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[Peevish]

Hey all. I was reading through the old Donation Figures thread. I've been figuring what kind of pricing scheme I want to use when my game is done, and I was figuring I'd do charityware. I was looking at the numbers in the old thread to guess how much people donate to a game.

The number that came up as pretty common for most people was 1 donation per 10,000 downloads. This is a donation of the "support me" variety.

Out of curiosity, I checked on Cosmind, since Glum Buster was charityware. He keeps stats on his frontpage about how many donations he's received and what percentage is going to charity. He'd received just under 100 donations in just under a year. If "1 donation per 10,000 downloads" holds true for him, then that'd mean he'd been downloaded about 1,000,000 times, which seemed high to me, I figured a lot more people would be talking about Glum Buster in that case. So I wrote him asking what his download numbers are.

He's not positive he's tracking it accurately, but he believes he's only been downloaded about 31,788 times and has gotten 93 donations. That's a rate of just under 1 donation per 350 downloads, which is a hell of a lot better than on per 10,000.

Now maybe it has to do with the nature of the game itself, but I'd put good money on the idea that people are far more willing to donate when part of that donation goes to charity. Which makes me feel pretty good about society. It's also personal encouragement that the charityware model can actually work, since I was planning on using it anyway.

Food for thought, folks!

[Notch]

That's a really impressive conversion rate for donations!

As a customer, I don't care what you do with the money, so make sure not to phrase it like "buy this game and I will spend some of my money on charity".
If you instead involve the customer directly (like glum buster does), and treat the donations as a fundraiser, I'll feel like I'm joining some joint effort. And that's nice.

If there's some overlap of themes in the game and the charity you choose, you might get even better conversion rates. Like donating to help fight back problems while playing tomb raider.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think it has to do with the nature of the game itself, actually. the game is very very good -- like once every 5 years an indie game that good comes out. i donated twice iirc. i wouldn't have if the game weren't as good as it is.

[Skofo]

You're gonna leave us hangin', Paul?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

what u mean?

[Skofo]

I just read the thread more thoroughly and figured out that you're talking about Glum Buster. My bad.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

ya

[LemonScented]

I donated to Glum Buster. I would have donated anyway if it had been mere "pay-what-you-want-ware", because the game is brilliant and I like to reward people who make brilliant stuff and then reward you with their trust that if you like it, you'll pay for it even though you don't have to. That said, I donated more than I would have done, simply because it's Charityware - the guy who wrote it sounded passionate about the charity and I figured that if I was paying anyway, why not pay a bit more to support a good cause? I wouldn't have paid anything if the game had been crap or mediocre, though.

[Peevish]

I agree that the game is awesome, and that people donate more often to awesome games. But still, we're looking at a donation rate over 200x the average we found for people on the forum. I personally feel a compounding, i.e. "oh, I want to support that cause, and I want to support you because you seem like a good person for doing this as charityware." Charityware won't make a bad game get more donations, but I'd wager it really helps a good game.

[William Broom]

I actually wanted to donate to Glum Buster but decided not to because it was charityware.

If I wanted to donate money to charity, I'd do that. When I donate to a game developer, I want it to go to them. In this case, if I wanted to donate $10 to the developer, I would also have to send ~$40 to a charity that I don't even particularly like.

I guess I'm in the minority, but there you have it.

[Andrew Brophy]

Interesting figures! I want to do something like this in the future. Now all I need to do is make something as good as Glum Buster.

[jcsymmes]

A counter  that tells you how many times people donated probabbly doesn't hurt:). People don't like to feel cheep.

However something to keep in mind in this example is that the hardcore people-the 31,000 first to dowload an indie game on the internet maybe a tad more likely to donate then a 10,000,000 if the game goes truely viral. Still those numbers suggest that the final count might be more often then 10,000.

Whether its a charity or not may not make a lot of diffrence. The place i buy a sandwich sometimes is owned by a guy who Tithes a lot of money to his church. I go there becuse the sandwiches are delicious(that man has a god given gift) not becuse i am helping a charity.
 

I wouldn't release a game like this with any expectations of making money, but ahh you never know.the difrence between nothing for totally freewhere and 930 bucks is 930 bucks, and i could buy a lot of sandwiches for that.
 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

the way you phrase this topic actually sounds slightly shady in retrospect -- as if you would want to use a charity to increase your income through donations (by increasing the % that donate), rather than actually wanting to give to that charity. i think that if someone were to do charityware they should actually care about the charity, whether it increases total donations or not isn't important; i wouldn't want someone to do charityware just as a gimmick to increase donations.

[LemonScented]

I'd still say it's worthwhile discussing the effectivenes of Charityware as opposed to other methods though, Paul. If the motivations for making a game Charityware are cynical and self-serving (because it turns out that it is effective at increasing the number and size of the donations), then that's still good for the charity regardless of the creator's motivations. And if they are someone who genuinely careas about the charity then it makes even more sense to consider Charityware's effectiveness as a payment model.

[J. Kyle Pittman]

I've been considering releasing any future indie titles I develop as charityware to benefit Child's Play.  What I can't decide is whether it makes more sense to collect donations from players and then make a large personal donation with that money, or whether I should just forward players to the Child's Play web site directly.  It would be kind of cool to collect data on how many players made donations and how much they donated in total, but it would also require players to trust that I would in fact put their money to good use.  (My intent would be to put 100% of donations towards charity -- the only other distribution model I would consider at this time is freeware -- but there's nothing to hold me accountable to that other than my word.)  Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing, either as a developer or a contributor?

I actually wanted to donate to Glum Buster but decided not to because it was charityware.

If I wanted to donate money to charity, I'd do that. When I donate to a game developer, I want it to go to them. In this case, if I wanted to donate $10 to the developer, I would also have to send ~$40 to a charity that I don't even particularly like.

I guess I'm in the minority, but there you have it.

This is a really interesting point, and one I can sympathize with.  Personally, I wouldn't want to donate to any charity that has strong political leanings, and I sure most of us have some criteria of what charities we would or wouldn't feel comfortable donating to.  Child's Play feels like a fairly safe bet, but the other point ("When I donate to a game developer, I want it to go to them.")...I don't really have a good solution to that one.  I guess I could just include a disclaimer saying something like, "Hey, as far as I'm concerned, this game is freeware; I don't want any money for it, but here's a charity DONATE DONATE."

[deathtotheweird]

i wouldn't want someone to do charityware just as a gimmick to increase donations.

why not? it still gives money to charities, so it's a positive thing.

It's like those tip jars at the counter of grocery stores. I hardly donate money to charities, but when I see those I donate. Similar to this charityware thing. I would hardly have the motivation to donate to charity on my own (I will admit this) but seeing the jar makes it easy and appealing and convenient. Just drop a few dollars in and go on my way.

I had the same feeling for donating to Glum Buster. Go to download a game, saw a tipjar (paypal page), and thought, hell I might as well donate a few bucks since I'm here. I could give a few bucks to the developer and he can take a percent and donate to charity. Seemed like a win-win to me.

[Hima]

I think charityware need to prove/show that the money is really donated to the said charities. There are too many people that make profits from this kind of thing these days, at least in where I live there are.

[Radix]

I actually wanted to donate to Glum Buster but decided not to because it was charityware.

If I wanted to donate money to charity, I'd do that. When I donate to a game developer, I want it to go to them. In this case, if I wanted to donate $10 to the developer, I would also have to send ~$40 to a charity that I don't even particularly like.

I guess I'm in the minority, but there you have it.

I'm with you on this. My main objection is I don't wanna see it become a trend, inevitably handled poorly by some people and end up meaningless, which is what's going to happen if people start thinking of it as a business model.

[Peevish]

the way you phrase this topic actually sounds slightly shady in retrospect -- as if you would want to use a charity to increase your income through donations (by increasing the % that donate), rather than actually wanting to give to that charity. i think that if someone were to do charityware they should actually care about the charity, whether it increases total donations or not isn't important; i wouldn't want someone to do charityware just as a gimmick to increase donations.

I was really really hoping I didn't come off this way actually. What's exciting to me isn't that it's a way of making more donations. What's exciting is the prospect that people donate more often when it's going to a cause. I like the idea that cynicism isn't as intense as people think, and that people might be more apt to donate when it doesn't just go to the developer. The idea that this is true in a real, substantive way is what's exciting to me.

Cosmind actually posts his donation stats on his front page, and with each round of 20 donations he increases the amount that goes to charity by 5%, meaning there's actually a cap on how much he personally can earn. With each donation, he inches closer to sending all money to charity and taking none home. Myself, I come up on the problem of "why should someone pay me to sit at home and make video games?" I feel weird accepting money when there's no reason I couldn't just be working a job somewhere. I know I would rather make games than work retail, but why is that the buyer's problem? So many games are free anyway. Charityware seems a way of justifying the donation box, or the pricetag if I go that way. Also goes towards answering the question "how does making video games make the world any better?"

Which is not to say I don't think games can enrich peoples' lives, but that's a very abstract good that it does.

[Peevish]

I'm with you on this. My main objection is I don't wanna see it become a trend, inevitably handled poorly by some people and end up meaningless, which is what's going to happen if people start thinking of it as a business model.

1 year. Less than 100 donations. This will never be a business model.