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Indie Dev Weighs In On World Of Goo Price-Picking Sale
A couple days ago World of Goo developer 2Dboy released the to-date results of their pick-your-price birthday sale. The results rolled in, and the developer is calling the celebration a “huge success.” We asked Adam Saltsman, an independent game developer who worked on Cave Story Wii and many other titles, what he thinks.
With 57,000 people paying an average of $2.03 to download the game, 2Dboy has enjoyed sales of over $100,000 in just one week. World of Goo originally released October 13th, 2008, and allegedly suffered from a piracy rate of approximately 90 percent.
When asked whether or not he agreed with the term “huge success” regarding the birthday sale, Saltsman reinforced the fact that pretty much “everyone on Earth already bought [the game],” and considering this he agrees with the triumphant declaration of victory.
He has he doubts about how other games might fare with the same sales strategy, however. When asked if the pick-your-price strategy is a good method for distribution, he said “Reliable method of game distribution? Yes. Reliable way of making money... not sure.”
“World of Goo and 2DBoy are prominent/famous and more importantly World of Goo is a really, really good game,” Saltsman continues. “ I guess I'm not convinced that it's a viable retail model for all games at this point, but clearly for the right game and the right team it is...hugely successful.”
Check out Adam's website to learn more about him and the projects he's involved in.
Is 2Dboy’s birthday sale success a product of smart distribution or karmic retribution? Have any of you grabbed this game? What did you throw down for it?
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