name your price | Vagrant Bard

Customers Care: The Radiohead Strategy that Worked with 2D Boy

21 10 2009

World of Goo

2D Boy asked consumers to name their price for World of Goo until the 19th, but just as it worked with Radiohead, it did with them. Now, in case you still haven’t bought World of Goo, you’ve got a second chance…until the 25th.

If you don’t know what this is about and why 2D Boy and Radiohead have something common, check the previous post “Catering to the Consumer”.

Though publishers, developers, and service providers might worry about tending to their customers, truth be told: In the end it’s about the profit. A business cannot maintain itself without making money and that isn’t something new. The novelty arises when different strategies are used to cater to the consumer and obtain income simultaneously. 2D Boy acted in that sense by allowing customers to pay what they wanted for the game World of Goo for the duration of one week.

The response came through statistics released by 2D Boy via surveys and interestingly revealed that though consumers do care about those developers, publishers (not so much), and service providers who treat them well, in the end it is how much they can afford that matters. According to the sale results, 2D Boy’s Ron Carmel deduced “Few people chose their price based on the perceived value of the game. How much the person feels they can afford seems to play a much larger role in the decision than how much the game is worth.” At the time, 22.7% of the buyers had confirmed in a post-purchase survey that they paid what they could afford. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: 2d boy, business models, Games, name your price, pay what you want, pricing models, Radiohead, Ron Carmel, World of Goo
Categories : English, Games, News/Notícias

Catering to the Consumer: Name Your Price for “World of Goo” and Create your Character in “Dragon Age”

18 10 2009

World of Goo: Name Your Price!

Part of being successful on the game industry relates not only to making great games, but also establishing a healthy relationship with your consumer. Many developers and publishers fail to see their gamers as legitimate consumers and when that happens, sales tend to drop. These scenarios have been witnessed before, be it with aggressive DRM implementation or broken promises. On the other hand, allowing for player customization, such as mods and plug-ins, and providing free DLC through ongoing development are known strategies that have led to the growth of loyal gamer communities. No developer or publisher is perfect, but a consensus remains that usually it pays off to treat your customers with due respect.

In this sense, aiming for similar strategies, World of Goo developer, 2D Boy, has just announced that you can name your price for their game. Starting at one cent and normally being charged at $20 USD, customers have now the opportunity to pay what they think their entertainment is worth. Some might may this business strategy is flawed, but RadioHead would disagree. They did it before and simply revealed that new business models demand new forms of pleasing your customer. When it came to World of Goo’s birthday, 2D Boy took the opportunity to come up with a nice surprise. No matter the cost you pay for your Linux, Mac OS, or Windows version, you’ll certainly be sure that the developers are aiming for something than your money. That extra something you’re paying is your potential loyalty. As in the future, it is only natural that we, as consumers, tend to favor those who in the past have done good deeds. Be fast though, their benevolence ends on the 19th. Oh, and 2D Boy, please release the statistics tracked for prices over the week.

Dragon Age Origins: Character Creator

Bioware has also adopted a seen-before-strategy to cater to the customer. However this time unrelated to the music industry. By releasing their Dragon Age: Origins Character Creator, the developer is allowing players to create and customize a player character which they can save and use when the PC game launches. Spore did this before and the number of assets (or weird creatures) created through their Creature Creator before the release of the game was huge. Dare I say it generated a lot of talk and buzz about the game itself, but ultimately (given the reviews on the final product) the creator itself became more popular. Regardless, consumers felt honored by getting the chance to actually create their aberrations before the game was out and make up their minds whether or not they would like to take part once the game hit the shelves. Now you can save hours of character creation before Dragon Age is released and when the game is out, you’ll already be itching for a long time to be playing with your human noble, commoner dwarf, or magi elf. This time, the strategy is not about paying less, but staying in tune with the potential product you’re about to acquire.

In the end, the one that strives is the one who pleases the consumer. No longer are we gamers playing simply for the products themselves but the services that accompany them, be it innovative DLC, up-to-date patches, customizable add-ons, and better integration with a social network.