Letting Customers Decide Pricing On Game DLC

An anonymous reader writes "How much should game developers be charging for DLC? It seems that one indie dev has decided to carry out a unique experiment. The latest expansion pack for Gratuitous Space Battles is priced at $5.99 — or is it? It turns out there is both a standard ($5.99) version and a discount version ($2.99). And the difference between them is... nothing. The buyers have been left to make their own decisions on whether or not they should pay full price, and send more money to the developer, or treat themselves to a deserved discount. The buy page even lists comparisons of national incomes, average salaries and even the price of sausages to help buyers make up their minds. Will this catch on? Will Microsoft start asking us whether or not we should get a discount and trust us to answer honestly?"

Comments

You have to pay something

[Mazca]

This experiment has been done before in some form, but it generally gives an option of paying nothing, and that's invariably the most popular option. I suspect this may give more interesting results - the main reason I'd often choose to pay nothing when given the option is because I can't be bothered to find my credit card for a tiny purchase. In this particular situation, users are forced to actually figure out a payment method, then make an objective decision about how much to pay. For a small indie developer with a loyal fanbase, I can see a fair proportion choosing the higher figure.

can work

[Tom]

I sell a bit of stuff online - skyboxes and tools for indie game developers. With one of my tools I made a similar "experiment". I offer the very same product at four different prices, from 10 to 50 bucks. I'm very upfront about it and basically say "you know what the time you save with these tools is worth to you, pay what you find fair".

Turns out that my most optimistic estimates were about spot on. About half of the buyers pick the lowest price, the rest pays more. And yes I've sold several for the highest price.

My lesson from that is that people will treat you fairly if you treat them fairly - be honest about what you offer, tell them up front what the deal is, give them your trust and let them do the right thing. You'll be surprised at how often they will.

Meanwhile, with computer games we're pretty much back where we were in the early 90s when we all traded floppy discs on the school yard and didn't think anything off it. Since you are continuously being treated like a criminal by the software companies, even if you are a perfectly honest customer, with all their limited activations, and DRM and invasive copy protection and key and so on, heck, if you treat me like a criminal anyways, give me one reason to not become one.