World of Goo Creators Try Pick-Your-Price Experiment 216
2D Boy, the independent game studio behind World of Goo, recently celebrated the game's one-year anniversary by offering it at whatever price buyers cared to pay. They've now released some sales statistics about how people responded to the opportunity. The average price during the sale was $2.03; the game normally retails for $20. According to a survey of why people paid what they did, 22.4% said it was all they could afford at the time, and 12.4% said they already owned World of Goo and were buying it for a different platform. (Yes, there is a Linux version.) Over 57,000 people took advantage of the offer, which was enough for 2D Boy to term it "a huge success." Interestingly, they also saw a significant increase in sales through Steam, and a smaller increase through Wiiware. They've decided to extend the experiment until October 25th.
Re:That's very nice, but (Score:4, Informative)
You can pay $0.01. There's no minimum.
Re:That's very nice, but (Score:5, Informative)
This is a pretty cool experiment. But...
Why would I have to purchase the game multiple times to be able to play it on different platforms in the first place?
Well, if you buy from them directly, you get all of the PC/Mac/Linux versions at once for $20 (before this experiment), which is quite reasonable. However, the WiiWare/Xbox Arcade versions are obviously separate; there's no way the console manufacturers are going to allow cross-platform buys, and the only recourse developers like 2D Boy have against this is to not put it on consoles, which would be pretty stupid for the developer.
Re:That's very nice, but (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Legal pirates made me a annoyed panda (Score:2, Informative)
No, they actually got no money at all from those people. From their site -
"For all purchases of around 30 cents and under, we actually saw no money, PayPal took it all, but they probably ended up losing money on most of those transactions ($0.01) as well, they’re not the bad guy."
don't donate just to paypal (Score:4, Informative)
Anything less than around 33 or so cents goes to to paypal from fees. So just keep in mind that you are donating to paypal not the indy game developer if you do that. There's a lot of people who donated 1 cent to paypal. On the other hand, if you WANT to cost paypal money, donating 1 cent with visa card probably costs paypal money.
Re:So many others could benefit of similar methods (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That's very nice, but (Score:3, Informative)
Every developer out there seems to think DRM will "get them more sales" at least at some point in time. Some then realize this fact: The people pirating aren't "lost sales"- they're people who either can't/won't buy your product for varying reasons.
You want to win the "can't" crowd back if possible- you're never going to convince the "won't" crowd ever. The former is a possible customer, the latter is not and will not be.
DRM might slow the infringers down (it's been proven that pretty much every DRM solution to date has been circumvented within weeks of the release of the title...and that initial crush in the case of many titles won't be where you make your money if you're download only/mostly...) but it will pretty much never stop them. Ask Microsoft how nifty their DRM has been on the 360. DRM won't turn the "can't" crowd to be your customer- it won't put money in their pockets to buy. DRM won't turn the "won't" crowd into your customers- if they want your game badly enough, they will take it whether you have DRM on the title or not. If it's such that they won't bother, you've failed at making a fun game.
DRM is a folly wherever it gets used. It's use is based off of a flawed premise out of the gate.
Re:That's very nice, but (Score:4, Informative)
They're basing it off of the online play results indicating at least 10% of the people might have been using an infringed copy. The reality is- you're going to find people committing "piracy" on a given title.
However, the leap they make that the infringements were costing them sales is tenuous at best. And the further leap that DRM will somehow make the sales better is even more so.
In any group of infringers there will be a mix of population of people that can't afford the game and those that will never buy period (I called them "won't"s in an earlier post...)
The "can't' crowd is a prospective customer- they would buy if they had the ability to do so, because of lack of credit card in the case of online sales, or due to things like pure lack of funds. You may or may not get into a position to have them be their customer. 2DBoy did that with me and I paid them what I thought was a fair price and what I had to spare ($15...as much to reward them as to buy the game. They didn't have to do this or make the Linux version after all.). Had they lowered the price to $10 or even $5, the result would have been the same. I was a "can't" because of budget concerns- there's other reasons and they're all over the place on the spectrum of things. You want to try to convert those to sales if possible.
The "won't" crowd is not, nor will they ever be your customer. The people that paid one cent are really, if they're honest with themselves", part of the "won't" crowd. They didn't pay even remotely a fair price for the game. The "won't" crowd will almost always pirate the game, either because they don't believe in paying for any of it, don't believe your game is worth any real money (but yet they made an illegal copy thereof and are playing it...go figure...), or similar. No amount of DRM will preclude them taking what they feel they're due from you if they want the title bad enough. If it is barring them, there's a very, very good chance that your game is not fun enough to rate cracking it. If it's not that much fun, you might want to re-think your thinking on why it's not selling better as it's not infringements that are your problem.
Re:So many others could benefit of similar methods (Score:3, Informative)
GOG.com?
Re:My own experience (Score:3, Informative)
Back when I was in college some 20-some years ago, one of the organisations I was in occasionally had bake sales to raise funds. We invariably collected much more money when the items were left unpriced and the buyer just donated some amount. It's interesting to see this model being experimented with in the real world.
Re:I see it coming (Score:2, Informative)
Multiple tens of thousands for one week, i.e. millions of dollars per year, is a "miserable salary"?
They don't have an office or pay rent, fwiw.
Re:So many others could benefit of similar methods (Score:3, Informative)
IIRC it was 0.99, the same price for Opposing Force and Blue Shift. Since they have the technology in place this seems like an awesome way to make a few thousand out of games that don't sell anymore. They had Bioshock for $5 a while back, and Assassin's Creed is $5 right now. I just bought it :)
Re:don't donate just to paypal (Score:3, Informative)
Ah ha! So the best idea is to buy the game once for $20, then a whole bunch more times for $0.01 each! MUAH HA HA HA HA!!!
Re:That's very nice, but (Score:3, Informative)
Would have given more if I thought everybody was going to stiff them. Come on, average price of $2.03?
I do take your point, but even though most people are giving very low amounts, I'll bet that it's all extra sales that wouldn't have happened if the price was $20. I'm not ashamed to admit that I donated $5, and some people might think that's cheap (but apparently not as cheap as the average customer) but I would never have paid anything over that amount for World of Goo. So yeah, people are being cheap about it, but it's all extra money in the developers' pockets which probably wouldn't have been there otherwise.
Re:My own experience (Score:3, Informative)