A pricing/distribution model worthy of consideration

[mllange]

For the life of me I can't figure out why more developers and publishers don't consider the recent success of the Humble Indie Bundle. The promotion garnered a slew of free publicity for the games and developers involved, the sales were higher than anyone's initial estimates, and everyone walked away happy including a large number of new players who otherwise wouldn't have considered purchasing these games.

The Humble Indie Bundle experiment has been a massive success beyond our craziest expectations. So far, 138,813 generous contributors have put down an incredible $1,273,613. Of this, contributors chose to allocate 30.85% to charity: $392,953 for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play Charity.

See this link for more information.

Why wouldn't something like this work for an outstanding developer like Panther Games? I'm fairly certain they won't come anywhere near these kinds of sales totals using their current distribution and pricing model.

[Arjuna]

Interesting. Thank you.

[mllange]

Dave,

You will probably be interested in this Culture Clash May 10 IGDA (International Game Developers Association) article discussing the same topic.

Best regards and best wishes for continued success! The quality of your titles stands head and shoulders above the crowd and you certainly deserve to be rewarded for your hard work.

[Adam Parker]

Hi Nim8or,

It is an interesting story, however this expeirment relates to the selling of old games with some of the proceeds going to charity. As one of the footnote sources states:

From The Enterprise Gamer - "Some Final Stats on the Humble Indie Bundle":

...but you have to remember that these games were a bit older and weren't likely to get that many new purchases.

I don't think that this is a realistic commercial model.

One local vegetarian restaurant I know of is using it. Eat and pay what you want - it's nothng new, they've been doing it for years.

They're called Lentil as Anything and they're a not for profit organisation [;)]

[mllange]

I don't know, Adam, I think it is a very viable commercial model for an admittedly 'niche' title like Command Ops: Bulge. I'm certain the novelty of a highly regarded developer with several top-rated games under their belt, such as Panther Games, would generate a significant volume of coverage in the gaming press, blogs and sites such as Firing Squad, the Wargamer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun and so forth. How could that hurt? People who otherwise wouldn't even consider a wargame would probably reconsider after reading favorable reviews and positive vibes regarding an innovative pricing model for a top-quality game. My guess is that a fair number would end up enjoying the game and would be happy to throw down additional money in support.

One thing is for certain, there would be a lot more people exposed to the work of this fine developer. How could that be a bad thing? The quality of the work speaks for itself.