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Forums - Sales - Results from World of Goo pay-what-you-want experiment

famousringo on 20 October 2009
Boutros said:
I think it's perfectly fair to donate 0.01$...

And they don't have to be called "cheapasses".

I don't see the problem. It's still better than hacking the game. I personally didn't bought the game by lack of interest (and credit card lol) but donating 0.01$ or 2$ is the same to me.

A pirated version of World of Goo earns 2D Boy nothing and costs them nothing.

Copy of World of Goo bought for $0.01 costs 2D Boy about $0.29.

So how do you figure that's better than piracy? You did them a favour by not buying the game for $0.01.

@ Alterego-X

I'd say that the fact that the "vast majority" of their 57,000 sales cost them money rather than earning them money makes this a qualified success rather than a complete success. It's good that their fixed costs are completely paid off, because if they were relying on this donation model to sell their games, it looks like they would have just barely broken even on their work. The only reason they can afford to do this is because World of Goo has already been incredibly successful for them.



"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event."  — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.

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famousringo on 20 October 2009
cgkc17 said:
where does it say that actually cost 2dboy money for those who paid a penny? i couldnt find it anywhere. it only says that 2dboy didnt recieve any money, and that it costs PAYPAL money to process the transactions, not 2dboy.

that being said, i paid $2.50, and am gonna the wiiware version this thursday.

I interpreted that as costs which Paypal passed on to its customer (2D Boy, in this case). I don't know of any financial institutions which are willing to take a loss on transaction fees for the benefit of their clients. Hence why most businesses require a minimum charge for debit and credit card transactions.

2D Boy is obviously willing to give away their product for almost nothing. I doubt Paypal is so charitable, but maybe I'm wrong.



"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event."  — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.

Alterego-X on 20 October 2009
famousringo said:
cgkc17 said:
where does it say that actually cost 2dboy money for those who paid a penny? i couldnt find it anywhere. it only says that 2dboy didnt recieve any money, and that it costs PAYPAL money to process the transactions, not 2dboy.

that being said, i paid $2.50, and am gonna the wiiware version this thursday.

I interpreted that as costs which Paypal passed on to its customer (2D Boy, in this case). I don't know of any financial institutions which are willing to take a loss on transaction fees for the benefit of their clients. Hence why most businesses require a minimum charge for debit and credit card transactions.

2D Boy is obviously willing to give away their product for almost nothing. I doubt Paypal is so charitable, but maybe I'm wrong.

 Read the 2D Boy blog: 

http://2dboy.com/ 

"Since the birthday sale started, about 57 thousand people bought World of Goo off our website.  The average price paid for the game was $2.03 a significant percent of which went to PayPal for transaction fees.  Normally, they keep about 5% of the revenue, but because PayPal fees are structured in a way that they take a larger percentage for smaller transactions, we ended up paying over 13% in transaction fees.  For all purchases of around 30 cents and under, we actually saw no money, PayPal took it all, but they probably ended up losing money on most of those transactions ($0.01) as well, they’re not the bad guy."



cgkc17 on 20 October 2009
famousringo said:
cgkc17 said:
where does it say that actually cost 2dboy money for those who paid a penny? i couldnt find it anywhere. it only says that 2dboy didnt recieve any money, and that it costs PAYPAL money to process the transactions, not 2dboy.

that being said, i paid $2.50, and am gonna the wiiware version this thursday.

I interpreted that as costs which Paypal passed on to its customer (2D Boy, in this case). I don't know of any financial institutions which are willing to take a loss on transaction fees for the benefit of their clients. Hence why most businesses require a minimum charge for debit and credit card transactions.

2D Boy is obviously willing to give away their product for almost nothing. I doubt Paypal is so charitable, but maybe I'm wrong.

heres a direct quote from the 2dboy website:

Big Picture

Since the birthday sale started, about 57 thousand people bought World of Goo off our website.  The average price paid for the game was $2.03 a significant percent of which went to PayPal for transaction fees.  Normally, they keep about 5% of the revenue, but because PayPal fees are structured in a way that they take a larger percentage for smaller transactions, we ended up paying over 13% in transaction fees.  For all purchases of around 30 cents and under, we actually saw no money, PayPal took it all, but they probably ended up losing money on most of those transactions ($0.01) as well, they’re not the bad guy.

2DBoy didnt lose a cent on any sales of the game, they just didnt make any money on sales of $.30 or lower.



cgkc17 on 20 October 2009

posted at the same time *and* highlighted the same parts? lmfao, great minds think alike!



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famousringo on 20 October 2009

Good to know. I'll admit that I'm not at all familiar with how Paypal operates.

So the vast majority of those sales were giveaways rather than money pits. Thanks for setting me straight.

Though now I'm left wondering why even have a $0.01 price barrier if a $0.01 transaction isn't going to make anybody money? Why not just make donation optional so that the people who actually willing to pay can pay and those who really don't want to don't have to bother with Paypal? Throw up a torrent to keep bandwidth costs low.



"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event."  — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.

Alterego-X on 20 October 2009
famousringo said:
Good to know. I'll admit that I'm not at all familiar with how Paypal operates.

So the vast majority of those sales were giveaways rather than money pits. Thanks for setting me straight.

Actually, the majority of those sales were profitable, they sold 57 000, and only ~22 000 of them paid below $1

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/world-of-goo-experiment-a-huge-success



Erik Aston on 20 October 2009

The deal is still up? Maybe I will buy this game for $1 tomorrow.



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"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."

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outlawauron on 20 October 2009
Boutros said:
I think it's perfectly fair to donate 0.01$...

And they don't have to be called "cheapasses".

I don't see the problem. It's still better than hacking the game. I personally didn't bought the game by lack of interest (and credit card lol) but donating 0.01$ or 2$ is the same to me.

I think it's the perfect description fitting people of that slimy nature.



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famousringo on 20 October 2009
Alterego-X said:
famousringo said:
Good to know. I'll admit that I'm not at all familiar with how Paypal operates.

So the vast majority of those sales were giveaways rather than money pits. Thanks for setting me straight.

Actually, the majority of those sales were profitable, they sold 57 000, and only ~22 000 of them paid below $1

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/world-of-goo-experiment-a-huge-success

Gah. That directly contradicts the 1up article!

I'll take Eurogamer's word, since they back it up with extremely precise numbers. Chalk up more misinformation to sloppy journalism and over-use of the term "vast majority." It was barely even a plurality of the pricing segments laid out by Eurogamer.

Edited the OP with your superior link.



"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event."  — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.