Indie developer Nicolas Games wants to make a splash with its upcoming third-person post-apocalyptic survival horror title Afterfall: Insanity, so it's devised an ambitious preorder system in which gamers can purchase the entire game for one dollar, as long as 10 million people preorder.
This is how it works. Afterfall: Insanity can be preordered at the Nicolas Games website for one dollar. Each dollar put down on the game will be donated to an unnamed charity, with the preorder customer having to tender $33.90 when the game drops November 25. That's assuming preorders don't reach the 10 million mark.
Should that lofty goal be met, players will receive the full game on November 25 for nothing more than the dollar they put down. That's a full game for only one dollar. It's like an iPhone game up in here. The publisher even throws in a digital copy of the game soundtrack.
There's a rather large trade-off, however, at least in charity's case. If preorders reach 10 million and the game sells for a single dollar, the charity only gets 10 percent of those proceeds. That means that if 9,999,999 copies are preordered, charity earns nearly $10 million. If just one more comes through, charity only gets $1 million. Nicolas Games will also donate half the proceeds for games sold over the 10 million mark, but still — that's a rather large drop.
It's an attention-grabbing marketing scheme, sure, but when your indie game is going up against Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3, and the rest of the holiday season's huge games you do what you can.
Hit up the game's official website to read more about this compelling alternate-history post-apocalyptic survival horror joint. Who knows, maybe your dollar will be the one that makes charity cry.
Afterfall: Insanity [Official Website]
You can contact Michael Fahey, the author of this post, at fahey@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.