Numbers from 2D Boy
World of Goo was released a little more than a year ago now, and in celebration 2D Boy had a “name your own price” – week. This seems to have gone well and they are now prolonging the week until sunday. As they have done before, 2D boy have also posted some stats relating to the events, suggesting that people tend to pay what they can afford rather than what they think the game is worth (or, if you are a skeptic, that people tend to rationalize), among other things.
I disagree with Carmel’s conclusions sometimes – for example while I am sure they were right to skip DRM for World of Goo (and I, on a personal basis, dislike DRM), I have to play the devil’s advocate and point out that the financial and legal situation for a large corporation shipping a mainstream game is quite different and I do not think his reasoning can be applied universally. On the other hand, I do not think that was his intentions either and – this being the important part – the fact that 2D Boy are so open with their statistics leaves the conclusions up to the reader entirely. Looking over the numbers and quantized facts about game development is always interesting, especially when it concerns a game as good as World of Goo.