Question about in game economy
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-07-18 22:52 in The Market and Inventions
Quote:
I didn't know that. . . so like FAO Schwartz and the $4000 toy porsche, when I was a kid. Today I learned something!
| An Aspirational Item is a term used by wine sellers to refer to expensive wines that nobody buys. You put a $1500 bottle on the shelf, and suddenly, the $500 bottles next to it seem so much more reasonable. |
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
An Aspirational Item is a term used by wine sellers to refer to expensive wines that nobody buys. You put a $1500 bottle on the shelf, and suddenly, the $500 bottles next to it seem so much more reasonable. People will buy out of their league if the things they purchase are surrounded by even more expensive items. This principle holds to in a lot of places - habadashers will never sell you a $150 silk tie until after you've already bought a $15,000 suit. People do not buy things based on their value, because they are bad at perceiving value, and very bad at perceiving value consistantly. If you think back to a regular purchase where the price changes over time, you will find you probably track those changes based on the increases and decreases in price - my morning coffee cost a buck, then a buck twenty, then a buck fifteen, then a buck forty, etcetera. After a year or more of this you might be paying five dollars for a coffee, but because it never jumped one-to-four it doesn't seem so unreasonable.
This is the real quick version, again; basically, if you present someone with a large amount of information, they will often be paralysed by the choice. If you give someone a range of three jellies, all the same price, they will often contrast the one they like the most with the other two and buy it consistantly. If you give them just one jelly selection, they will buy less often. But if you dial it up and present them with a hundred jellies, they will go down in their jelly purchase, below the level of only being presented with one.
Too much information, too much choice, and our brains kinda shut down. We hide from that, because we know it confuses us. How often have you encountered someone who gave up listening to an explanation and said 'Just make it simple for me?'
Anyway, sorry if this seems off the topic.