CrazyTB's blog

This is the exact same message I sent to 2D boy. (By the way, if you still don't have World of Goo, buy it now! It's a great game!)

Since you are drowning in e-mails, I will make a short summary:

1. I paid $5.00

2. Why? These 3 reasons together:
* That's all I can afford right now (this was the main reason)
* I already paid for it on another platform and wanted a win/mac/linux version
* I like the pay-what-you-want model and wanted to support it

3. How much it should cost? I think somewhere around $10.00 ~ $15.00. However, I probably would wait until a sale to buy it for less than $10.00

(end of short summary)


Long comments below (divided by subject):

By the way, I've also posted this message on my blog:
http://my.opera.com/CrazyTerabyte/blog/2009/10/21/a-message-to-2d-boy
Feel free to say hi, if you have time.

== pay-what-you-want model ==

I like this pay-what-you-want model, but I think it needs a bit more tweaking.

On one hand, I don't feel okay to pay a huge amount of money for a game that I don't even know if I will enjoy. (think about all those games more expensive than 20.00) And, sometimes, the demo is not enough to get a real feel of the whole game. It already happened to me to like the demo, but then lost interest in full game very quickly.

So, I like this "pay what you want".

However, on the other hand, I don't think people can make a good choice of the amount to be paid BEFORE playing the game for a long time. So, I propose: "pay what you want now; pay more later, if you like"

I mean... There are some games that I really enjoy, and end up playing them for a long time. Sometimes I just think the developers were so brilliant while designing the game that I wanted to reward them. And I can only get such feeling after playing the full game for a long time.

So, what I propose is similar to "donations", because we are not forced to pay more, but we want to do it because the product was great.

== other platforms ==

I already have this game on Steam (bought it for 5 dollars during a weekend sale), but I still wanted to buy through the 2D Boy site to have a completely non-restricted and DRM-free version (after all, Steam is some kind of DRM). Also, I wanted to have it available on Linux and maybe Mac, if I someday ever get a Mac.

And... Well... To tell the truth, I gave this unrestricted copy to a friend (who already loved this game, but didn't have a legal copy yet).

== the price ==

Looking at how well made this game is, how beautiful and polished... I must say it is probably "worth" around $15.00 and $20.00. I say this based on comparisons with other games.

On the other hand, however, I personally don't like to buy games more expensive than $10.00. There are very few exceptions, though.

There are several reasons for this personal choice.

1. As I said before, I can't really know how much I think the game is worth until playing it for a long time. For example, you can't feel how good and how well made Portal is until you reach the ending credits. Also, as another example, there are a few games that I'm still playing, even a year or so after buying them.

2. Currency exchange rates. Although 10 dollars might seem cheap in the USA, if you think about "20 reais" in Brazil, it's not very cheap. (sidenote: this rate has been around 2.30 a few months ago, and today is 1.77) Repeat this calculation with 15, 20 or even 40 dollars and then things start to become very expensive. That means that some "acceptable" prices in one place might be too expensive elsewhere in the world. Some people can afford such prices, other people can't.

3. I don't have enough money to afford buying non-essential expensive things. I and know that most people in my country are at the exact same situation.

I personally believe that high prices are related to software/entertainment piracy. It doesn't matter how good a game is, many people can't afford or are not willing to pay the high price tags most games have. I believe that, if the prices were lower, more people would be buying, and less would be playing illegal copies. Also, it would be even better if people who can afford higher prices could actually pay more if they want. (and, yes, I know, many people who get illegal copies can actually afford their original price)

Also, low prices make it more likely to buy a game as a gift to friends.

== final comments ==

I must say:

Congratulations for making such a great and well polished game.

Congratulations for such nice visual art in the game (as well as everything else related to the game, such as the site).

Congratulations for such awesome combination of sounds, music, graphics, physics and interaction that World of Goo is. I know it's very difficult to get it all in a good shape, and you've managed that!

Congratulations for choosing to not cripple your game by adding DRM. It was a bold move, and a right one. These sales wouldn't have been as successful if the game had DRM.

Congratulations for experimenting with this "new" pay-what-you-want model. Of course, since you two are a small team, you can afford that. Not sure how or if big companies with big teams will be able to use the same model.

And thank you for entertaining me and my friends.

Update, a few minutes later: OMG! I already received a small "thank you" reply from 2D Boy, less than 15 minutes after I sent my message! So, I guess they are not really drowning like they said. (if you are reading this, 2D Boy, don't worry, I won't publish your replies, unless you want them published)