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Introducing artificial scarcity on digital goods seems incredibly anti-consumer. Consider a different scenario where someone wants the skin both now and later (
by arrosenberg 5y ago
Introducing artificial scarcity on digital goods seems incredibly anti-consumer. Consider a different scenario where someone wants the skin both now and later (for whatever reason - value is driven by the desire of the purchaser), but doesn't have the financial wherewithal to purchase frivolous things at a whim. In that scenario the consumer has to make a choice between purchasing an artificially scarce good or making a good personal financial choice.
From a neutral party standpoint (i.e. I neither want to purchase the skins, nor do I benefit financially from their purchase, nor do I wish to ban their sale outright), it seems obvious that a fungible, non-exhaustible digital good (with it's near-0 maintenance cost) should be restricted from exclusive periods of sale. There is no reason for it, other than to take advantage of human brain chemistry to drive a specific type of sale by producing artificial demand.
- oneoff786 5y agoThat seems like an unlikely edge case given these are probably pretty cheap?
- arrosenberg 5y agoI think it is absolutely an issue if you are a kid or you are living paycheck to paycheck. There is a social/prestige aspect to skins and game rewards that shouldn't be underrated, and that type of business model is always targeting 'whales', i.e. people with a phenotypic disposition to getting carried away and spending a huge amount. I don't think it's right to let companies deploy manipulative business models or collect obscene rents - it always winds up hurting the most vulnerable people. Further, nothing of value is created by that model - it's simply another rent collection tactic to force people to pay up when it's best for the company. At least with physical goods there is an overhead to keeping old SKUs in the catalog. A digital skin is a metadata blob in a database, which can't be deleted anyways, since anyone who paid for access to that metadata needs it to exist.
- oneoff786 5y agoSo why wouldn’t this social prestige effect exist if skins were released at the same rate but were permanently available?
- arrosenberg 5y agoIt would still exist. The difference is the artificial scarcity is gone, so customers aren't under time pressure to purchase them. They are free to do so as they are reasonably able to afford it.
- oneoff786 5y agoIf it’s a social prestige thing then you’re likely to want the latest fashion though. So… the time pressure is still there, because the value of yesterday’s fashion quickly falls.
- arrosenberg 5y agoIf we assume you are correct, then the makers of these games shouldn't care if we ban exclusive distribution periods, since the results should be exactly the same.
- oneoff786 5y agoI’m not arguing it doesn’t work. I’m arguing it’s not predatory. Devil’s advocate, which seems likely to me, is that having a small catalog that is frequently updated is a lot easier to make a sale on for its simplicity and expectation of finding something novel every time you look. 100 options is overwhelming. 5 is easier for the consumer. And if 95% of people who would ever buy your new skin will do so within a week of its release, it makes sense to just ship a new catalog next week and never bother with the old one again.
- leetcrew 5y agomeh. selling cosmetic-only items is a pretty good way to fund a low/zero purchase price game imo. no one is priced out of the core experience, and the people that really care pay for everyone else to play.
- austhrow743 5y agoWhat if scarcity is where the value is derived?