Pay What You Please

[Madonna]

Maybe it is the urls I frequent, but I often find a lot of cool things, and these cool things are Pay-What-You-Please. PWYP, the silly acronym by which this should be known, is the idea that you, the consumer, pay whatever you want for a product or service someone renders unto you. They have something cool, they put out there for all to see, and you can buy it for whatever the smurf price you want to set. This is most commonly seen with music, like Nine Inch Nails' album Ghosts (http://ghosts.nin.com/main/home) or Amanda smurfing Palmer's song Ukulele Anthem (http://music.amandapalmer.net/track/ukulele-anthem), but also applies to games (http://www.humblebundle.com/), programs (http://www.propellerheads.se/paywhatyouwant/), and food (http://www.good.is/post/breaking-bread-panera-s-pay-what-you-want-model-is-thriving/). So really, the business/charity model is out there, though how successful it is is up for debate. Panera's first PWYP restaurant makes eighty percent less than Panera's retail versions, but still has an overhead that clears operating costs. Conversely, payment for the Humble Introversion Bundle averages $3.78 USD for four games (six if you pay $3.79+), which seems like robbery to me. And that is what I really what I want to get at: how do you feel about PWYP, your opinions on it, and how you have seen it in action.

Personally, I love the entire idea. It is a very risky, crazy thing to do, but when you have a strong community, it seems feasible. Not everyone can drop fifty bucks for a game, sometimes you are packing seven dollars when you roll into a store and you are sixty cents short, but maybe there are times when you have a little more and feel extra appreciative. That last bit is where I find myself all the time when I see someone putting out their product out there; it feels very break-or-bust, and I always want to match a suggested price or top it with a few bucks more. If I do not have what I consider enough, I know the idea is that is okay to partake, but I hold off and come back when I can contribute. You got to do what you can and have what you got to, you know?

Thanks for reading this post, people; it means a lot to me. If it meant a lot to you, please consider buying a copy of this thread from me to help fund further projects (blog posts, chatroom appearances, forum participation outside of General Chat, et cetera) because as an artist, these things take a lot out of you and it is nice to see something come back.

[Psychotic]

On the one hand, part of me would want to pay £0.01 and laugh about how clever I was, but I don't think my social conscience would allow me to do it.

[NorthernChaosGod]

On the one hand, part of me would want to pay £0.01 and laugh about how clever I was, but I don't think my social conscience would allow me to do it.
Being brown, I think someone would try and get me for shoplifting.

[Peegee]

IF *I* were to set up a company / community like this, I would / I would expect the community to sell things where if everybody bought at 1 penny, it would still be okay.

Granted my scheme would almost limit the available goods to be cheap goods. But the alternative is what my brown hispanic friend and perverted ingrate chav nemesis would do - they would totally eventually just buy xbawksy360s for a penny each and mess up the system. Nobody will want to sell bawksy for a penny.

I guess I'm too cynical to believe this can work.

[Pike]

I thought about selling my ebook like this (I'm only making 33 cents per book as is, anyway) but then I couldn't figure out how to do it.

I usually toss Humble Bundle about $5 or $6. I'd like to pay more, but I'm broke. Sometimes I'll buy a couple extra bundles as gifts, though. The nice thing about Humble Bundle is all the publicity they get. A lot of these are indie games that no one would have ever heard of otherwise and through Humble Bundle they're able to get some publicity via word-of-mouth and a lot of people suddenly playing the games. I blog about Humble Bundle games I've bought and enjoyed greatly all the time.