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That's why advertising exists though. I'm sure McDonalds would be very happy if you ate there every day. That guy from Subway did and now hes a company spokesma

by physcab 14y ago

That's why advertising exists though. I'm sure McDonalds would be very happy if you ate there every day. That guy from Subway did and now hes a company spokesman. So I don't believe its about manipulation - because thats an essential part of taking people's money for any business.

potatolicious 14y ago
I'm not sure if that's the right analogy. The closer analogy would be if McDonald's had their R&D team study the chemistry of addictive substances and deliberately engineered the food in that direction.
- chadmalik 14y ago
  Actually packaged food companies do, in fact, employ teams of scientists to make their food products as addictive as possible via sophisticated flavor engineering. Rense has a good excerpt from the book fast food nation discussing this here http://www.rense.com/general7/whyy.htm http://www.rense.com/general7/whyy.htm .
- nkohari 14y ago
  Sugar and fat are addictive enough that they don't need to lace it with anything.
- rralian 14y ago
  Maybe the better analogy would be if McDonald's tested whether people enjoyed their food enough to come back often, and iterated upon that metric to maximize it. Maybe they would use imagery and psychology in their stores and advertising to elicit an emotional response in people to enjoy the "experience" of McDonald's as more than just a food production and distribution service. Maybe they would tie in to other things that people enjoyed (I don't know, like movies or something) to associate McDonald's with the positive traits people perceived in other products. Maybe if they targeted their efforts at children, in order to bring in families and indoctrinate consumers as early as possible. I actually have no problem with any of this. They're just making a product for people to enjoy. Just because they're running data sets, tests, and using social "science" (bah) to maximize products... so what? What makes that worse than building a product based on your intuition that happens to appeal to people as well on these lines? I think Zynga is a foul company. I think their product has a net societal cost, and I think the crap they pulled on some of their employees prior to IPO is unconscionable. But I think this aversion to using psychology to optimize your product is misplaced. Nobody is getting hypnotized here. They are just using every tool in their arsenal to make their product perform as well as possible. They do this in an unashamedly metric-based way. Every product you encounter in life attempts to influence and manipulate you. The scientific approach just happens to be very good at optimizing processes. Last point in this rant... I do believe Zynga makes most of their money off the weak and the crazies who will put thousands of dollars they can't afford into their farmville farm. I do believe that is morally repugnant, and it's well within their power to stop that (which I'm sure they'll never do). I just don't think the design of their games is an issue... it's their billing.

by physcab 14y ago

potatolicious 14y ago

I'm not sure if that's the right analogy. The closer analogy would be if McDonald's had their R&D team study the chemistry of addictive substances and deliberately engineered the food in that direction.

chadmalik 14y ago
Actually packaged food companies do, in fact, employ teams of scientists to make their food products as addictive as possible via sophisticated flavor engineering. Rense has a good excerpt from the book fast food nation discussing this here http://www.rense.com/general7/whyy.htm http://www.rense.com/general7/whyy.htm .
nkohari 14y ago
Sugar and fat are addictive enough that they don't need to lace it with anything.
rralian 14y ago
Maybe the better analogy would be if McDonald's tested whether people enjoyed their food enough to come back often, and iterated upon that metric to maximize it. Maybe they would use imagery and psychology in their stores and advertising to elicit an emotional response in people to enjoy the "experience" of McDonald's as more than just a food production and distribution service. Maybe they would tie in to other things that people enjoyed (I don't know, like movies or something) to associate McDonald's with the positive traits people perceived in other products. Maybe if they targeted their efforts at children, in order to bring in families and indoctrinate consumers as early as possible. I actually have no problem with any of this. They're just making a product for people to enjoy. Just because they're running data sets, tests, and using social "science" (bah) to maximize products... so what? What makes that worse than building a product based on your intuition that happens to appeal to people as well on these lines? I think Zynga is a foul company. I think their product has a net societal cost, and I think the crap they pulled on some of their employees prior to IPO is unconscionable. But I think this aversion to using psychology to optimize your product is misplaced. Nobody is getting hypnotized here. They are just using every tool in their arsenal to make their product perform as well as possible. They do this in an unashamedly metric-based way. Every product you encounter in life attempts to influence and manipulate you. The scientific approach just happens to be very good at optimizing processes. Last point in this rant... I do believe Zynga makes most of their money off the weak and the crazies who will put thousands of dollars they can't afford into their farmville farm. I do believe that is morally repugnant, and it's well within their power to stop that (which I'm sure they'll never do). I just don't think the design of their games is an issue... it's their billing.