Results of 2D Boy's 'Pay What You Want' World of Goo Sales Experiment Released

Man, on behalf of those gamers that paid <$5.00 for the game, I'm really sorry 2DBoy. :(

People who pay 1 cent because that is what they can afford are playing on $1k+ computers while they're saying that. If they truly are that strapped for cash, they should get out from behind a keyboard and make some money.

I think the reality is that they're full of shit and like free stuff.

Man, on behalf of all those who couldn't afford to pay anymore.. Fuck you, modern civilisation O.o

These guys are great at PR. You can't go a week without hearing about this game.

I've played better Flash games.

17,000 jackasses bought it for 1 cent? Man he should have made it $0.25 minimum

I think this was a tremendous success, but it is a model of sales with some very serious qualifications and limitations. It runs a risk of devaluing the work of developers, the same way that the 99-cent song (as created by iTunes) has starkly undercut the value of an actual album. When Radiohead did a similar "pay what you feel like" sale with In Rainbows a few years ago, Trent Reznor had this to say:

"Pay-what-you-want model
This is where you offer tracks or albums for a user-determined price. I hate this concept, and here's why.
Some have argued that giving music away free devalues music. I disagree. Asking people what they think music is worth devalues music. Don't believe me? Write and record something you really believe is great and release it to the public as a "pay-what-you-think-it's-worth" model and then let's talk. Read a BB entry from a "fan" rationalizing why your whole album is worth 50 cents because he only likes 5 songs on it. Trust me on this one - you will be disappointed, disheartened and find yourself resenting a faction of your audience. This is your art! This is your life! It has a value and you the artist are not putting that power in the hands of the audience - doing so creates a dangerous perception issue. If the FEE you are charging is zero, you are not empowering the fan to say this is only worth an insultingly low monetary value. Don't be misled by Radiohead's In Rainbows stunt. That works one time for one band once - and you are not Radiohead."

I think this experiment worked because World of Goo is a title with large media expose and multiple-platform success, and success breeds success. Very few titles not positioned in this way would be able to pull off a sale like this and succeed. Bravo to the developers, this is a big kick in the face to publishers and their money-hungry ways, but there needs to be a preemptive strike against editorialists who will hail this as The Future of Game Publishing

I'm sure they moved more units. They at least got a fair chunk to pay $5, which is only a half-hearted slap in the face...

But damn, $0.01? There are some cold blooded motherfuckers out there.

This is how you do it, people. A fucking histogram, not an average.

:D

**whistles inconspicuously**

I always thought one of the key factors in the 'pay what you will' business model was to already be a very well established and recognized entity, it's not like Radiohead, NIN, or Prince were obscure in the music world (regardless of their current relevance to any scene).

I'd be really curious to see how an experiment like this would play out with a major title from a well established and recognizable developer.

There are some hidden information.

For example, I already had World of Goo -- bought it legitimately. However, I went and bought World of Goo again through this offer for my PC. Of course, I'm not going to pay the same amount the second time around.

I just spammed all my facebook gamer geeks with a link to the game. :)

I like donate-ware or whatever better than this model. I mean as far as pie-in-the-sky funding schemes go. Donate money to a person and once they get enough money they release it free to everybody. Don't donate, and you don't get the game. Plus it's sound from a tech point of view, because you can't (easily) pirate something nobody except the creator has access to.

By asking people to pay the price they want you're just asking to be low-balled, especially if you don't have the incredible respect and good will of a ton of your audience. In fact it's worse, because even with this model you have people who are just going to pirate it anyway, AND you have legitimate customers who are going to take advantage of you.

I'm considering buying either World of Goo or Plants vs Zombies as Christmas presents for the "non-gamer" people I know. This game is fantastic. I'm so glad they made this data available for everyone to see. Very interesting.

I will buy it just because I have the wii version and like it. But that means I probably won't pay as much because I feel like I already own it.

Nick, you should also mention he's extending the experiment to October 25th

Maybe people should input their household income first. :) Then it would generate a price based on that. I'm mostly joking. People would never want to state the truth.

I am curious what the numbers would be (money going into the developer) based on the volume moved while on retail shelves (aka; the cut the publisher takes) vs how much the developer got by pushing it themselves at a discounted price...

I doubt any real companies could survive a shift to a total digital distribution model via cutting out the publishers, or weather or not the publishers would even let that happen...

I've bought this twice now. It was a lot of fun on the Wii and it should be fun on my laptop when I'm out and about away from home.

damn, now hes a hundred-thousandaire!

Interesting numbers though.