Results in from World of Goo pay-what-you-want experiment. Conclusion: people suck

[GodlessAstronomer]

[link]

As most of you know 2D Boy recently ran a birthday promotion where they offered World of Goo to customers for a price to be determined by the buyer - pay whatever you want for the game.

Results:
Donation by platform

Donation by country

Total copies sold: 83,250

Personally I'm disappointed in what people paid for the game, I think it is an excellent example of how much gamers in general just fucking suck. I didn't purchase this game through the promo because I already bought 2 copies at full price.

 

[brblx]

i bought it for five bucks on steam.

worth ten or fifteen, imo. though i wasn't willing to pay that amount until i played through and quite liked it.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I'm surprised at how many people bought it for the linux platform.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Total copies sold: 83,250

Personally I'm disappointed in what people paid for the game, I think it is an excellent example of how much gamers in general just fucking suck. I didn't purchase this game through the promo because I already bought 2 copies at full price.

I was disappointed as well, but even I only paid $3 for the game (because money is tight). Still, I felt like helping them out, so I did what little I could. Those that only paid a penny are true assholes (and there were a lot of them).

 

[dguy6789]

People are greedy, people suck, etc... Nothing surprising here. I bought the game for $15 for the Wii.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

I'm surprised at how many people bought it for the linux platform.

Yeah, everyone assumes all Linux users are pirates, but they are wrong.

 

[EarthwormJim]

I wonder if they made more or less money during this promotional time period versus the same length of time at full price.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

No, it's the windows user's everyone assumes are pirates. If everyone assumes anything of linux users, it's that they are zealots.



It's interesting, for sure, but not as cut and dried as made out to be. They mention in their blog that sales of the game on steam jumped markedly during the sale. Hardly unrelated, and definitely worth noting - steam is a windows only platform, and World of Goo is $20 still.


I'm curious as to when exactly someone decided their price - anybody know?

 

[Udgnim]

was part of the $5 crowd on Steam

 

[Zensal]

I paid $6 for it.

My payment was based on my ability to pay and the amount of convenient money available, and not so much what the game was worth to me, sadly. I already had $6 in my PayPal account and when your getting by without a steady, full-time job, money can be tight.

I probably would have paid $10 for it, had the money been available, though I'll probably buy it on Steam later anyway.

 

[Mike Gayner]

I read this article a few days ago and wanted to punch a wall. People are such assholes. I paid US$10 in this promo, and I honestly thought that's around what the average would be.

 

[DangerAardvark]

There was a coffee shop in Washington that did something similar to this a few years back. You basically ordered then paid whatever you thought it was worth.

They're back to regular pricing now.

 

[mmnno]

Played the demo and got bored in 5 minutes. I didn't hear about this promo but I would have passed it up at $5. $2.50 sounds about right for a game I have zero interest in beyond "hey, almost free game."

 

[Piuc2020]

2D Boy allowed you to pay any price for the game.

Don't bitch that people actually took up on their offer

 

[CPA]

Greedy? Suck? The company offered for it what you would pay, just like the company offers their employees pay based on what they think a position is worth. How is that any different? Oh, that's right, all of our salaries are too low, as well.

Here's a question, if the company offered it for free through their website, yet it cost money otherwise on other delivery platforms (D2D, Steam, etc), would you still buy it? I know I didn't when Crazy Machines was a free download (posted on our very own Hot Deals) a couple months ago, yet still cost money on Steam.

What you see as greedy, I see as wise personal fiscal policy.

 

[CPA]

There was a coffee shop in Washington that did something similar to this a few years back. You basically ordered then paid whatever you thought it was worth.

They're back to regular pricing now.

I remember reading an article about them a couple years ago. they claimed to be making a profit. I guess the newspaper should have waited a couple years to see if that held true.

 

[minmaster]

well the avg donation amount by country statistic is useless unless we know how many total sales are from each country. in smaller countries where very few copies were purchased, it's too hard to make the conclusion of their "generosity" based on such small sample size. for all we know one guy in turkey could've bought it for 18 cents.

 

[Newbian]

I'm surprised at how many people bought it for the linux platform.

The thing is Linux gets less games then most other OS so they have fewer options and are willing to pay more for it.

 

[Maximilian]

Greedy? Suck? The company offered for it what you would pay, just like the company offers their employees pay based on what they think a position is worth. How is that any different? Oh, that's right, all of our salaries are too low, as well.

Here's a question, if the company offered it for free through their website, yet it cost money otherwise on other delivery platforms (D2D, Steam, etc), would you still buy it? I know I didn't when Crazy Machines was a free download (posted on our very own Hot Deals) a couple months ago, yet still cost money on Steam.

What you see as greedy, I see as wise personal fiscal policy.

*Thumbsup*

 

[lupi]

guess what, if a car dealer offered cars tomorrow for what you wanted to pay for and you think you're going to see any offers over 3 digits, you're an idiot.

 

[Soundmanred]

I read this article a few days ago and wanted to punch a wall. People are such assholes. I paid US$10 in this promo, and I honestly thought that's around what the average would be.

Calm down there Gaynerd. You really got that mad over this?
They have pills for that.

As for the OP, it really isn't that surprising. If you went to the store to buy a game and they asked if you wanted to pay for it or you could just have it for free, you can honestly say you'd still offer to pay for it?

 

[ZzZGuy]

What's objectionable about these numbers? This sale targets those that don't really like the idea of this game and would never buy it. With unlimited supply this sale milks money out of those that do actually value this game at $2, though even if I had known of this sale this game doesn't appear to be worth the effort of making a $2 payment online, but that's just me.

The only problem would be if this type of sale was to be expected at some point, most people would just wait so they can pay less then what they are willing to pay. Not much different then waiting for a store to have a sale on, but this is a little more drastic.

 

[Malak]

There was a coffee shop in Washington that did something similar to this a few years back. You basically ordered then paid whatever you thought it was worth.

They're back to regular pricing now.

I live across the street from a coffee shop that serves free coffee. Imagine if the whole world was like that, money would be obsolete.

 

[Tristicus]

Old..I paid $1.

 

[misle]

I paid $5 for it because I've seen it sell on Steam for that price. But, to be honest, I've played more interesting flash games for free on the web. Definitely wasn't worth $5 to me.