Blamstrain albums available for "free" / pay-what-you-want
category: general [glöplog]
its my kvp nick actualy, now that rob went for it i thought i'd follow suit
+l
Did you also make the visualizers? Some are really cool!
Quote:
Since 11th of October, 2009:
Total downloads of the 7 albums available: 185
..of which were paid for: 25
Total revenue: 154.50EUR
So 13.5% of the downloads were paid for. Do you feel this is a sustainable business-model? I'm not trolling, I'm honestly wondering. As in: are you happy with this? Is it enough for you based on the amount of time and work you put into the album?
that's 0.84 EUR per sold/downloaded album.
how high would that be with real big artists selling their albums and having it illigally downloaded for free?
It's roughly one third as much as one would earn from one single physical CD sale. This constitutes a "pirate-to-legal" ratio of 3:1, which is not that bad when you take into account that you cannot eliminate piracy.
Oh, and while it might seem very good at first (not as good as getting paid for your work, each time, but hey), keep in mind that the ratio probably won't scale very well over time, fanbase and genre of music.
13.5% conversion rate is pretty neat, but as gloom pointed out, it might not work with sufficiently large audiences.
plek, oh yeah it is, isn't it :-)
i still watch soepmaker every day before bedtime!
i still watch soepmaker every day before bedtime!
anyway, back to topic, of course i wouldn't *actually* warez it for that reason, but i'm sure that many are tempted :-)
in fact, i'll give it a try-and-buy right now!
in fact, i'll give it a try-and-buy right now!
Are many people downloading for free, then buying it later?
That's what I normally do - pirate it, and buy the CD if it's good.
That's what I normally do - pirate it, and buy the CD if it's good.
@psonice: Me too :)
slashdot today
Quote:
2D Boy, the independent game studio behind World of Goo, recently celebrated the game's one-year anniversary by offering it at whatever price buyers cared to pay. They've now released some sales statistics about how people responded to the opportunity. The average price during the sale was $2.03; the game normally retails for $20. According to a survey of why people paid what they did, 22.4% said it was all they could afford at the time, and 12.4% said they already owned World of Goo and were buying it for a different platform. (Yes, there is a Linux version.) Over 57,000 people took advantage of the offer, which was enough for 2D Boy to term it "a huge success." Interestingly, they also saw a significant increase in sales through Steam, and a smaller increase through Wiiware. They've decided to extend the experiment until October 25th.
a gamestudio like 2D Boy gets additional press coverage by offering their hyped game on the net for a whatever pricepoint and sells even more
than it sold before on steam as ppl obviously are to retarded or to lazy to visit the 2Dboy page.
a situation which is barely equal to some "unknown" scene musicians...
than it sold before on steam as ppl obviously are to retarded or to lazy to visit the 2Dboy page.
a situation which is barely equal to some "unknown" scene musicians...
@gloom, yep, I'm expecting the conversion rate to drop during time, 25 isn't enough to draw any conclusions of an "audience" yet. A few loyal fans bought all of them for example, so that amounted to a lot of the purchases. Who knows what'll happen though, maybe my faith in humanity will pay off.. :)
@maw, nope, the visualizers are provided by bandcamp.
blamstrain: I hope it does. :) Nothing would make me happier than to see such a model florish and be successful, for the artist as well.
With regards to that "World of Goo"-announcement: that game is at it's end-of-life and 2D Boy probably has it's followup lined up for release already. Seeing as 57.000 people bought the game for $2.03 each (average), they made an additional $115.710 on a game they probably didn't sell a lot of any longer, and now have 57.000 new players lined up for their new game. Brilliant way to end the long-tail and marketing, but it does not apply to brand new and/or expensive-to-produce games like FarCry 3 or what have you.
With regards to that "World of Goo"-announcement: that game is at it's end-of-life and 2D Boy probably has it's followup lined up for release already. Seeing as 57.000 people bought the game for $2.03 each (average), they made an additional $115.710 on a game they probably didn't sell a lot of any longer, and now have 57.000 new players lined up for their new game. Brilliant way to end the long-tail and marketing, but it does not apply to brand new and/or expensive-to-produce games like FarCry 3 or what have you.
@psonice I can't really track that, I'm thinking of coding my own system with a donation button tho :)
@gloom, yeah, it's quite a different case with games vs music I think, 2Dboy has had a lot more press & coverage for WoG in general.. but it's great that other people are trying out the model :)
@gloom, yeah, it's quite a different case with games vs music I think, 2Dboy has had a lot more press & coverage for WoG in general.. but it's great that other people are trying out the model :)
Cheers for this, Blamstrain. I'd only really had your stuff on Merck CDs before, but now I'm buying my way through your back catalogue :) (except for the ones I've got, natch)
Faith in humanity might be partway right, but there's also a (selfish?) motivation to pursue the sense of satisfaction that comes from being able to compensate another musician directly for good work that he's put a lot of time, effort and skill into. Keep it up!
Faith in humanity might be partway right, but there's also a (selfish?) motivation to pursue the sense of satisfaction that comes from being able to compensate another musician directly for good work that he's put a lot of time, effort and skill into. Keep it up!
torrent link?
blamstrain, awesome model and music! hope this works well for you sir! cheers:)
An alternative model I'd love to see someone experiment with - would be to ask loyal fans to pre-purchase new tracks.
So you start a fund where people can deposit whatever they like. When the counter reaches some value you think worthy of the time it takes to write a new track, you go ahead. Write & release for free.
Then start the cycle again.
So you start a fund where people can deposit whatever they like. When the counter reaches some value you think worthy of the time it takes to write a new track, you go ahead. Write & release for free.
Then start the cycle again.
this is a very nice idea, and there is an interesting twist to it:
according to the laws and ethics of the mp3 warez scene, groups are not allowed to release music that is available for free on the net - else the release will get nuked. MEANS: your album can not become a warez release by definition, unless done by a really lame group which has not much distribution channels anyway.
MEANS: more people will get it from your site directly, where they see the possibility to pay and wil probably do.
according to the laws and ethics of the mp3 warez scene, groups are not allowed to release music that is available for free on the net - else the release will get nuked. MEANS: your album can not become a warez release by definition, unless done by a really lame group which has not much distribution channels anyway.
MEANS: more people will get it from your site directly, where they see the possibility to pay and wil probably do.
However, it also means that while your album is free, it will never go through those - fairly popular - distribution channels.
Quote:
laws and ethics of the (...) warez scene
i feel where you're getting at, but still had to giggle a bit ;)
That's kind of a crowdsourcing that Mtl is talking about. For example Public Enemy is trying that model with their next album through SellaBand. They seem to share 33% of the album's renevue and investors get inventives from exlusive CD's to producer credits and studio visits depending on the invested amount.
http://www.sellaband.com/projects/publicenemy/plan
http://www.sellaband.com/projects/publicenemy/plan
