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

[Gothgar]

Had I known it was as good as it was I would have paid more for it.

 

[speg]

I think I got it as part of the last MacHeist bundle. It's a fun game, but not a $20 game... maybe $5?

I think what we've seen on the iPhone and a mass quantity of cheap ($1-$5) games that are short and quick pick up and play types the desktop equivalents are going to have to come down in price to compete. No way I'd pay $20 for a desktop app like World of Goo when I could get the same quality of app on my iPhone for $5 (including portability!)

 

[TheVrolok]

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.

This. I suppose it must be nice to have enough money that you can choose to "donate" to software company. I saw this sale and still didn't buy World of Goo, not even for $0.01. I agree that this sale took money from people who would otherwise not buy the game at all. It's really a bad indication of revenue, I'd like to see how much money they made based on additional volume.

Anyone remember what the final verdict of Radiohead's sale of In Rainbows was?

 

[gorcorps]

I think they dicked up in having people pay BEFORE they played the game.

 

[CP5670]

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

Exactly. You might as well say that "people suck" for getting in on any hot deal out there.

I paid $5 and it was certainly worth that much, but there is nothing wrong with paying less given how their deal was set up. I probably wouldn't have paid the original $20 price, as the game is quite short. I thought it introduced a lot of cool ideas but didn't really do enough with many of them.

 

[coloumb]

Reminds me of how most people act at a garage sale. Even though the items are typically priced very low - most people will try to haggle the price down as much as they can even though they can easily afford the price listed. [ie: kid wants a skateboard that costs $5.00. He offers $2.00 - then hands you a $5.00 bill and expects change]

Promotions like this really aren't a good indicator of what the item is worth because most people will try to pay as little as they can - it's just a fact of life, that's all.

A local restaurant [which serves tasty good food] tried this type of promotion - "pay what you think it's worth" - the promotion was stopped immediately after lunch was over...

 

[ussfletcher]

Radiohead did something like this a couple years ago and it worked out really, really well for them.

 

[slapkey]

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.

wow that world would suck. it's cool they give away coffee, but the world can't function like that.

 

[dguy6789]

I think they dicked up in having people pay BEFORE they played the game.

They did have a free demo available to anyone since the game launched.

 

[pmv]

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.

True, there might just have been one generous Brazillian buyer.

Also, and this is a more subtle objection, it depends on the income distribution curve in the country. i.e. Brazil's per capita GDP is low because of a large number of people who wouldn't have the money to even own a computer. The class of Brazillians who might actually be potential customers may in fact be much better off - hence the generosity figure is distorted.

I'm only commenting on the stats, because I have no idea what 'world of Goo' even is. And my quibble has nothing to do with being from one of the least generous countries on the list, not at all.

 

[werepossum]

I bought it for my wife on Steam for $20. She played it for approximately twenty minutes, which means it cost approximately $60 per entertainment hour. It seems like an innovative game if completely not my type, but perhaps everyone who thought it was likely worth more than $1 had already purchased it.

 

[Born2bwire]

Shit, I could have had it for a penny? Man, I totally missed that, too bad.

 

[Zenoth]

So... they sold more than 80,000 copies that way, and people still suck? Superb. Without that promotion they might have sold none. What's the "problem" in paying what you want if the company allows you to do it? Did the company wanted to know how generous "their consumers" were? I don't think so.

It was a good way for them to attract attention to a game that wasn't well known to start with. It's a brilliant short-term mercantile move in my opinion. No one "sucks" for paying $0.01 and no one sucks for paying $10 or $20 or $30, absolutely nothing "sucks" about this. In the end they sold more than 80,000 copies that would have otherwise probably have never been sold.

And "generosity"... for that, is pointless. in my book someone paying $1 for it still bought it as much as someone who paid $30 for it. The company itself allows people to pay what the heck they want to, why should we EXPECT people to put a specific amount above a certain threshold, I don't get it, if the company wanted everyone to pay at least $10 for it they wouldn't have made that promotion.

 

[AdamK47]

Bought the game for $12 from Amazon last week. I like having the physical disc.

 

[Modular]

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.

I stopped reading the thread here, but I agree 100%

It's simple economics. If you want to make $, don't offer something for free. They are lucky that they made any money on this at all.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

I remember this promotion, but even then I wasn't interested enough to buy it and I forgot.

 

[WraithETC]

paid 0 because you would have to pay me to play it

 

[Maximilian]

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?

$10 is probably all his mom gave him to spend

 

[slayer202]

after playing the demo I wouldn't have bothered paying anything for the game. like many people said, the people who bought this wouldn't have if they didn't have the deal, so stop bitching. the company is probably happy with it...

 

[darkswordsman17]

While gamers are fickle, and I do think the average gamer is more apt to pirate content (especially the teen-20s crowd), I don't think this is a fair assessment. This was posted all over the internet so people who probably have not even fired up the game went and got it just because they could. Just look at places like Fatwallet and what people will do to save an extra couple of dollars, let alone get something for free.

I'd like to see data on repeat purchases. Anyone go and play the game and then pony up more money?

 

[Jjoshua2]

I paid only 1c because I saw a link saying buy it for 1c so I was only excepting to pay that much. Also I don't even like the game. I've played it like 3 times and it gets old fast. I'm going to try America's Army for free now just downloaded lol.

 

[oogabooga]

after playing the demo I wouldn't have bothered paying anything for the game. like many people said, the people who bought this wouldn't have if they didn't have the deal, so stop bitching. the company is probably happy with it...

I paid a buck to them just to throw a buck their way to support this little endeavor and show interest in something like this.

Granted it's just a dollar (probably less once they got hit with fees) but it's a dollar they never would have gotten otherwise. I don't really have any intention of playing this.

 

[CPA]

I paid only 1c because I saw a link saying buy it for 1c so I was only excepting to pay that much. Also I don't even like the game. I've played it like 3 times and it gets old fast. I'm going to try America's Army for free now just downloaded lol.

You're getting a game for free? Heaven forbid, you greedy bastard!

 

[BassBomb]

this would happen in any industry not just gaming

 

[Malak]

wow that world would suck. it's cool they give away coffee, but the world can't function like that.

Yes it can. People would be a lot happier and stress free if the world worked that way.