It appears that over at RPGnow a large number of previously free products are now offered as “pay what you want”. That’s cool and I totally see why a publisher would do that – people can still take your product for free, but if they want to chuck you a buck or two, they can do that, too. It is an interesting psychological thing going on there, I think. I have picked up a few games now that, had they simply been offered for free I would have grabbed, but since they were offered as “pay what you want” I have been more than happy to donate (is it odd I think of it as “donating”?) a dollar or (usually) two dollars.

I have been thinking about offering FU under the same option, but am not sure. Part of me likes the purity of saying “It’s free, take it, share it, love it (or hate it) – you can’t complain because it was free!” The other part of me is thinking “FU gets downloaded 5-10 times every day, if that brought me a buck or two every couple of days, I could buy more games!” I guess there is an element of confidence involved, as I can kind of hide behind FU’s free status if someone doesn’t like it. I think the game works, and is pretty darn good, so I should have the confidence to say “Yeah, it’s worth a buck!”, but sometimes I just don’t have the mental fortitude to.

What do you think about “pay what you want”? What do you think about offering FU under that system?