World of Goo experiment a "huge success"

By Robert Purchese Published 20 October, 2009

Pay what you like adds 57,000 sales.

2D Boy has revealed that World of Goo sold 57,000 copies last week as a result of the 'pay what you like' birthday experiment. The developer deemed this a "huge success".

To illustrate, 2D Boy published a graph showing what people decided to pay for World of Goo.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of sales were at the lower end: 16,852 people paid one cent; 6483 paid up to a dollar; and a whopping 15,797 paid between a dollar and two dollars. A further 13,877 people paid under six dollars.

However, it's interesting that people decided to pay anything at all. And these, remember, are people who ignored the brilliant PC puzzle game at full price: $20.

At the other end, four people splashed out $50 on the game. But the biggest pricey-spikes were at $20 (306 people) and $15 (352).

The promotion, picked up by news sites across the web, also caused a 40 per cent boost to World of Goo sales on Steam. Fluctuations are common, but not to this degree.

'World of Goo experiment a "huge success"' Screenshot 1

No this is not Sony conference.

The bottom line, as Rock Paper Shotgun pointed out, is that 2D Boy made roughly $100,000 by writing a blog post and removing a set price for the game. That is a huge and important success.

World of Goo is a puzzle game about building bridges using blobs of goo. It's brilliant; our review explains.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (75) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Golgo #1 2 years ago

    I wish I could say I was surprised that so many people went for the frankly derisory 1 cent option. You are all fuckers. Would it have crippled you financially to offer a couple of dollars at least to support 2D Boy?

    Cue 16,852 minus votes...
    Edited by 1 at 20/10/09 @ 14:43

  • The_Inquisitor #2 2 years ago

    I was one of the 13,877... gosh, they deserve it.

  • penhalion #3 2 years ago

    Excellent and an average sale price of roughly 1 dollar 40 cents or something. Makes you wonder how many they would have sold had that been the original price.

  • JahB #4 2 years ago

    Oh dear, developers should learn that sales are pointless without profit. Pretty certain any game would shift for £2-£1.....

    it might not make them any money, but it gets (an arguably fantastic) game out to more people. and once you release a sequel, the bigger the install base of your previous title, the bigger your profits will be.

    stuff like this makes perfect sense for smaller/indie devs, and i applaud 2dboy for it

  • Darren #5 2 years ago

    Let's see Activision do this for Modern Warfare 2 and see how many extra copies they sell that would otherwise remain unsold at £55 RRP! ;)

  • Roland_D11 #6 2 years ago

    Oh dear, developers should learn that sales are pointless without profit. Pretty certain any game would shift for £2-£1.....

    Of course any game would shift for £2-£1, but for 2dBoy this ist a win-win situation. They get more media coverage and more awareness about their product (see the rise in sales on Steam) and they make some money of it. The product is long finished and they do not need to do any shipping, so there should be some profit for them...

  • twinbee #7 2 years ago

    I thought about paying 1 cent but couldn't, so I gave them $2.

  • Byzanite #8 2 years ago

    I agree good on him. Seeing as World of Goo was pirated to the extreme it was a good move to offer the product like this. I would also think that digitally distributed he would only be paying a percentage of sales income to the distributor.

  • mkreku #9 2 years ago

    I paid $20 back when this was released.. I feel like an upstanding citizen right about now!

  • Toothball #10 2 years ago

    I bought it ages ago at the regular price, but I paid another dollar so I could make an internet friend play it.

  • Beano #11 2 years ago

    I'm a bit ashamed to say that I haven't bought this for my Wii or PC, but now I'm waiting for the iPhone version - bring it on :D

  • UKLL #12 2 years ago

    It deserves all the success it gets, quality game.

    I bought it for Wii.

    'Oh dear, developers should learn that sales are pointless without profit. Pretty certain any game would shift for £2-£1.....'

    Huh?

    They obviously wouldn't do this if the game was still selling a shed load of copies and raking in profits would they? The game is already complete and on the market, any additional sales from this promo will either increase profits or at the very least reduce losses.
    Edited by 2 at 20/10/09 @ 15:01

  • gjgjg #13 2 years ago

    i paid $5 for a game i would never have played otherwise :) i think i'dl buy a sequal too.

  • optimusprym8 #14 2 years ago

    I paid for it, a reasonable amount, and it doesn't frickin work on my PC. Either a dual-monitor issue or a Windows 7 issue but it just spazzes the screens out and never loads / displays. Arses

  • wizlon #15 2 years ago

    WoG has been out for quite a while now so this sort of idea is great, all the early adopters who really wanted it, paid for it. The people who were either on the fence, or otherwise wouldn't bought the game were given the opportunity to buy it for a lower price. I almost see this being the future of downloadable content, when a game stops selling due to it being out of the gamers "field of view" then just flog it off for a last minute sales increase.

    It does help that WoG is quite brilliant, I got it on Wii.

  • Eraser #16 2 years ago

    EverAfter, you've forgotten that World of Goo is a game that came out a year ago and probably had it's biggest sales spike already. With this promotion, that they had to invest almost nothing in themselves, got them nearly 60,000 sales. That's 60,000 people legally owning the game and having payed for it (even if it's only 0,01) versus them probably warezing if they had to pay $20 for it. It's a great sales boost for a game that's past it's prime in sales.

  • ZuluHero #17 2 years ago

    I paid full price for it when it first released and also paid $10 for a copy for my brother during this sale. After the hard work and an excellent game how could i pay any less? And even though i could have bought 1000 copies, i still don't feel like i was ripped off (plus i gain the moral high-ground :p).

    Its commendable to see that 4 people paid $50 for it as well mind.

    I really hope to see more from 2DBoy.
    Edited by 1 at 20/10/09 @ 15:24

  • Shadders #18 2 years ago

    I paid $10, it pleases me that I'm not the only one. :)

  • Les #19 2 years ago

    "Oh dear, developers should learn that sales are pointless without profit. Pretty certain any game would shift for £2-£1....."

    True, but who says they didn't make a profit? The game had already been developed so I'd expect the marginal costs to be minimal.

  • Les #20 2 years ago

    "Either a dual-monitor issue or a Windows 7 issue but it just spazzes the screens out and never loads / displays. Arses"

    I assume you're referring to the clowns developing Windows? ;)

    /clown is my word of the day, courtesy of donnie#

  • Canyarion #21 2 years ago

    I decided to donate $1. I bought it for WiiWare, but I had also 'found' it for PC. So now it's legit, yay.

  • Les #22 2 years ago

    I paid $11 btw, a quite original amount according to the graph... ;) Always happy to support developers that take care of the Mac.

  • davisorle #23 2 years ago

    1cent for World of Goo? People are cheaper than we'd expect them to be. I would feel embarassed of myself to buy a product with open price and pay 1 Cent. You give to beggars way more for doing nothing and for something so smart like World of Goo 1 Cent? I really cant get over the fact of the % of the losers that paid that lil. Way to go.

  • imamazed #24 2 years ago

    I payed $0.80. I would have payed more, but hey, I'm a student.

    Seems to have taken £1.79 out of my account though. That doesn't equate to $0.80!

    Not complaining mind, it really is excellent and £1.79 is still (obviously) worth it and great value.

  • Spiral #25 2 years ago

    optimusprym8, go to C:\Program Files\WorldOfGoo\properties\config.txt and change the resoulution to that of your primary monitor. That should make it work.

  • kangarootoo #26 2 years ago

    @EverAfter

    And do you think this experiment didn't make any profit?


    "developers should learn that sales are pointless without profit"

    Yes, because currently they don't know that. Thanks for the heads up though.

  • optimusprym8 #27 2 years ago

    @spiral cheers will check it out tonight

  • ukuleleimport #28 2 years ago

    I bought it for one dollar also, got it a long time ago on Wiiware and now I can also play it on Windows and Mac :) Love these guys ^

  • Les #29 2 years ago

    What, has the world stooped so low to even generate non-paid Windows fanboys these days?! Oh, humanity!

    /referring to the negative feedback on my very funny stab at the crap that is Windows

  • IneptPercy #30 2 years ago

    Of course you can say that a lot of the money they got they would never have seen otherwise, but on the flip side how many people won't pay full price next time and wait for the 'pay what you want' price.

    As with digital distribution profit isn't the same in the respect of a download doesn't cost them much unlike a boxed product.

    Of course any money is better than no money.

  • Wyrm #31 2 years ago

    They'll make a shitload more when its on iPhone. Perfect game for the device.

  • layleeloo #32 2 years ago

    Just goes to show what IGNORANT, unapreciative brainless fuckwits there are in the world to only give 1 cent.

    I think it was a great idea to allow it - as it shows fully well that if the people dictated game pricing, there would be NO games made any more due to your tight fisted ness! Shame on you. I paid $5 which is only £3.21 and I even felt cheeky doing that, as I simply thought about the time it took to make, and not just wanting to rob them regardless of their efforts. Shame on you all who only paid pittance

  • SuperBas #33 2 years ago

    I paid $1. Would I have bought this otherwise? Hell no. Is this better than piracy? Hell yes. Bring on the negative comments!
    Edited by 1 at 20/10/09 @ 17:14

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #34 2 years ago

    "Oh dear, developers should learn that sales are pointless without profit. Pretty certain any game would shift for £2-£1..... "

    Halfwit.

    2D Boy are two guys, and World Of Goo took a year to develop. If it had sold ZERO copies before this promotion, the $100,000 it made in a week would still be a very respectable wage of $50K each (over £30K) for a year's work. And that $100,000 was of course ALL profit (since that's the figure after PayPal fees), because the game is a digital download with essentially no manufacturing costs at all, duh. And also, it's presumably still selling and making more profit as we speak. So even if it had launched at pick-your-own-price from day one, they'd still have done okay out of it.

    (Incidentally, do we know if any of the 1-cent purchasers bought it to try it out legally and then bought another copy for what they thought it was worth? No, we don't know that either way, so let's not get after the 1c crowd with a shrieking pitchfork mob just yet, eh?)

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #35 2 years ago

    "I think it was a great idea to allow it - as it shows fully well that if the people dictated game pricing, there would be NO games made any more due to your tight fisted ness!"

    It shows no such thing, you innumerate fucking twat. It shows that even with half your audience only paying 1c, you could still make a nice living out of writing indie games. $50,000 a year (and rising fast) is a lot more than most people in this country earn for doing much worse jobs.

  • schnide #36 2 years ago

    This is a great game and I bought it as a result of this promotion.

    The only reason I didn't pay more than $5 is because I didn't know what I was getting, so couldn't really pay what I thought it was worth.

    I paid what I was willing to risk.. and it paid off.

  • raion #37 2 years ago

    well, while it may be true that people would wait for the pay-what-you-want instead of purchasing it day one, I believe gamers already do that. a lot. as the pre-owned market shows. the difference is that this way, the profit goes to the developing team, and not the gaming shop. of course it could work only as a download.
    and we are quite drastic here. nothing prevents EA to go out and announce they'll be selling fifa09 at $5 for a week (yeah, right! XD), it does not have to be 0.01.
    (you can replace EA with any other publisher, it wasn't meant to be a stab to them specifically :p)

    still, as the articles state, it's and old game, and the most profit came from the $1-2 sales. very interesting.

  • George-Roper #38 2 years ago

    Oh man, that is SO tragic! Are there really so many soul-less cunts out there who, when given an opportunity to pay what they feel actually do feel it's worth 0.01p?

    Fucking. Cunts.

  • Skurmedel #39 2 years ago

    Paid exactly $4.91 (35 SEK, exactly what a ready-made lunch costs me :)), and somewhat for the same reasons as schnide, it was what I was willing to risk.

  • smelly #40 2 years ago

    I find it more interesting that some people paid more than the rrp for it.

    A few people paid $50 according to the chart.

  • spadge #41 2 years ago

    It's all well and good bemoaning the 16.500 tight bastards (1c ffs) but hundreds of thousands of people paid NOTHING for it.

  • Alterego-X #42 2 years ago

    I totally DISAGREE with those who hate the 1c payers.

    It was a DONATION system! 2DBOY obviously expected people to use this possibility, they even accepted that EVERYONE could be 1c-er, but they were fine with it.

    2Dboy was already famous for experimenting with no DRM and allowing piracy, I guess they just wanted to give it away for anyone who wouldn't have bought it otherwise.

  • midnight_walker #43 2 years ago

    I paid 1c. I had no idea what I was buying, but it's a game for 1c, right? I liked what I got though, so I'll be on board for the inevitable sequel, which I wouldn't have been without this promotion.

  • Oh-Bollox #44 2 years ago

    It's not a donation system. Donations are given with nothing expected in return except a smug sense of superiority.

  • George-Roper #45 2 years ago

    @Spadge

    It's all well and good bemoaning the 16.500 tight bastards (1c ffs) but hundreds of thousands of people paid NOTHING for it.

    I agree but just hurry up and put Alien Breed out, ok? :)

  • comedian #46 2 years ago

    I paid full price when it was released.

    /smug

  • ben---neb #47 2 years ago

    I paid $1 or £0.64. Woooh!!!! I love pay what you want sales. Also this company would already have broken even so basically they made $100,000 pure profit (minus server costs for downloading). Plus any other game they make will now have a larger fan base. Win-win-win situation.

  • DaemonSpawn #48 2 years ago

    Goo was on Steam sale for $5 some time ago, so I already have a copy, but it's an interesting way to promote the game and make some additional cash. Good luck to 2D boy with anything they're developing now.

  • Billybob21 #49 2 years ago

    Yeh, cancel Europe out, as always.

  • f00b_inc #50 2 years ago

    Hotukdeals.com poster listed this as 0.01p and everyone was gushing over the deal -- bunch of bloody hobos, tens of pages of people gloating over their penny bargain

  • George-Roper #51 2 years ago

    What really grinds my gears on this kind of thing is that IF the game was shit, I fully support that theres no worth there. However, if the game is decent, like WoG actually is, it's worth supporting the devs over.

    Fucking state of this planet. Full on decay, in every quarter.

  • Razz #52 2 years ago

    I paid $10! Can't believe so many people only paid 1 cent for it. Fucking disgusting.

  • Vertius #53 2 years ago

    $6 was my contribution. Not a lot, but not a little.

  • spatss #54 2 years ago

    It's an unimaginative ripoff of Armadillo Run. No money from me.

  • dither #55 2 years ago

    I paid 1p, and I don't give a damn what people think. It's not piracy, and it's 1p they wouldn't have had otherwise.

  • peak_performance #56 2 years ago

    "It's an unimaginative ripoff of Armadillo Run. No money from me."

    Cool game, but no, WoG doesn't rip it off.

  • Nephirion #57 2 years ago

    World of Poo

  • One_Vurfed_Gwrx #58 2 years ago

    The 'I didn't know what I'd get' so paid a low amount (1c for example) seems an odd argument for a game with a reasonably sized demo available for it too... :p

    I however forgot to buy it despite seeing the offer so can't say what I'd have paid, although I'd have been inthe over $5 bracket I'd imagine...

  • TheJuriel #59 2 years ago

    It's really nice to see something like this working out. Though I don't like the 1 cent folks. Still, that much money they wouldn't otherwise have is a nice proof that a concept like this works with a large enough userbase.

  • Dezm0nd #60 2 years ago

    When games get abbreviated into their initials, like TF2, WoW etc it makes you wonder why a game about black blobs hadn't recieved the same treatment.

    2dboy in racist shocker!!

    (I am only messin', it's an awesome game)

  • Sunyavadin #61 2 years ago

    while it may be true that people would wait for the pay-what-you-want instead of purchasing it day one, I believe gamers already do that. a lot. as the pre-owned market shows. the difference is that this way, the profit goes to the developing team, and not the gaming shop. of course it could work only as a download.
    and we are quite drastic here. nothing prevents EA to go out and announce they'll be selling fifa09 at $5 for a week (yeah, right! XD)

    EXACTLY. If publishers want to compete with the second hand market so badly - the solution is to lower their price on games to an average of what they sell for preowned. I can 100% guarantee their profits would increase, because as was already well known, but this experience further proves, people will buy something they otherwise would not have done once the price is one they are willing to pay.

  • UncleLou #62 2 years ago

    "It's an unimaginative ripoff of Armadillo Run. No money from me. "

    Except it isn't. Not at all. Not that Armadillo run invented physics-based puzzlers in the first place, anyway.

    But congratulations, this sure is the most ignorant comment I've read in the last few days.

  • midnight_walker #63 2 years ago

    If they wanted more than 1c for it they should have put a minimum donation on it, like Championship Manager did. The deal was, pay what you want, so I paid what I wanted. They're OK with it, and so am I! I don't see why so many whingebags have sand in their vaginas about it. If it was on sale in Gamestation for 1p would you rush up to the counter with a £50 note screaming "NO! I MUST PAY MORE!!! THE POOR DEVS!"
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/09 @ 09:01

  • Bennicus #64 2 years ago

    EXACTLY. If publishers want to compete with the second hand market so badly - the solution is to lower their price on games to an average of what they sell for preowned. I can 100% guarantee their profits would increase, because as was already well known, but this experience further proves, people will buy something they otherwise would not have done once the price is one they are willing to pay.

    If they lower the price of new games, won't that just result in even cheaper preowned games that all the tightarse 1cent-ers will go for over the new?

    Midnight_walker, the deal was "pay what you think it's worth" not "pay what you want". I reckon 1 cent is a bit of an insult to the devs, couldn't you have afforded 10 cents, or 20?
    Edited by 3 at 21/10/09 @ 09:19

  • twelveways #65 2 years ago

    WTF is with all you 'morally outraged' preachers? I really enjoy a pint of beer but I dont pay a tenner for it because I think that's what it is worth to me. I pay the legal minimum I have to for what I want.

    It's not even a great game, just ok.

  • midnight_walker #66 2 years ago

    I had no idea what it was worth, so I took a punt. Sure, I could have afforded more, but why would I bother? I had no experience with the game until now. Maybe if it was an Elder Scrolls V pay what you want sale or something I'd have paid more. But to me, it was an unknown quantity. And as twelveways said, it's not awesome, it's just quite good. I hope all the outraged complainers here don't ever look at the bargains thread. Their heads might explode.

  • FooAtari #67 2 years ago

    Well I paid $5 for it, which is a little over £3. Less than the price of a kebab. I think that's a steal.

    I think it's a little sad so many people paid only 1c for it, but at the same time you can't blame people for paying the minimum possible amount. 2d boy must have expected that would happen, and been prepared for it.

    Would be interesting to how many sales they would have had if the offer was pay what you want as long as it's over $1, or they put a $1 "delivery fee" on it or something

  • Fleisch #68 2 years ago


    How to get World of Goo working on Windows 7 dual monitor set up

    Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\WorldOfGoo\properties and edit config.txt (was the top icon on my list)

    You'll see a small amount of text.

    Set screen_width and screen_height to the resolution of your primary monitor (the A in the A x Y screen resolution, i.e. 1920x1200 it'd be 1920 for width and 1200 for height.)

    WHEN EDITING THIS REMEMBER TO ONLY CHANGE THE NUMBERS NOT THE PHRASING.

    Save the config.txt

    Load the game!

    et voila!

    Also if you want it in a window so you can still use your other screen(s) press Alt Enter.

  • Les #69 2 years ago

    "but at the same time you can't blame people for paying the minimum possible amount."

    Of course you can. The fact that something is an option doesn't make it right.

  • midnight_walker #70 2 years ago

    "The fact that something is an option doesn't make it right."

    Sure it does, if that option is given by the people that worked on whatever it is is being offered. It's not as if Crazy Abdul is offering it for 1p out the back of his white van round the back of the pub.

  • Les #71 2 years ago

    "Sure it does, if that option is given by the people that worked on whatever it is is being offered."

    That's a nonsense argument. The developer made an appeal to the moral sense of the potential customers. If you truly feel that 1 cent is the ‘right’ value for this game, than I can’t fault you. There’s no such thing as an absolute truth after all. But you can’t dodge moral responsibility by saying “the sole fact that they make an action possible is moral justification for it”.

  • midnight_walker #72 2 years ago

    "The developer made an appeal to the moral sense of the potential customers."

    Did they bollocks, they made a shrewd marketing move that got a lot of people talking about their game, and a lot of people playing who otherwise wouldn't, and who will shell out more than 1c for the inevitable sequel. The game is a year old. If people really cared that much for it they would have bought it already.

    For argument's sake (OK this actually happened to me), let's say you found Warhammer: MoC (or any game of your choice, for the sake of argument) in Gamestation about a week after release mispriced at 99p. Do you go "OMGZ bargain I'll have that!" Or do you take it up to the counter and offer to pay £20 for it because you feel that's what it's worth?

  • Pasco #73 2 years ago

    midnight_walker, I don't really care if it is right, moral, legal, legitimate and if it is condoned by the developers. What I know is that it is not cool. If you paid 1c for World of Goo then the best thing I can say about you is that you are not a cool person. Quite the opposite. And I pity your friends (if you have any).

    If you don't know what the game is about, play the demo. Everything else is excuses.

  • Les #74 2 years ago

    "Did they bollocks, they made a shrewd marketing move that got a lot of people talking about their game, and a lot of people playing who otherwise wouldn't, and who will shell out more than 1c for the inevitable sequel."

    Might be and if that is enough for you to justify to yourself paying 1 cent, then so be it. But that's a different argument than saying "because they let me, it's right".

    As for your alternative scenario, it's different from the question in this situation in that the retailer has likely made a pricing mistake instead of asking me to pay what I think the game is worth to me.

  • raion #75 2 years ago

    "If they lower the price of new games, won't that just result in even cheaper preowned games that all the tightarse 1cent-ers will go for over the new? "

    I agree. while I believe brand new games are pricey, there's not much to do really, developing costs lately are ridiculous and somehow they have to try and cash in. and kudos to those willing (and lucky enough to afford it) to go get them day one. still, lately, video games tend to age rather quickly. but the market does not reflect that in a coherent devaluation. yes, you can find a 2 year old pre owned game for dirt cheap in a specialized gaming shop, but if you want to purchase a brand new copy - supporting the team - prices tend to keep pretty high, unless they come in a special-budget-greatest hits version. I can walk into any shop and find 2 o 3 years old games at €30 or 40. are you kidding me? hell, you can still find last gen games for that much. and so, even if I chose to wait a year, and give my money to the team, I am still heavily influenced to just go to the nearest gamestop and snatch it for 15. I might as well have bought it earlier and avoided the risk of getting the plot twists spoiled by the internet hehe.