.png)
Yep, what the hell, might as well give it a try myself.
We're putting Minor Magiks & Miscellaneous Arcana Volume I at "Pay What You Want" pricing. If nothing else, you'll get some decent art and some ideas for use in your game. Even if you are just checking it out for free, it's more exciting than not getting it out there, at least for me ;)
Not getting a dime for your work sounds like it will get old real quick.
ReplyDeleteAlso, offering up your work for free gives you no idea of the real interest that people may have in it. I think it is very likely to be picked up and not even glanced at while the consumer pays more attention to something they really wanted and had to actually shell out some coin for.
It is a crazy world so it may work out for you, but it seems like striving to be a wait-tron living on tips. Always a risky thing when the customers are students, thieves or gamers.
@JasonZavoda Not to be dismissive, but at this point a lot of companies have tried experiments like this and done very well for themselves. See: Humble Bundle.
ReplyDeleteIf you've already recouped your costs in producing something or sales trends show that you are unlikely to recoup your costs, it's almost impossible for this sort of pricing to have anything but a positive effect.
For the vast majority of content creators, obscurity is more harmful than thievery. Getting your work into the hands of more people and establishing a reputation for good quality work (assuming your work actually is good quality) means some of those freeloaders are more likely to actually pay for your work in the future.
And because this is the real takeaway message, i'll say it again: For the vast majority of content creators, obscurity is more harmful than thievery.
@matthew What companies have tried this 'price it yourself' idea. I have no idea what Humble Bundle is. Point me to some reputable source such as the Wall Street Journal and I'll certainly be less dismissive of your opinion.
ReplyDeleteI can see where this would have a very harmful effect by devaluing the product in the eyes of the consumer. Personally my first reaction is that what is being offered is probably some crap the seller couldn't unload for a reasonable price and is hoping to guilt a few extra bucks from people.
If a seller wants to do a promotion then they should just give their product away or price it for .99c or a discount of some price THEY actually think their work is worth.
Personally I think this sounds like one of the dumbest ideas I've heard of in a long while. These content creators could also get attention by holding a roman candle between their butt-cheeks but they probably wouldn't get burned as badly as they will from this idea.
5 sales so far today for an avg price of $1.58 or so - 8 cents over the sale price of $1.50
Delete(there are some free copies that went out too that aren't counted in these numbers - I'll grab that info for later)
1 sale for the month before the PWYW.
not enough for actual research, but enough to say I'd do it again with an older product
You sound like you've pre-judged this without knowing much about it, so you probably won't be convinced by any of this, but here:
ReplyDeletehttp://lmgtfy.com/?q=Humble+Bundle
http://support.humblebundle.com/customer/portal/articles/281031-prior-bundle-statistics
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/?tag=pay+what+you+want
Up for a little more data?
ReplyDeletehttp://trollitc.com/2013/06/so-i-went-completely-pay-what-you-want-with-all-of-my-titles-and-then-this-happened/