In the context of the psychology of prices, anchoring refers to presenting shoppers with a number in order to get them to “anchor” their perceptions of value on either a high or low absolute. Not that this keeps the folks who run Steam from telling us exactly how much the bundle is worth, though, which brings me to the third psychological factor in play: anchoring. Likewise, we look at a massive bundle of digitally distributed games and think about how much could I get those older games for elsewhere? Could I find them for sale used, and for how much? Could I rent or borrow any of them? For the games I already own, how much is it worth to me to have them available through Steam so that I don’t have to dig out my old boxes and CD keys? It’s a psychological truism that we have limited cognitive processing power at any one time, and when our brains are tied up considering these questions, we’ve got fewer cycles to devote to thinking about other stuff, like how much we want to actually PLAY the games and to avoid other irrational pitfalls. How much cheaper is it to get the bundle? What about if I super size it? With curly fries? Oh forget it, just give me the #3. William Poundstone, author of Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (And How to Take Advantage of It) calls this the “value meal” strategy when describing the psychology of restaurant menu design. The second psychological principle at play here is the fact that it’s hard for shoppers to look at a bundle like that and understand what its true value is. Act now or you'll lose! Obscuring True Value Often these bundles are put up a limited time sales and people HATE losing opportunities to do things once they think they’re within reach. True, but the scarcity effect still applies, because it’s not so much the scarcity of the physical product that we react to, but the opportunity to buy it. This despite that the cookies in both jars WERE THE SAME COOKIES.īut Steam and similar download services like Direct to Drive sells digital games, right? They’re not cookies that are about to disappear, there is literally an UNLIMITED SUPPLY of the 1s and 0s that comprise these digitally distributed games. Of course, people reported the cookies from the mostly empty jars as more delicious, more desirable, and more expensive. 2 Posing as a consumer products survey, the experimenters offered subjects a chocolate chip cookie from one of two jars. Buy now, sucker, or it’ll be gone!Ĭonsider a simple 1975 experiment by psychologist Stephen Worchel to provide an illustration of this concept involving baked goods. 1 Ever noticed a store front that had a “going out of business!” sign in the window for months on end? That’s the owners trying to capitalize on the scarcity effect. This “available in limited number” trick shows up everywhere from collectable trading cards to special “limited” editions of new game releases. Scarcityįirst, In marketing there’s a well worn principal called “the scarcity effect.” When something is scarce, it automatically becomes more desirable to us than it would be if it were available everywhere we looked. What makes these plainly ridiculous bundles so attractive? I’m glad you asked, because I can think of at least three psychological principles at play here. People are talking like Steam is forcing them to pounce on such deals when they happen even though they already have a huge backlog and may actually already own physical versions of half the games included. Staring at it trying to figure out how to cut it down some. I am buying games for a theoretical PC that I will build someday (maybe) so I can play them. My game backlog can’t take much more of this!!” I had just successfully resisted the urge to buy games at both the holiday sale from GoGamer (Heroes of M&M 5 Complete and EU:Rome at $10 each were tempting, and Company of Heores Opposing Front for $5 is a steal) and the last round of Steam Deals (King Arthur especially was calling my name), and now you put Civ IV complete (I own none of the Civ IV stuff) out there for $14. “Damn you Steam! More games to buy that I’ll probably never get to play.” Should I just get Colonization $10.19 or just get them all and have on Steam for a wee bit more. One message board I frequent has a mega thread dedicated to gaming bargains, and doing a search for “Damn you, Steam” produces results like these: Steam, the digital game distribution platform owned by Valve, often has these weird bundles for sale where they cram together, for example, every id Software or every Rockstar game or every game featuring squirrels into one package.
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