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Results of 2D Boy's 'Pay What You Want' World of Goo Sales Experiment Released
by Nick Breckon, Oct 21, 2009 11:40am PDT
Taking a page from Radiohead, World of Goo developer 2D Boy used the game's one-year anniversary to run a sale that allowed customers to name the price of the game before buying--right down zero dollars.
While a large number of people paid under $2, the average price factored out to $2.03, with a few generous souls giving as much as $50. The sale resulted in pushing some 57,000 copies of the year-old game, generating over $114,000 as determined by the average price.
2D Boy also ran a short survey, asking users how much they paid, their reasoning, and what they think the game should be worth normally.
"One thing that the survey data might suggests is that despite there being a lot discussion around what games are worth and the dollar value of an hour of play, few people chose their price based on the perceived value of the game," wrote 2D Boy's Ron Carmel on the company's blog. "How much the person feels they can afford seems to play a much larger role in the decision than how much the game is worth."
Comments
"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
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 15 replies.
Distributing a game on Steam isn't free. Bandwidth and servers cost money.
However, you don't have to press a disc, print a manual, make a box to put it in, assemble it all together, put it on a truck, drive that truck to a store, share the money with the store, and eat the costs of however many copies of the game you didn't sell.
I know this isn't 100% how it works with retail (i.e., you're not paying the store to put your game on a shelf) but 100,000 people buying your game at $5 adds up quick, but 10,000 people buying your game at $20, leaving (say) 90,000 copies you pressed rotting on the shelf probably loses you money.
I think the Steam sales are Valve's "halfway" point. If they put L4D on Steam at $25 while it sells for $50 at Wal-Mart, then Wal-Mart would just stop selling it entirely. But if they just drop the price to $25 for a weekend then Wal-Mart doesn't care.
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