World Of Goo (This Time With Four Friends) Tries The Pay What You Want Model Once Again

from the give-it-away-and-pray dept

Wed, May 5th 2010 2:19pm — Dennis Yang

The video game World of Goo, who we've seen experiment in the past with models like DRM-free games (which did not suffer any worse piracy rates than DRM'd games) and a "pay what you want" model, is back at it again. This time, they've released the The Humble Indie Bundle -- they've teamed up with a few other games and released a five game bundle with the "pay what you want" model once again. In addition to the five games involved, two charities, Child's Play and the EFF, also benefit from each sale -- by default, the money paid is split evenly amongst the seven parties, but customers can easily tweak the revenue split as they see fit. The site's clean, simple payment interface is particularly impressive and contains an amusing easter egg if you try and buy the bundle for less than $1.

To promote this bundle, there's even an accompanying rap video:

In a similar spirit of transparency that we've seen before from Goo, real-time statistics about the sales are shared on site. Currently, the average contribution stands $7.89 -- higher than the $2 that World of Goo saw in its previous experiment. So, while Mike may still not be convinced yet that "give it away and pray" is a viable business model, it should certainly not stop faithful entrepreneurial minded folks from trying to prove him wrong.

Filed Under: pay what you want, world of goo

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NAMELESSONE, 5 May 2010 @ 2:44pm

its kinda like
its kinda like opensource without the source being opened your in affect donating to the finished product and have no say in development.

Thats a more friendly way to say and do these things. IT does however beg the question that if you opened parts of your game to the users to mod and have them donate for that, WOULD you make a few more bucks????

I LOVE CAPS THEY LOVE YOU TOO
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Logo, 5 May 2010 @ 2:50pm

In other indie realms, Dwarf Fortress has recently released their latest report detailing their donation income and how their latest release has impacted it. For a 2 person game their income has been quite impressive:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=56115.0 . Dwarf Fortress uses a give it away and pray method, the game is free for anyone to download.
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TightWad, 5 May 2010 @ 3:03pm

Pay what you want??
Interesting that 0.00 doesn't seem to be allowed as a price point.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 May 2010 @ 3:08pm

Â
It is also interesting that they insist on using Paypal, Google, and Amazon, three services I refuse to use.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 May 2010 @ 3:10pm

Amazingly
All 5 games are available for Linux! I wonder how they will do on my netbook. It's worth 10 bucks to find out, plus if they don't run well I'll just get the windows version too
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Alex, 5 May 2010 @ 3:27pm

I bought it
This is the first video game I've bought in a long time, and I did it for two reasons:

1. The games looked cool, and I've been needing some cool, original games.

and

2. It helps out some great charities!

Now those are some reasons to buy! :-D Everyone should get aboard this one.
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Nick Coghlan (profile), 5 May 2010 @ 3:44pm

Marketing connections
They're also getting a whole lot of email addresses for the price of some free downloads. Sure, not everyone will sign up for their mailing list (which is an optional part of the download process), but a lot of people will :)

It's similar to something Mike has said many times: just like many other artists, obscurity is a much bigger problem for small scale game developers than piracy.
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Stephen, 5 May 2010 @ 8:00pm

great games
I paid $25, splitting it half and half between the designers and charity. Huge bargain. World of Goo alone is an amazing game.
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Yip, 5 May 2010 @ 8:01pm

Re: Marketing connections
True that. I'm playing Aquaria - it's a gorgeous wee thing, not sure I'd've found it but for this effort.

The games in this bundle are all DRM-free, btw. Big selling point for me, I'm dead sick of that overweening invasive crap.
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PaulT (profile), 5 May 2010 @ 10:22pm

Re: Ã�Â
Out of interest, do you have any alternative, widely (internationally) accepted service in mind that would not charge them a large overhead? If so, maybe you could make constructive suggestions to them instead of complaining...
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Hephaestus (profile), 6 May 2010 @ 6:27am

Re: Re: Ã�ï¿½Ã�Â
remind me again... how much does paypal charge percentage wise?
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chris (profile), 6 May 2010 @ 6:52am

i just didn't like world of goo
i got world of goo a couple of years ago and just wasn't impressed with it.

i paid for crayon physics because it was that awesome.
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 6 May 2010 @ 6:55am

Thank you!
Thank you for posting this on techdirt here Dennis as I was not aware of this new offer.
Now I have something to tell all of my friends about for a new time wasting distraction. DRM free is massively awesome in this.
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Solohan50, 6 May 2010 @ 7:51am

Re:
Dwarf Fortress is an amazing game.
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SomeoneSad, 6 May 2010 @ 8:22am

Pay what you want isn't that great
I find it really interesting that people will pay allot for games, but when it comes to more necessary software like virus scan, internet filtering, or spyware cleanup (and I mean the legit manufacture/versions) people would rather cheat, steal, or buy the cheaper non-legit versions from some kids in China. Having tried the pay what you want model myself, I find this really kinda sad.
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 6 May 2010 @ 9:49am

Re: Pay what you want isn't that great
Avast and AVG have free versions that work really well. No cheating, stealing, or even buying involved. And unless I am mistaken, then don't come from China either. =)
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senshikaze (profile), 7 May 2010 @ 5:18am

Re: i just didn't like world of goo
yea, well crayon physics dude is windows only. fuck that shit.
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senshikaze (profile), 7 May 2010 @ 5:20am

Re: Pay what you want isn't that great
very expensive programs like syamatec enterprise and macaffee(take your freaking network down, why don't you) suck as weel. why again, is there a reason to pay anything for shitty highend or low end AV software?

besides, only windows user need AV (right now). as a linux user, I don't have as many problems and ClamAv is in that sweet spot of free and decent.
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senshikaze (profile), 7 May 2010 @ 5:21am

Re: Re: Pay what you want isn't that great
and my spelling skills at 7 am suck, by the way
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CrushU, 10 May 2010 @ 4:31pm

Re: Re: Pay what you want isn't that great
Completely off-topic... But you just said that only windows users need AV, and then the next sentence you said you use ClamAV on Linux... ;)

Windows is Security by Obfuscation; No one knows wtf their code does.
MacOS is Security by Obscurity; No one cares to hack them.
Linux is Security by Openness; Everyone can see how it could be exploited, and everyone fixes it.

(I use Windows, but I admire Linux.)
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