3 ms·

Why do People Buy Virtual Goods?

3 points by peter123 18y ago

jacquesm 18y ago
For the life of me, I don't know why. I have never bought anybody a 'digital gift', and I probably never will. I'll be at your door at 3am in the morning with a bunch of flowers or a cake if the mood catches me but to express myself digitally by spending money on something that you can not even use other than to know that 'I spent money on you' is pointless. I remember the time when there was that court case about virtual goods being stolen and I thought that was the greatest abuse of the legal system. That some idiot pays money for something does not mean it has value.
- olefoo 18y ago
  > I'll be at your door at 3am in the morning with a bunch of flowers or a cake I think I would have a problem with that. I don't know you and I'm fairly sure you're not my type. ;-) > That some idiot pays money for something does not mean it has value. Au Contraire. The value of anything is precisely determined by what you can get some idiot to pay for it. The category mistake that everyone seems to make in this case is to regard virtual goods as 'goods' when in fact what is being provided is a service. The persistence storage and access rights to manipulate the object in question are services that cost some money to provide; and they are what is being provided.
  - jacquesm 18y ago
    Good points. So, no cake for you then ;)
- teej 18y ago
  - It's a generational thing. Under 30s are buying virtual goods a lot more than Over 30s. - It's a "time" thing. The best virtual goods models are designed to make the purchase an exchange of time for money. This makes the market for virtual goods targeted at people who: have more money than time, and value the rewards of time-spent, not the journey getting there. I wish I had more resources to give you that would explain it with data instead of anecdotes, but I don't really know of any.
teej 18y ago
A lot of the fuss about Virtual Goods in the past week has been stirred up by a paper released by Vili Lehdonvirta.(http://virtual-economy.org/blog/why_do_people_buy_virtual_good http://virtual-economy.org/blog/why_do_people_buy_virtual_go... | PDF - http://www.hiit.fi/~vlehdonv/documents/Virtual%20item%20purchase%20drivers.pdf http://www.hiit.fi/~vlehdonv/documents/Virtual%20item%20purc...) Quickly put, the paper does a great job breaking down the attributes people find valuable in virtual goods. Jeremy Liew's only real expansion on the paper is the addition of "Building relationships", the use of virtual goods for gifting. I have to give credit to Jeremy Liew [1] for this article, he understands virtual goods probably more than any Sand Hill Rd VC does, and he puts it in laymens terms well. To get a little more in-depth on the topic, check out Vili Lehdonvirta's contributions, that's where Jeremy got a lot of the content for this article. [1] - Disclaimer: Jeremy Liew has said nice things about my apps before.

3 points by peter123 18y ago

For the life of me, I don't know why. I have never bought anybody a 'digital gift', and I probably never will. I'll be at your door at 3am in the morning with a bunch of flowers or a cake if the mood catches me but to express myself digitally by spending money on something that you can not even use other than to know that 'I spent money on you' is pointless. I remember the time when there was that court case about virtual goods being stolen and I thought that was the greatest abuse of the legal system. That some idiot pays money for something does not mean it has value.

olefoo 18y ago
> I'll be at your door at 3am in the morning with a bunch of flowers or a cake I think I would have a problem with that. I don't know you and I'm fairly sure you're not my type. ;-) > That some idiot pays money for something does not mean it has value. Au Contraire. The value of anything is precisely determined by what you can get some idiot to pay for it. The category mistake that everyone seems to make in this case is to regard virtual goods as 'goods' when in fact what is being provided is a service. The persistence storage and access rights to manipulate the object in question are services that cost some money to provide; and they are what is being provided.
- jacquesm 18y ago
  Good points. So, no cake for you then ;)
teej 18y ago
- It's a generational thing. Under 30s are buying virtual goods a lot more than Over 30s. - It's a "time" thing. The best virtual goods models are designed to make the purchase an exchange of time for money. This makes the market for virtual goods targeted at people who: have more money than time, and value the rewards of time-spent, not the journey getting there. I wish I had more resources to give you that would explain it with data instead of anecdotes, but I don't really know of any.

teej 18y ago

A lot of the fuss about Virtual Goods in the past week has been stirred up by a paper released by Vili Lehdonvirta.(http://virtual-economy.org/blog/why_do_people_buy_virtual_good http://virtual-economy.org/blog/why_do_people_buy_virtual_go... | PDF - http://www.hiit.fi/~vlehdonv/documents/Virtual%20item%20purchase%20drivers.pdf http://www.hiit.fi/~vlehdonv/documents/Virtual%20item%20purc...) Quickly put, the paper does a great job breaking down the attributes people find valuable in virtual goods. Jeremy Liew's only real expansion on the paper is the addition of "Building relationships", the use of virtual goods for gifting. I have to give credit to Jeremy Liew [1] for this article, he understands virtual goods probably more than any Sand Hill Rd VC does, and he puts it in laymens terms well. To get a little more in-depth on the topic, check out Vili Lehdonvirta's contributions, that's where Jeremy got a lot of the content for this article. [1] - Disclaimer: Jeremy Liew has said nice things about my apps before.