In the growing series of pay-what-you-want concepts we can now add the Wolfire Indie gaming bundle. Gamers come to their webshop and decide for themselves what the bundle of 6 indie games is worth to them. Not only do they decide how much they are willing to pay, they also decide where their money goes to. By using simple sliders they divide their payment between three parties: Electronic Frontier Foundation, the actual game developers, and the Child’s Play charity organization. It’s by the creation of such a personal connection between buyer and seller that the perceived value of products can be increased. And it works, at least in this case.
Being transparent is another way to add value. Wolfire’s revenue communication for instance is very open. Looking at their figures we can learn that an average user today is willing to pay $8,41. Linux users pay remarkably more ($13,96) than their Windows counterparts ($7,21). A Linux user probably feels a closer connection with software developers, resulting in higher payments. Wolfire even communicates the total revenue ($621.112). I personally bought the bundle a few days ago and looking at the pace of their revenue growth since then, it seems that it can’t take long before they will breach the 1 million dollar barrier. This is again another good example that people can make money without a traditional, fixed pricing strategy.