the terms of the iOS store, and so we might not even be able to implement it there. Steam is a pretty insulated environment with a lot of hidden rules, and so we have no idea what they'll allow us to do. Setting up a cross-platform monetary system will already be difficult, as you noted, but the fact that it will likely violate policy for at least one distribution platform is the main problem.
Other major issues are how purchasing and piracy can be dealt with on various platforms. For example, I recently figured out how to detect fraudulent purchases on Android and this detection will be part of BscotchID integration into all games. So if we allowed BscotchIDs with verified Android purchases to freely download and play PC versions of the same game, we could be confident that they've paid for it. We do not yet know how to do this on iTunes, and of course have no games up on Steam with which to figure it out there. Also, we don't necessarily have control of pricing on each platform (Steam has a notoriously secret approach to forcing price points of indie games) and so it would be hard to maintain a system that was fair to purchasers on each platform.
Finally, the versions on each platform do require their own sets of tweaks and bugfixes. Most of this has to do with the stuff we'd prefer to get away from (but can't yet): APIs for advertising services and in-game purchasing. Because of such differences we may be forced into different financial models on different platforms, which makes cross-platform licensing super confusing.
So, until we are well known enough that we can distribute games ourselves, or can negotiate our own distribution terms, and have solved the piracy problem well enough on each platform, we're stuck with the standard model: each game will be, in general, purchased separately on each platform. We'd love to simply allow people to buy a cross-platform license e.g. through our website, and we may actually do this in the near future, but we will not be able to do so in conjunction with the standard distribution platforms. That's not such a problem, since PC and Android games are easily distributed (and BscotchID requirements would dissuade most piracy), but mobile iOS stuff can really only be distributed through iTunes. Distribution through each channel requires separate maintenance, as exemplified by the recent iOS8 update that broke all of our games. If we make our games available through iOS, Steam, Amazon, Google Play, and our own channels then we have to make sure that all of those stay up-to-date and have their own complements of bugfixes.
It's a LOT of work, which is part of why we've lost the last month of development to rebuilding and rebranding our old portfolio.
Licensing problems aside, where possible we will be making it so that BscotchID allows for a lot of cross-platform stuff. Ideally, our players will be able to swap between their PC, Android phone, and iPad and pick up right where they left off with any Bscotch game, see the same set of online friends, and so on. For the near future, though, those same users will unfortunately have to buy the games separately on each platform.