On October 13th, developer 2D Boy launched a birthday sale for World of Goo for the PC, Linux, and Mac, allowing customers to pay whatever amount they felt the game was worth, from $.01 on up. On the 20th they extended the sale through October 25th after delivering a set of sales statistics that delivered an important message: they were watching.

Once customers knew 2D Boy was keeping track of sales numbers, the average price-per-purchase jumped a small yet significant amount. 2D Boy attributes this leap to the fact that they let folks know that they received no money from purchases under $.30. I'd like to attribute it to the fact that people were suddenly more aware of how cheap they were being, adjusting their purchases accordingly.

The chart at the top of this post shows the average price paid for World of Goo per platform over the course of the sale, and as you can plainly see, PC gamers took full advantage of the developer's generosity. One could argue that there are a lot more of them, but that could also mean PC gamers had more of a chance to shine. The results don't surprise me though, as Mac users are so hip that people just hand them cash on the street, and Linux users passed along the money they saved on buying an operating system.

2D Boy's website also features a chart showing the average donation by country, which they calculated into the per-capita gross domestic product of each country to determine each country's generosity. While Switzerland paid the highest on average, their generosity was only a 3.23 compared to Brazil's 5.62.

And what of the United States, the country with the second highest GDP behind Norway? Our generosity is a 1.0, paying a measly $1.83 a copy. Way to represent, America!

Pay-What-You-Want Birthday Sale Wrap-up [2D Boy]

The good news? The World of Goo birthday sale was such a huge success that 2D Boy has extended it through October 25th. The not-so-good news? There are an awful lot of cheap bastards out there. The developers made my wish come true, tracking the prices that purchasers chose to pay, along with some of the reasons behind the amount chosen. As you can see from the graph, the vast majority of purchasers opted to pay between $.01 and $2 for the game, which normally sells for $19.99. It is certainly heartening to see that 400 or so folks opted to pay more than the game was worth, but things are definitely weighed more towards the cheapskates.

2D Boy also conducted a survey towards the latter end of the sale's first week, asking customers how much they spent and the reasoning behind their decision. Why a small percentage felt they were simply paying what the game was worth, the majority indicated that they paid what they could afford, leading us to draw the conclusion that the only people more destitute than struggling indie game developers are indie game fans. Poor guys.

You can read the full results of the sale so far over at 2D Boy's blog.

Indie devs 2D Boy, Dylan Fitterer, Amanita Design and small but not indie dev Telltale Games all lent their voices to the "Valve's not so bad/Steam is awesome" tune when Ars asked if anybody was feeling exploited.

For some developers, Steam is actually quite the opposite of exploitation:

Ron Carmel, 2D Boy
"...Valve offers the most developer-friendly terms for digital distribution in the industry. Do you know the saying 'there's nothing better than a good king and nothing worse than a bad one'? I think it applies here, and Steam has clearly been a good king so far."

So, really, Pitchford — what's got you on edge? Is your Borderlands promotional slot not high enough on Steam's marquee queue?

Game devs speak out on Valve, Steam and conflict of interest [Ars Technica]

You know you want World of Goo. Everybody loved it, including us. And you don't want to be one of those video game pirating so and so's responsible for sending a nice indie developer like 2D Boy into the poorhouse. Plus, the soundtrack is free!

The system requirements are low, the game is cheap, and you'll impress your friends with your varied gameplay tastes. What more could you want? A link? Here you go!

World of Goo [Steam]

The game is $20, DRM-free and supports 64-bit systems. A demo version featuring the game's first chapter is available if you want to try before you buy.

Linux blogger Ken Starks talked to 2D Boy's Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel, and wrote a detailed post about the development difficulties, technical and otherwise, posed by porting Goo over to Linux. Gabler says:

"There were a few small technical hurdles, but Maks is either a genius, or the port was not much trouble at all! One technical hurdle was with Pulse Audio, which apparently comes standard on major distros like Ubuntu. It introduces quite a bit of audio lag. This would be fine for most applications, but it's not good for games, where the goal is to build an extremely responsive system that feels snappy. We were able to work with it, and get the game feeling right, but it took a bit of effort. I realize I'll get shot for saying this, but in Windows, it just worked right away!"

"Also, and I've mentioned this before - Linux is created by too many smart opinionated people! There are a lot of very good ideas, but it can become difficult for developers to support all the different distro formats, bundles, audio/video systems. For linux to REALLY take over, it has to be easy for developers to make stuff, and easy for users to get stuff. It's one of those things where too many options can be suffocating, and ultimately hurt the cause."

World of Good Linux Version is Ready! [2D Boy via LinuxGames]

"Last we checked the piracy rate was about 90%" said 2D Boy's Ron Carmel, his faith in humanity clearly a little dinted. Carmel dropped this stat bomb into the Rock Paper Shotgun forums and went on to confirm to Joystiq that he had seen "500 seeders and 300 leechers" torrenting the game.

It is hard to say exactly what this means - surely many of the downloads would not have planned to buy the game anyway and Carmel does admit to receiving mail from " a very small percentage" of pirates who DID buy the game - but all the same... very poor indeed.

World of Goo has 90% piracy rate [Joystiq]

And yet, here I am, having just finished World of Goo, 2D Boy's physics based goo building game, and I’m writing a review about it. Was it because I did something wrong, and was, yes, being punished? Or did I, somehow, find a puzzle game enjoyable?

Loved
A Gentle Curve – You’ll never “hit the wall” in World of Goo. The puzzles ramp up in difficulty quite gently, and even if you do hit a point where you can’t get your head around a problem, you can just skip that level and come back to it later. Which is a neat feature.

Metagame – The entire game is based around clearing stages by getting a certain number of “goos” from one end of the map to the other. Pretty simple. But any surplus goo you acquire gets stored at the World of Goo Corporation, a sideshow/sandbox stage. In it, you can build a tower, and as you build, the game pings the servers so you can see how high your tower is in relation to everyone else’s. This quickly flips the script, as what was at first a diversion quickly becomes the driving force behind your progression throughout the game.

Presentation – Two guys made World of Goo. You’d never have guessed. Quirky, smart writing, clean graphics and a soundtrack that’s equal parts jolly and haunting – depending on the tone of the level – make it one of the most polished indie games we’ve ever seen.

Hated
Wha?– Of course, being made by two guys means other areas of the game are a little rough. Some things – like explaining the full range of what certain goos, and certain objects and obstacles, can and can’t do – is left a little too ambiguous, resulting in needless trial-and-error.

World of Goo is one hell of a puzzle game because, as someone normally lacking in the patience for such things, I enjoyed every second I spent with it. And that doesn’t happen very often. It’s forgiving, it’s addictive, it’s gorgeous, it’s smart. Well worth a look, particularly if your Wii is getting a little dusty.

World of Goo was developed by 2D Boy, released on Oct. 13 for Nintendo Wii (WiiWare) and PC. Retails for USD$19.99 on PC, 1500 Wii Points on WiiWare. Played single player mode to completion and built a really, really big tower on PC.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

There is also a WiiWare version of the game, which has just been submitted to Nintendo for approval and is expected to hit shortly before the PC retail release, along with a downloadable version for PC gamers who could do without the box. We congratulate Kyle and Ron and wish them the best of luck with what looks to be an extremely unique game!

Pretty big news… [2D Boy Blog]