Larian Studios - Divinity Anthology - the good, the bad, the unexpected

Before we get into this, Melvil notes the Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity versions on GOG have been updated to the new Anthology versions.
Lar has posted a new blog entry talking about releasing the Divinity Anothology and their pay-what-you-want compaign — and how a generous fan undid their plans. As a side note, if you've been interested in this campaign but the average price was to high for your taste, try checking again.

When the PWYW was conceived, we thought that we’d have a lot of sales at the absolute minimum, which basically is 1 cent, and this assumption was actually never challenged. The idea of the PWYW campaign was to on the one hand celebrate 10 years of Divinity and offer Divinity virtually for free (1 cent really is low), thus increasing the installed base of Divinity fans, but on the other hand also to put the Developer’s Cut in the spotlight.
The Developer’s Cut (and Beyond Divinity) were made part of the campaign as a kind of bonus and to not completely ruin ourselves, we introduced the rule that to access the Developer’s Cut, you needed to be in the top 10% of customers. Whether or not that was a sound strategy is a different matter and open for debate, but that was the idea.
What happened however is that for some reason, people started looking at this like some sort of Kickstarter (this was the very first time something like this was done on GOG), and in the very first hours of the campaign, we saw the average pricing go to heights we never expected. Somebody even paid a 1000US$ for one of the games!!! (Thanks again Alquist for ruining our plans btw )

More information.

Some idiot paid $1,000. I wish I could waste that much money.

I was wondering why the price on GoG dropped from $21 to ~$13. This explain it and it's interesting that they want this to stay at bargain price.

Even if I had the money to waste like that, I wouldn't waste it like that…

I'm not sure I think a thousand dollars is that big of a deal. I mean it's a lot of money, more than I can afford, but it's not like you'd need to be a one-percenter to spend it. Lots of lawyers and doctors in the world. And most adults could drop a grand if they really really wanted to. Project Eternity has one hundred and fifty three backers at that amount or above. Four of them are the ten grand mark. Ouch. I wish I could waste that much money!

Originally Posted by Bargeral
I'm not sure I think a thousand dollars is that big of a deal. I mean it's a lot of money, more than I can afford, but it's not like you'd need to be a one-percenter to spend it. Lots of lawyers and doctors in the world. And most adults could drop a grand if they really really wanted to. Project Eternity has one hundred and fifty three backers at that amount or above. Four of them are the ten grand mark. Ouch. I wish I could waste that much money!

This isn't a kickstarter. All three games are all ready out.

ok, im in. Never got the chance to play DD, but D2 by itslef is worth it

I believe I've seen that Tech Demo of LMK on the "CeBit Home" then.
Little did I know about this game's fate, and I was at that time still rather a fan of Attic (because of the NLT) than of Larian.
I don't even remember to whom of the staff I had talked at the CeBit Home.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
This isn't a kickstarter. All three games are all ready out.

It's not a Kickstarter, but the "pay what you want" is similar to Humble Bundle and you can give all the money you give on a bundle to the dev only.

Although, reading the blog in this case it's more of an attempts to enlarge the Divinity "fanbase" than anything.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
This isn't a kickstarter. All three games are all ready out.

Not the point. I get that more people are willing to dig deeper for a kickstarter in the hope that it will improve the odds of success, but my point was there are people with enough disposable income to drop a grand on a game. Also maybe that the kickstarter trend has broken some unspoken rule and now it's OK to drop a big chunk of change on a game you like.

I was surprised they got a 1k-club purchase too. But I wasn't as incredulous as some posters here seemed to be. More like "hey if your going to drop a grand, you picked a good game to do it on".

Edit: Started typing before azarhal's reply. I don't mean to dog pile.

Hey, some people drop $1k on starving children or medical research, others do it in support of their favorite game developer…

Originally Posted by Thaurin
Hey, some people drop $1k on starving children or medical research, others do it in support of their favorite game developer…

Good for them there still crazy to pay $1k for old games. The other reasons are good reasons though.

To each their own. When this working stiff gets the charitable urge, I go to www.kiva.org, which, incidentally, has a bit of a Kickstarter vibe.

Originally Posted by Capt. Huggy Face
To each their own. When this working stiff gets the charitable urge, I go to www.kiva.org, which, incidentally, has a bit of a Kickstarter vibe.

Thanks for the link. See that is a good reason to waste 1k. Your helping people who need money.

Hope it was the guy who stole their PCs.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
Hey, some people drop $1k on starving children or medical research, others do it in support of their favorite game developer…

I wish people would spend their excess money on charities that could save people's lives, instead of furthering the deveplopment of entertainment products… There are things that should be supported by paying customers in a free market, not by "charity".

Originally Posted by Bargeral
Also maybe that the kickstarter trend has broken some unspoken rule and now it's OK to drop a big chunk of change on a game you like.

To be more specific, games of completely unknown quality they think they are going to like.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
This isn't a kickstarter. All three games are all ready out.

Exactly the reason why I'd rather pay 1000 $ for a game on GOG, than on Kickstarter.

Already out.

Funny that this seems not to be the intuitive view…

Originally Posted by Cacheperl
Exactly the reason why I'd rather pay 1000 $ for a game on GOG, than on Kickstarter.

Already out.

Funny that this seems not to be the intuitive view…

If you want to spend 1k on games that came out years go ahead. I can buy all three for $35. I can also assume you hate kickstarters also.

I'll never spend 1000 dollars on any single game, or three games. Most probably I'll also be able to get Project Eternity at much less than $35. Both is not the point.

I dont hate Kickstarter, I'd just rather not pay a large sum of money on something that might fail completely, with so little reward if it succeeds.

I will never give Larian a single penny since they released Divinity2 in a buggy state where doors disappear then refused to patch the PC version (the Xbox version was instantly patched) until the expansion pack came out. They stole my fifty bucks. I want my fifty bucks back.

This company does NOT deserve your goodwill.

If you want to play the games (Div2 is fixed now, and Div1 is one of the best games of all time, but quite old) go ahead and pay the minimum. Don't give them extra. They're not a charity. They're not your friends. They don't need your help. They are selling a product. You're a consumer. Be a smart one.