Generally, 70% is the universal cut between the distributor of the content (Nintendo, Apple, Microsoft, Google, ect) and the developer/publisher, or whomever is getting checks sent to them. Comparatively, the split is about 50/50 for retail content once you add in all the things that go into a cartridge or disc-based title.

So if you have a digital game at $10 and a retail game at $15, the developer/publisher is likely to make the same money on both platforms (well, 50 cents less on digital).

It was a joke: Nintendo is publishing Dillon's Rolling Western, so they're probably getting all of it, minus whatever cut of the gross they agreed to send the developer's way. Which, from my understanding, is traditionally a small amount. Or is that incorrect?

I personally think in the long run digital is going to be no cheep and a worst deal for the customer. Sure they are loosing the production cost but they are adding other cost such as bandwidth and maintenance costs in their places. Plus if this generation of dl software is any indication buying the game isn't a garentee that you will always own the title. For example I lost my rights to a game when the company I originally bought the full retail version from merged with another company.

Ah. I was unsure who published it. I'd imagine that the deal was probably structured in the way of "Make us a 3DS downloadable game - here's a million dollars" or something of the nature. Given that Nintendo published it, I doubt there's a huge back-end royalty for Vanpool.

Well Rol D21lewis did thoroughly read my OP. You obviously didn't read his first few sentences.

I take the idea of cost from other developer statements. Recently I have heard 400,000 is the standard development costs for a small iOS professional game. Nintendo 3DS is a much more expensive platform to develop for. Now considering Nintendo is the publisher development costs would have been cheaper then a third party developer. However the costs would have still been higher then an iOS game. I'd estimate Rolling Western probably cost near a million USD maybe 800k. The studio is a professional bigger budget studio and the game is beautiful it could have been improved a bit with a bigger budget but it is pretty dang good.

The sales of 25,000 first month is impressive for download on 3DS, but how poorly could it have possibly done at retail? A poorly selling game still does around what 10k their is no way the title could have done much worse then it is currently doing on eShop.

I can see how eShop is lower risk for a low budget downloadable title developed by a Indie studio who can't bring it to consoles. But for a standard budget from a big publisher like Nintendo or even UbiSoft or EAGames. It doesn't make sense for a title big enough for retail to be launched on eShop. It does not make sense to risk losing tons of money by launching on eShop.

Retail is better if you are actually attempting not to lose money. A bargain bin retail game will generally sell a lot better than an eShop game. The problem with eShop is that the market is almost non-existent, the chance of failure is near absolute. Usually the teams that are doing eShop games are not teams who are doing it for any form of commercial success, but rather as a demo so that a publisher might pick them up to work on a real game.

There is a shot at success for retail, but going eShop for an original title is nearly guaranteed commercial failure.

I would actually say that one of the reason why the eshop market is so low right now is that their is a real negative stigma from a number of gamers in regards to Nintendo's online due to the Wiiware and DSiware

Well, if Nintendo wishes to sell the eShop, there has to be more free quality downloads. If it's free, people will get it. If they like what they're sampling, then they will pay for interesting content. Also, I do think that purchasing points needs to be easy - I am not sure because I haven't checked, but is paypal an option? Or is it just points cards and credit cards?

Would PayPal actually be easier or more efficient then a Credit Card? Personally I can't think of any ways to make it any easier. If it was a cell phone your purchases could be made effortlessly and added to your bill.

But what could be easier then buying a points card at a retailer and simply entering the code? Or buying points with a credit card? How much easier can you get? Maybe AR cards that download the points to your system via NFC or AR codes.

Generally, the easiest way is through credit cards and/or paypal. Gaming cards are (arguably) the 3rd best way to do it. I worked at a digital retailer for a few years, and that was the well-established system in regards to how you accept money for downloadable content - CC>PP/other systems>Game cards>Other