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Because We May (Mega Indie Deals Because they Can)

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Family Fry

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Looks like there is a new promotion about called, Because We May targeting Indie Developers who have titles out there on or across various listed services.
For 1 week they are asking indie developers out there to reduce the price of their games in a mass promotion on the site.
Brains behind the promo is Ron Carmel of 2DBoy (World of Goo)



We believe that developers should have the freedom to price their games how they like, without interference from the online stores that sell the games. Why? Because it allows us to promote our games more freely, as we are doing here! We rely on the ability to promote our games for our livelihood and control over pricing is an important tool for this purpose.

For the last week of May (May 24 through June 1) our games will be deeply discounted to celebrate online stores that give us control over pricing: The App Store, Google Play, Steam, and a few others.

For a list of participating games in each store, choose one of the following:

Direct from Developer
"When selling directly, the developer has complete control not only over pricing, but over the pricing model itself. It allows us to do anything from a simple price reduction to wacky things like pay-what-you-want sales. When you buy directly from the developer, you also ensure that 100% of your money (minus transaction costs) goes towards supporting the developer."

Games:

World of Goo (Win + Mac + Linux)
Osmos (Win + Mac + Linux)
Vessel (Windows)
Scoregasm (Win + Mac + Linux)
Eets (Win + Mac)
Multiwinia (Win + Mac + Linux)
DEFCON (Win + Mac + Linux)
Darwinia (Win + Mac + Linux)
Uplink (Win + Mac + Linux)
SWIFT*STITCH (Win + Mac)
Cogs (Win + Mac + Linux)
Spring Bonus (Win + Mac)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Win + Mac)
Holiday Bonus (Win + Mac)
Avadon: The Black Fortress (Win + Mac)
Braid (Win + Mac + Linux)
Eufloria (Windows)
And Yet It Moves (Win + Mac + Linux)
Swords & Soldiers (Win + Mac)
Anomaly Warzone Earth (Win + Mac + Linux)
NyxQuest (Win + Mac)
Dino Run SE (Win + Mac + Linux)
Lugaru HD (Win + Mac + Linux)
Frozen Synapse (Win + Mac + Linux)
Frozen Synapse: Soundtrack Edition (Win + Mac + Linux)

iOS App Store
iOS Games On The App Store:

"Apple gives developers the freedom to set their games' price to whatever they choose, and the same goes for in app purchases. There are price tracking websites and apps that report when apps drop in price, and this helps spread the word when developers promote their games with a price drop."

GAMES:

Osmos (iPad)
World of Goo HD (Universal)
World of Goo (iPhone)
Eliss (iPhone)
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (Universal)
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP Micro (iPhone)
Osmos (iPhone)
Waking Mars (Universal)
Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor HD (iPad)
Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor (iPhone)
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaa AAAAaAAAAA!!! (Force = Mass x Acceleration) (Universal)
Smiles (iPhone)
Smiles HD (iPad)
Cogs (iPad)
Trainyard (Universal)
IceBurgers (Universal)
Spirits (iPhone)
Spirits for iPad (iPad)
Holiday Bonus (iPad)
Holiday Bonus (iPhone)
EDGE Extended (Universal)
EDGE (Universal)
Canabalt (Universal)
Bloktonik (iPad)
Skullpogo (Universal)
Avadon: The Black Fortress (iPad)
Scrap Metal (Universal)
Bean's Quest (Universal)
Rebuild (Universal)
SAMURAI II: Vengeance (Universal)
Eufloria HD (iPad)
Great Little War Game (Universal)
Pro Zombie Soccer: Apocalypse Edition (iPad)
Anomaly Warzone Earth (iPhone)
Anomaly Warzone Earth HD (Universal)
Toki Tori (iPhone)
Toki Tori HD (iPad)
Swords and Soldiers
Swords and Soldiers HD (iPad)
Zen Bound 2 (Universal)
Kard Combat (Universal)

Mac App Store
Mac Games On The App Store

"Apple gives developers the freedom to set their games' price to whatever they choose, and the same goes for in app purchases. There are price tracking websites and apps that report when apps drop in price, and this helps spread the word when developers promote their games with a price drop."

GAMES:

World of Goo
Osmos
Scoregasm
Darwinia
Uplink
Cogs
Puzzlejuice
Spirits
Spring Bonus
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Holiday Bonus
BIT.TRIP RUNNER
BIT.TRIP BEAT
Avadon: The Black Fortress
Bean's Quest
Psychonauts
CAVE STORY
SAMURAI II: Vengeance
And Yet It Moves
Pro Zombie Soccer
Anomaly Warzone Earth
EDGE
RUSH
Toki Tori
Zen Bound 2
Dino Run SE
Lugaru HD
DeathSpank
DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue
DeathSpank: The Baconing
Penny Arcade: Precipice of Darkness Episode One
Penny Arcade: Precipice of Darkness Episode Two

Google Play
Android Games On Google Play

"Google has always been a developer-centric company, so it's no surprise they give developers full control over the pricing AND distribution model of their apps."

GAMES:

World of Goo
Osmos
Snuggle Truck
Smuggle Truck
Smiles
Smiles HD
The Chicken Bandit
Cogs
Holiday Bonus
Holiday Bonus HD
EDGE
EDGE Extended
Canabalt HD
Zen Bound 2
Swords and Soldiers
Avadon: The Black Fortress
Skullpogo
Pro Zombie Soccer
Bean's Quest
Rebuild
SHADOWGUN
Anomaly Warzone Earth HD
Great Little War Game

Steam
Windows / Mac Games On Steam

"Steam is very responsive to price change requests from developers, working with them and adjusting the pricing of games permanently or temporarily. Steam also encourages developers to conduct promotions outside of Steam by issuing digital coupons and/or coupon redemption codes, allowing developers to reach gamers directly through their own channels and on their own terms."

GAMES:

World of Goo (Win + Mac)
Osmos (Win + Mac)
Snuggle Truck (Win + Mac)
Vessel (Windows)
Scoregasm (Win + Mac)
Eets (Win + Mac)
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaa AAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome ((Win + Mac)
The Wonderful End of the World (Windows)
DEFCON (Win + Mac)
Darwinia (Win + Mac)
uplink (Win + Mac)
The Dejobaan Complete Pack (Windows)
Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony (Win + Mac)
Jamestown Deluxe Pack (Win + Mac)
Metal Drift (Windows)
Cogs (Win + Mac)
Super Meat Boy (Win + Mac)
The Binding of Isaac (Win + Mac)
Gish (Win + Mac)
BIT.TRIP RUNNER (Win + Mac)
BIT.TRIP BEAT (Win + Mac)
Avadon: The Black Fortress (Win + Mac)
Costume Quest (Windows)
Stacking (Windows)
Double Fine Bundle (Windows)
Psychonauts (Win + Mac)
Braid (Win + Mac)
NightSky(Win + Mac)
CAVE STORY (Win + Mac)
Eufloria (Windows)
Anomaly Warzone Earth
Swords & Soldiers (Win + Mac)
Toki Tori (Win + Mac)
EDGE (Win + Mac)
RUSH (Win + Mac)
Zen Bound 2 (Win + Mac)
NyxQuest (Win + Mac)
Multiwinia (Win + Mac)
Lugaru HD (Win + Mac)
DeathSpank: The Baconing (Win + Mac)
Frozen Synapse (Win + Mac)
Frozen Synapse: Soundtrack Edition (Win + Mac)
Penny Arcade: Precipice of Darkness Episode One (Win + Mac)
Penny Arcade: Precipice of Darkness Episode Two (Win + Mac)
Penny Arcade: Precipice of Darkness Combo Pack (Episode One & Two) (Win + Mac)
Q.U.B.E. (Windows)

Other Stores
SWIFT*STITCH (Indievania)
sixty second shooter (Google Chrome)
Bean's Quest (Desura)

If you are a developer and would like to endorse this message by discounting your game between May 24 and June 1, click HERE to add your game to this promotion (it will appear in the lists linked to above)
Click to expand...

New titles are being added and are being allowed to be added up to 22nd May, promotion will go live May 24th.
 
This is a damn massive sale. Depending on the prices, I'll be grabbing a ton of stuff across a few platforms.
 
this is really cool. I own pretty much everything im interested in but i'll surely do some gifting.


enhanced-buzz-15752-1335804287-20.jpg
 
I'll pick up the Steam version of Stacking if I can get it for ~$5 or so.

I own it on the 360, but the bad performance made me wait on playing it until the PC version came out. Hopefully I wont get headaches from this version!
 
They need to update which games are above 75 on Metacritic. Braid isn't even listed as being above 75 and it's one of the top reviewed games.
 
I was about to be like "man I am going to support this promotion so hard" and then when I looked I realized that I already own like 80+% of these games, many on more than one of the listed platforms :/
 
Just thought I'd bump this as the sale has now started. Also the OP ought to be updated with the full list; a lot more games have been added since, including my own Gunman Clive.
 
Ichi is also part of Because We May. We're on the site, but not on your list.

Ichi is an easy to play but challenging one button puzzle game. Don't be deceived by the game simplistic look, it’s a braintwister for sure! Collect golden rings by rotating objects, using teleporters, breaking blocks and more. If that isn’t enough, the game includes a level editor that allows you to create your own levels and share them with anyone around the globe!

Buy here as a part of Because we may!: www.ichi-game.com
Demo here: http://kongregate.com/games/StolenCouchGames/ichi-demo

iOS & Android version will be released very soon!

And finally there is a trailer!

Screenshots:

icon.png


screen4.png

screen5.png

screen6.png

screen7.png

screen8.png

screen9.png
 
Stacking, Snuggle Truck.

'That's basically it!


Edit: Heh, Ichi. Saw them at the Indievelopment. Fun little game!
 
Going through the list of iOS games I noticed that one of them I bought at its original price of 99¢ (Zaga-33) actually went up in price to $6.99 along with the developer's other iOS game Glitch Tank. Wondering what was up with that, I went to the developer's blog and he has a somewhat interesting post about his Because We May pricing.

So here's a thing: http://www.becausewemay.com/

When I first heard of this it seemed pretty irrelevant to me. Control of prices isn't something I've personally had a problem with, and it's certainly not the direst problem in the world. Seemed a bit of a silly thing to make a fuss about.
But thinking about it some more, maybe I am indirectly affected. I'm affected by expectations of what the costs of games should be, for what a game of a particular cost should look like. I'm not entirely free to set prices how I like, if I need anyone to buy them.

One review of Vertex Dispenser said "this would be a great game at $7, but at $10 I can't recommend it to anyone".
Oh yes.
Couple of days ago a customer review of Zaga-33 said it wasn't at all worth the price (along with being very bad, a scam with fake reviews, etc.).
It cost a dollar.

So how much should a game cost? I don't have a clue; for mine I've been picking numbers fairly arbitrarily and probably getting it wrong. It's tricky because the value you're trying to maximise (or at least to get high enough to cover living costs) is Price*Sales, but you can't know the number of sales in advance and it's going to depend somewhat on the price. If you're selling hundreds of thousands of copies (as some are) then this will come out high enough no matter what, but when sales are low the other factor is important. Apparently my games are "niche" (i.e. most people don't like them) which means I should be charging more per unit than someone with a bigger audience does.
So while I kind of get the point of this sale, I feel like it's going about things backwards.  Dropping prices - well hey, they might be too low already, the thing to celebrate is being able to set them higher. Get out of this race to the bottom.

So I've signed up for the sale. And it amuses me to set the sale prices higher than the originals. Make of this what you will.

Vertex Dispenser is on a "50% on sale" for $15.01, antidiscounted from $9.99.  (If prices ending in .99 make you a bit more likely to buy something, maybe the .01 will slightly deter you.)
Glitch Tank and Zaga-33 are both at $6.99, antidiscounted from $1.99 and $0.99 respectively. The apple store doesn't allow prices that don't end in 99 - a mark against them.
Click to expand...
 
Shearie said:
Going through the list of iOS games I noticed that one of them I bought at its original price of 99¢ (Zaga-33) actually went up in price to $6.99 along with the developer's other iOS game Glitch Tank. Wondering what was up with that, I went to the developer's blog and he has a somewhat interesting post about his Because We May pricing.
Click to expand...

Hah, that's interesting if not a bit counter-productive.
 
Stumpokapow said:
I bet I'm not the only one in this kind of situation with the Steam games:
yfgYw.png
Click to expand...

Indeed:

JaseC said:
1-D_FTW said:
http://www.becausewemay.com/

Seems like there's some kind of uber sale coming from a group of indie developers. Not sure what their deal is, but it's starting in about a week.

Here's a list of the Steam games they're going to be having:

http://www.becausewemay.com/steam.html

Frozen Synapse: Soundtrack Edition
Metal Drift
Penny Arcade: Precipice of Darkness Episode One
Penny Arcade: Precipice of Darkness Episode Two
Snuggle Truck
The Dejobaan Complete Pack*
Vertex Dispenser
Vessel
Waveform
Zen Bound 2

* Only missing the Aaa DLC.
Click to expand...

Will buy. Some of them, at least.
Click to expand...
 
Sendou said:
It is disgracing if the dollar->euro conversion isn't done correctly.
Click to expand...

Exactly the problem with the Steam "because we may" prices.

Edit: As stated in the Steam thread:
Wok said:
Double Fine is cool with the FX: Stacking costs $7.49 and 5,40€. A contrario, Q.U.B.E. costs $7.49 and 6,99€.

This may well convince me to buy Stacking now. I doubt a discount higher than 60% would be applied during the Summer sale. 75% at most, and it would be a difference of only one euro.
Click to expand...

Bamihap said:
Ichi is also part of Because We May. We're on the site, but not on your list.
Click to expand...

Currently, Ichi is a game I am interested in, as I remember finishing the demo and I liked it a lot. I am glad you clarified I had played the demo: I thought I had finished the game!

Another game I find interesting is Sugar Cube : Bittersweet Factory even though none of these two games are on Steam.
 
Steam will probably be watching this closely. It's much larger than the pool they'd usually do as a daily deal in the Steam sales. I applaud them for just chucking everything up all at once.
Hopefully nothing gets too overshadowed.
 
jediyoshi said:
Aw, Stacking still a bit more than I'm willing to bite for. No Sword & Sworcery for Steam either ]:
Click to expand...
Stacking's worth £4.60. The production values are very high. It's probably the best deal there.

Can anyone confirm the "meditative" description to Zen Bound? Style or substance? Seems like it might be best suited to a hand held.
 
Visualante2 said:
Stacking's worth £4.60. The production values are very high. It's probably the best deal there.

Can anyone confirm the "meditative" description to Zen Bound? Style or substance? Seems like it might be best suited to a hand held.
Click to expand...
While it works on PC, it's better on a touch device.

Stacking is an amazing deal. Plenty of good content for the price.
 
I wanted to take the time to point out Defenders Quest a bit as the games not on the steam or ios list will likely be overlooked.

It's a nice little Tower Defense RPG hyrbid (your towers are characters that level up across the levels) it has a decent length demo which if I recall correctly can be exported and taken to the full game if you decide to buy it.

It normally runs 6.99 but during the promo it's down to 2.99 which is likely the cheapest it will be for a long long time as their long term plans are to release a gold version (a lot of extra content that people who buy now will get for free) at $10 and then try to get that gold version on steam (which if they succeed they are going to ask steam for keys to give to their early buyers )

so if you like tower defense games I would say it's well worth checking out.
 
It's worth noting that devs can jump in the sale while it's still going. I secretly hope Sword & Sorcery and Lone Survivor do this. :P

LINK
 
Cactus said:
For those who keep track of Steam prices/sales, is the Double Fine Bundle a good deal?
Click to expand...

it's not a bad deal. It's 60% off overall, but I think I have seen both costume quest and psychonauts on sale for 75% off before, so it wouldn't surprise me if the double fine bundle went on sale for 75% off during the summer sale which would be $4.50 less for the bundle. But there is no grantee it would go 75% off during the summer sale while you are guaranteed 60% off right now.
 
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