Game Company Will Keep Charity Money If It Sells 10 Million: Brilliant or Bogus?
SodaHead Gaming
2011/10/10 18:00:00
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Nicolas Games is running an interesting promotion for their newest game, "Afterfall: Insanity." At first glance, the promotion seems like it has the potential to be an absolute bargain for buyers and philanthropy to boot; but on further examination, it might not be as squeaky-clean as it looks.
The deal goes something like this: Nicolas Games is currently offering "Afterfall: Insanity" pre-orders for a dollar through the game's website. If the company sells less than 10 million pre-orders, they'll donate 100 percent of the pre-order profits to an unnamed charity and send out the games to pre-ordering customers for the list price of $33.90 when it comes out on November 25.
But here's where it gets sticky. If they do push 10 million pre-orders, Nicolas Games will keep 90 percent of the pre-order profits and give away all of their pre-ordered copies for no additional charge. That means whatever charity they're planning to support will get significantly less money as soon as that last pre-order goes through.
In other words, if "Afterfall" is pre-ordered 8 million times, their charity will get $8 million; if the game is pre-ordered 10 million times, the charity gets $1 million (10 percent). To be fair, they've promised to donate half of the proceeds from purchases made after the 10 million pre-order mark. However, the chances of them pushing 10 million in the first place are already slim.
We have to admit, it's an intriguing marketing strategy. They haven't promised anyone anything, and if they want to pull off 10 million sales, the prospect of getting the game for a dollar will certainly reel in interested gamers. But it does seem a little sleazy.
The deal goes something like this: Nicolas Games is currently offering "Afterfall: Insanity" pre-orders for a dollar through the game's website. If the company sells less than 10 million pre-orders, they'll donate 100 percent of the pre-order profits to an unnamed charity and send out the games to pre-ordering customers for the list price of $33.90 when it comes out on November 25.
But here's where it gets sticky. If they do push 10 million pre-orders, Nicolas Games will keep 90 percent of the pre-order profits and give away all of their pre-ordered copies for no additional charge. That means whatever charity they're planning to support will get significantly less money as soon as that last pre-order goes through.
In other words, if "Afterfall" is pre-ordered 8 million times, their charity will get $8 million; if the game is pre-ordered 10 million times, the charity gets $1 million (10 percent). To be fair, they've promised to donate half of the proceeds from purchases made after the 10 million pre-order mark. However, the chances of them pushing 10 million in the first place are already slim.
We have to admit, it's an intriguing marketing strategy. They haven't promised anyone anything, and if they want to pull off 10 million sales, the prospect of getting the game for a dollar will certainly reel in interested gamers. But it does seem a little sleazy.
Read More: http://kotaku.com/5848266/if-10-million-preorder-t...
When I first read about this and even checked the website, it all sounded like a great deal to me, Until I dug a little deeper and watched the YouTube video.
$1 for a copy of a game, sound too good to be true? you bet it is.
Especially when I heard this nugget of information (Paraphrasing) "If we fail to meet 10 million pre-orders you don't get the game for $1 but it all goes to charity".
On first glance that doesn't sound too bad either but then we don't know what Charity it is do we? Here's my problems with this in a nutshell.
1) 10 Million Pre-orders is impossible, even all the humble bundles combined didn't manage to get that many orders and you were GUARANTEED to get a game no matter what, and you even had the option to pay a single penny.
2) As mentioned earlier we have no idea which Charity it goes to, so there is no accountability here, they could easily just pocket the lot.
3) Their website does not make it clear enough that they get nothing if they don't reach their target and their video is a bit incomprehensible at times.
Lets look at some other statistics, how about the amazingly successful Humble Bundle, the one running right this moment (At the time of writing):
Began almost three weeks ago on September 28th.
Numb...
When I first read about this and even checked the website, it all sounded like a great deal to me, Until I dug a little deeper and watched the YouTube video.
$1 for a copy of a game, sound too good to be true? you bet it is.
Especially when I heard this nugget of information (Paraphrasing) "If we fail to meet 10 million pre-orders you don't get the game for $1 but it all goes to charity".
On first glance that doesn't sound too bad either but then we don't know what Charity it is do we? Here's my problems with this in a nutshell.
1) 10 Million Pre-orders is impossible, even all the humble bundles combined didn't manage to get that many orders and you were GUARANTEED to get a game no matter what, and you even had the option to pay a single penny.
2) As mentioned earlier we have no idea which Charity it goes to, so there is no accountability here, they could easily just pocket the lot.
3) Their website does not make it clear enough that they get nothing if they don't reach their target and their video is a bit incomprehensible at times.
Lets look at some other statistics, how about the amazingly successful Humble Bundle, the one running right this moment (At the time of writing):
Began almost three weeks ago on September 28th.
Number of Orders: 215,456
Money Generated: $1,027,183.51
Does anything honestly believe that "Afterfall: Insanity." can achieve even 1 million pre-orders, let alone 10 million? At the time of writing they have only 15357 preorders, they would have to have several hundred thousand preorders a day in order to achieve their ridiculous target.
To put it simply, this is Gambling, I would be willing to put in a dollar if:
A) I got the game no matter what OR
B) I knew which Charity it was going to and I agreed with said Charity. AND The pre-order target was a little more reasonable.
Even if the Charity is a worthy cause I don't like to be cheated in order to give money to them, I would much rather cut out the middle man and give the money to the charity directly, at least then I know that there hasn't been any tampering with the donation.
I dunno, either way the charity gets money so for them it's a win.
"In other words, if "Afterfall" is pre-ordered 8 million times, their charity will get $8 million"
What's missing in this calculation is that if they get 8 million pre-orders, not only does the unspecified charity get 8 million bucks, but Nicolas Games will get 8.000.000 x $32.90 (because in that case, the 1$ pre-orders become $33.90 pre-orders, of which only 1 buck goes to charity), which is $263.200.000.
In words: TWO HUNDRED SIXTY THREE MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS.
Looking at the trailer, I can say with some confidence that that is not justified.
I like the charity-idea in general, but this feels more like a scam to me. Unfortunately, it will most probably work and leave a couple of million gamers raging because they have to pay $33.90 for a game that isn't worth it, and the company cashes in BIG TIME, then closes down because its rep is ruined, but the CEOs and/or investors are set for life.
For that scheme to be "brilliant", it's too f-ing obvious.
Anyway, it all looks to me like an obvious scheme to use "charity" to scam people out of their money.
"Buy Tetris for $5 and we'll give $1 to charity!!" Would you do that for charity or just slip a dollar (or five) in the donation tin?
If they pre-sell 10,000,000 the charity gets $1,000,000
Either way the charity gets a million dollars. Good for them.
It may be somewhat unscrupulous, but since when is THAT anything new for businesses?
I've seen a couple in Oklahoma have an essay contest on "why I should give you my home for $50". But, they published it nationally, and you had to pay $50 to be entered. Over 2,000 people entered and 1 person won a 5 acre lake front property for $50. But the sellers got over $100,000 for a $55,000 property. I would bet that they did there homework and got an insurance policy on it to insure that they didn't lose their shorts to at least break even on the house. Its just creative marketing.