Pay What You Want Model

Thiago Monteiro · 2018-12-10T18:57:24

[Note: this is related to PC games, so I wouldn't thing ads to be something to add here] Hello all, I've been reading a bit about the pay what you want model and how viable it is. According to one detailed account (1), it doesn't seem to actually increase profit, although some points could be improved (2). Different than physical products, digitally distributed games under the pay what you want model show a disproportionate amount of people paying $0 (upwards of 95% of non-paying for games vs. about 25% in more traditional physical products).Also, game consumers have a very strong reference frame for pricing points, which seems to further work against this model (3). On the other hand, tweaking the model a bit seems to help. Interestingly, charity helps (4). Perhaps, so does having easy payment methods and some added value (sound track and such). In any case, it seems to be a viable strategy to reach consumers (5), but not sustainable in the long run (6). So, my questions in relation to this are: 1) Do any of you have/have had experience trying to market/sell your game with this strategy? 2) Would you add a minimum value or maybe this would just defeat the purpose of the pay what you want? 3) How would you convince people to spend more? If anybody is interested in reading further: (1) http://joostdevblog.blogspot.be/2011/10/proun-is-big-success-pay-what-you-want.html (2) https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111003/15253616190/lessons-learned-pay-what-you-want.shtml (3) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296312002524 (4) http://science.sciencemag.org/content/329/5989/325 (5) https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1946 (6) http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-33609867

Games Business and Law Business

Started by Thiago Monteiro May 17, 2018 02:01 PM

12 comments, last by Tom Sloper 5 years, 4 months ago

Kylotan

10,510

May 19, 2018 08:40 AM

On 5/17/2018 at 8:42 PM, Thiago Monteiro said:

collectibles seem to be another driving force towards higher expenditure

There is usually some benefit from offering premium items to customers who value your product or brand highly. Unfortunately this is not a universally useful tactic - these things are often expensive to make, only appeal when you already have a relatively large following, and time spent making them directly subtracts from time spent on your main project.