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2D Boy Posts "Pay-What-You-Want" Final Wrap-up
sleeponthemic writes "Developer 2D Boy has posted the final results of their 'pay-what-you-want' experiment, selling their World of Goo game for an unrestricted price. After coming to the attention of Slashdot, a further ~26,000 sales were recorded, bringing the total to 83,147. Note that publicizing crucial mid-sale statistics — such as the revelation that ~17,000 people chose to 'donate' $0.01 — seems to have affected the average donation, which increased from $2.03 to above $3 by the end of the week."
They also show some interesting charts which break down the average donation by operating system, saying "We were expecting the average price paid to be highest for Linux users and lowest for Windows users, but the gap was larger than we thought it would be."
Good for them. It's a really well designed and fun game well worth the original price.
$250k in sales? Not a bad haul. I paid $3 for my copy, although I haven't even installed it yet. Just wanted to show support for this payment model.
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I didn't pay more than $.01 because it was a video game sale put on by a video game company. It wasn't a donation, it wasn't a charity. "pay what you want" is like going to a store and seeing hundreds of copies of the same thing for sale, but with all different prices. Anyone who picks something besides the cheapest one is a sucker.
Yeah, down with 2DBoy and their big video game company. I heard from slashdot that they were looking to buy 2K games. Screw them. Take em down.
For those of us behind work firewalls that allow slashdot but not gaming websites, could someone post up a summary of the data in the charts?
Has someone posted that paying $0.01 is "legally stealing" the game? Someone made that claim in the last thread about this.
i wish i had bought it during the promotion. Now i won't get it at all. i enjoyed the demo.
i'd like to see a sort of ransom model for stuff like this. Once the game hits sales of X, the game is free or the price is cut.
Or do the opposite! What you'd have to pay for is your order number in pennies. Buy it now or pay more!
Maybe have a donation leaderboard. Geeks love that epeener crap. "OMG, Trollhattan146 out donated me! Take this $10 donation, n00b!"
If you've made the game as an ad for your company you can sell the game with an eye to break even, then make the game free.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I wish I had known about this while the promotion was going on. I downloaded this on a whim after reading a preview, knowing that classic puzzle games like Tetris were always among my favorites, and I knew it would be worth $15.00 (1500 WiiWare points).
I loved it so much that I not only paid an additional $20 (plus tax) to purchase the Windows PC version, just to play it with a mouse (it's more fun on the Wii, but the mouse allows much better control), but I bought two more copies to share with two friends, who loved it just as much. It's a shame I missed this promotion, because I would have told dozens more to pay whatever they thought was fair to get the game for themselves.
Here's my quick review... The gameplay is simple but addictive. It's easy to learn, and the skills are easy to master as you progress through the game. But it's never too easy, and some levels require quite a bit of outside-the-box thinking. And the game is even spiked with the sarcasm of the "sign painter," who leaves vague clues around each level should you need them. (Forget needing them -- each and every sign is a joy to read, and it's worth beating each level just to get to the next bit of witty advice.)
To me, this is the 21st century thinking-man's Tetris. It's a shame that it will never be as popular as Tetris, because it really should be.