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Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want"
- mephi5t0 14y agoI am surprised there were jerks that paid 0. Really? You can't afford give them five bucks? You spend more on beer OR lunch OR coffee in Starbucks if you feel kinky. At least humble bundle not allow you to pay 0 :)
- scrumper 14y agoI knew there'd be some, but 20% is a miserably high proportion. Does anyone know if that percentage is similar to how other well-known examples of pay-what-you-want turned out? Are there any studies into the propensity to freeload among anonymous groups?
- ars 14y agoIt's probably just people who wanted to see if they would really send it. And it's teens without credit cards. So I doubt you could really compare it to other things.
- scrumper 14y agoFirst two points make sense as reasons why people wouldn't pay, but I'm not sure how you get from those to your conclusion. Why do those two things not apply to other examples?
- ars 14y agoCompare to leaving a platter of bagels with a card asking people to pay if they can. People are not curious if they can take a bagel for free - it's obvious that they can. So people are not tempted to do it just for the experiment. And people wanting to pay can use cash, so the second situation doesn't apply either. Most real world situations are more like this case than the cards case.
- scrumper 14y agoThat answered my question, thanks. I was thinking of larger-scale, internet efforts (In Rainbows, Louis CK) but of course those don't involve physical delivery. Had not even considered honesty boxes. Thinking more, I do remember reading about someone who started a business in DC delivering muffin baskets to beltway-area office buildings. Their business was purely honesty based, and I think losses due to cheapskatery were around 5%. In the end, they'd cut off buildings with rates worse than that. All that is more support for your points.
- jzworkman 14y agoMakes me feel better about just paying the normal full price of $25 to get a copy for my brother. The game is just so great, and definitely worth supporting.
- drivebyacct2 14y agoNo kidding, I understand being frugal, but in that case, print them yourself and take the time to cut them out. Shockingly, the game is still just as fun.
- baddox 14y agoIt's quite possible that profit (both margins and gross profit) could have been lower if they required a 1 cent minimum donation.
- matthuggins 14y agoThe site even made you feel guilty (in a "please reconsider" way) if you put anything less than $3, explaining that the cost for them to create, produce, and mail a single pack will cost them $3, meaning they're taking a loss. That really speaks to how selfish people are (especially considering it's the "most wonderful time of the year").
- mratzloff 14y agoYes. In any event, it's interesting data: at least 20% of people will never pay for something, no matter what the price is or the cost to create it.
- icebraining 14y agoYou can't take any kind of reliable conclusion about general behavior from this event, there are tons of variables that may be biasing it.
- groby_b 14y agoStarbucks is kinky? I think I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter ;)
- gabebw 14y agoIt's a reference to the movie Idiocracy, which is set in a future where (among other changes) Starbucks is an erotic massage parlor: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fmUAFjqIPc4/T8aZMNekMfI/AAAAAAAAFBU/RShaeqZmGpg/s1600/1c7e6_idiocracy-starbucks-exotic-coffee-for-men.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fmUAFjqIPc4/T8aZMNekMfI/AAAAAAAAFB...
- DoggettCK 14y agoBought it myself off Amazon for $25 for a Secret Santa gift, and it's well worth it. I did see this on reddit, I believe from someone who paid $0. I really hope it's real. http://i.imgur.com/8v2vc.jpg http://i.imgur.com/8v2vc.jpg
- icelancer 14y agoIt isn't. That person put his name in as "Huge Asshole."
- polshaw 14y agoAnd in doing so almost certainly netted CAH more profit via the free advertising than if they had paid $5 (which, they still may have done). TBH, i wouldn't be shocked if it was an inside job.
- dbaupp 14y agoMaybe not. I'm sure quite a few other people tried $0just to see if they got called "Huge Asshole".
- kirse 14y agoI wonder if this has anything to do with the selected audience for this card game... i.e. Are the type of people who find these cards hilarious more prone to acting with "jerk" behavior? Only a hypothesis, but worth a look, since my primary assumption is that this is a selective (and interested) audience given that it's an expansion pack.
- aw3c2 14y agoYou are a jerk for calling them jerks. If it is "pay what you want" then you are invited to do exactly that. If you want to pay nothing, you may do so. It is perfectly inside the rules of the event.
- andrewguenther 14y agoBy paying nothing for it, you are telling CAH that that is exactly how much you think their product is worth to you. Nothing. If I were them, I would be a little bit hurt to see that.
- jconnop 14y agoKey point: "to you". I imagine that if the $0 option wasn't included, many of those who chose it would simply not "buy" it at all. So at least they get some marketing benefit out of it. Of course this works better for those "pay what you want" digital goods, where there isn't much marginal cost to giving away a copy.
- trafficone 14y agoI think you're missing the point of the game. Being given freedom doesn't exclude someone from the consequences. For example: life is "punch whom you want" and you're still a jerk for punching someone.
- pjlegato 14y agoLife is most definitely not "punch who you want"; that's illegal and will get you thrown in jail. There's a specific rule against that in most places. In certain designated areas of life, such as during a boxing match, the rules are different: if you're in a boxing match, you can indeed punch someone, and you won't get thrown in jail or suffer any other sanction (other than being punched back). A boxer who punches his opponent in a boxing match is not a jerk, because that is permitted by mutually agreed upon rules in that context. In the case of the cards, the rules do explicitly allow paying $0, so it's in no sense a perversion of the rules, and people who paid $0 are not jerks.
- arjn 14y agoI'm surprised at those people too. Almost 20%. I would not have thought it to be such a high number.
- Bjartr 14y agoHow the heck did I miss this
- amirmc 14y agoInteresting. Even though around 20% of people didn't pay anything, they were still able to turn a profit. I'd love to compare the results of this with other 'pay-what-you-want' schemes. Edit: "We did all of the web design, video production, motion design, and copy writing ourselves, so these were free." I wonder if the cost of this would technically have put them at a loss (I suspect not).
- mattmaroon 14y agoIt would almost have to. $70k is not even one man year's worth of effort from someone skilled at any one of those things individually.
- d3ad1ysp0rk 14y agoWhy are you considering a year's salary for a holiday pack/site? It's hard to imagine 2,080 hours (40x52) went into the entire thing.
- mattmaroon 14y ago"We did all of the web design, video production, motion design, and copy writing ourselves". Doesn't seem that hard to me. And we're talking less than a year's salary for someone skilled at any of those things, let alone all.
- jsilence 14y agoI wonder what the effect would be if you'd simply state the production cost per unit on the ordering page, while still allowing people to pay zero $.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- matthooks 14y agoThe landing page did state the production costs (about $3).
- Itaxpica 14y agoThey did, several times (breaking it down in to the $1 for production and $2 for processing/shipping like on that page). They also suggested $5 as a fair price, and pointed out that it cost them $3 to make the set one last time on a nag screen if you tried to pay $0 (fun fact: the site wouldn't let you donate anything greater than 0 but under fifty cents, since they would lose money on credit card fees).
- gawker 14y agoI think it's absolutely great that they've donated all the proceeds to Wikipedia :) Congratulations. It's heartwarming to know that although there are some free loaders, you were still made a pretty penny. On the other hand, how come all the design work, copy writing, etc are considered free? That's just masking the actual cost of the product.
- matthooks 14y agoThe design/dev/video costs were minuscule compared to the production costs.
- Maxistentialist 14y agoWe made those things with our own hands.
- shmageggy 14y agoBut surely your time was worth something. Isn't that the first lesson of running a business -- pay yourself first?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- clone1018 14y agoIf you're doing something you really love, money is just a side effect.
- jacalata 14y agoLoving what you do never bought groceries. So the actual answer has to be 'I have enough money from other sources to live on'.
- lotyrin 14y agoThe money spent on essentials may also be essential, but things can both be essential and the side effects of processes which have some other primary intent.
- matthooks 14y agoHey guys, I developed this site. I'll be around for a little while if you have any tech questions. Edit: Please note that this pay what you can was just for the holiday-related expansion set, not the full game.
- shizcakes 14y agoOne comment: Myself and others were initially confused by the layout of the page into thinking that CAH had turned a massive loss. It's only when you get to the bottom that there was any indication of sales.
- matthooks 14y agoFor the infographic?
- aw3c2 14y agoI am not the parent poster, but for me, yes, the infographic!
- mintplant 14y agoThat was my thinking as well. I saw the giant, red negative numbers and my initial reaction was "Oh, no."
- dyeje 14y agoMe as well, the red text made me think they had just lost massive amounts of money and I felt really bad. Then I realized after reading some comments I just needed to scroll down. It probably makes more sense to include those costs with the revenue.
- ceautery 14y agoIt was pretty clear they made a profit from reading the top paragraph saying $3 per unit was the total cost, and the first block of numbers said they averaged $3.89 in payments. So, that's $0.89 x 85,000 profit. I figured the rest was a story leading up to a good punchline.
- Caerus 14y agoI ordered this pack and paid the default $5 by mistake (with a bit of laziness), and would bet quite a few others had the same experience. When ordering, you had to enter your amount before adding it to the cart, with $5 as the default. There wasn't an option to change it later that I could find. By the time I realized it couldn't be changed, I was through most of the ordering process and didn't feel like starting over. It would be interesting to see how much better they would have done with either a more intuitive checkout (assuming I missed an option) or had more options in the process.
- matthooks 14y agoDeveloper for the site here. We definitely talked about this in the post mortem. Do you have any specific changes that you would have made to make the process more clear?
- Caerus 14y agoI don't remember having any trouble with actually ordering the pack. I do remember trying to bump the payment to $10 and not being able to. Adding an option to change the amount paid during checkout or making it much more obvious if there was one may have helped your "haul".
- thomaslangston 14y agoNote that the humble bundle actually lets you increase your contribution "after" you've paid as well. They might be worth emulating there.
- Kerrick 14y agoSeparate shipping and billing addresses. My fiancee ordered a pack for $5, put in her credit card number, and put the address of the person she was buying it for in the shipping address slot. Then she realized there had been no place to put the billing address. Long story short, the credit card charge went through, the package did not get shipped, and she's in the middle of resolving the situation via email with somebody at CaH, hoping her giftee gets their gift.
- Breakthrough 14y agoLol best graph ever, "% of the chart that looks like Pacman"
- tlrobinson 14y agoReminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/688/ http://xkcd.com/688/
- joezhou 14y agoPlease at least open source the web design part next time so we can all contribute!
- MicahWedemeyer 14y agoIt seems like one takeaway is that a significant portion of people will just pay the default as stated, even if given a choice. I think people just have a hard time deciding what something is actually worth, so they'll take whatever advice is given. So, when pricing your products, if you're wondering if you should charge more, the default answer should be "Yes"
- npsimons 14y agoAs a customer, I support this thinking. Most people (at least in USA) are encouraging the race to the bottom by caring only about price, consequences be damned. But I can honestly say, after thinking about it, I can't really see a large number of cases where slightly higher price would be bad. As a merchant, you can take that money, use it to make your next generation of products better, pay a better wage, heck even paying your shareholders and management more would seem like a good use of that money to me (I personally don't object to CEO's getting paid more if they earn it; I object to unconditional golden parachutes, short term thinking, and the wealthiest paying less taxes than the poorest). Of course, I'm talking here about direct sales, where the margin is pretty thin; I think middle-men are unnecessary, and obscene markup for name brand or just because you can is egregious.
- ars 14y ago> Most people (at least in USA) are encouraging the race to the bottom by caring only about price, consequences be damned. Are you serious? People have cared mainly about price since the dawn of history. Obviously people have particular quality level they want, but once that's met if it's a tradeoff between quality and price, price virtually always wins.
- npsimons 14y agoFirstly, I limited it to USA because that's what I am familiar with. Secondly, please note the "consequences be damned" proviso, which flatly contradicts people having a quality level they want. What I've seen indicates to me that the quality of mass produced goods has steadily declined (at least in my lifetime), and the only benefit gained seems to have been a slightly lowered price. Market pressures, combined with the fact that most people don't really think long term, can easily explain this phenomenon. People will gladly pay $10 for a pair of shoes that will last a year, rather than $50 for a pair that will last 10 years.
- ececconi 14y agoCards Against Humanity did something pretty amazing for Humanity.
- ececconi 14y agoYou know I never thought too much about Cards Against Humanity before this, it always popped up as a best seller on Amazon but I didn't feel like giving it a whirl. This story alone, is making me very intrigued on what the game is like to play.
- andrewflnr 14y agoYou can get a pretty good idea from the home page, where the header shows sample card pairs. It looks very similar to "Apples to Apples", if you've played that.
- criley 14y agoIt's an adult version of Apples to Apples. Think MadLibs, except one player readers the "madlib" and the other players draw from their hand to answer. Example: "Alternative medicine is now embracing the curative powers of ______ " was read aloud in my group. I played the card that reads "Literally eating shit" and won the round, because the question reader liked my answer the most.
- pacaro 14y agoPlayed this for the first time on Saturday. I had the "Haiku, pick 3" black card which resulted in http://imgur.com/pcfgJ http://imgur.com/pcfgJ I was laughing so hard that I was crying, just trying to read them out loud.
- jmelloy 14y agoIs there a way to buy it without using Amazon?
- rickyconnolly 14y agoI really enjoy the flow and layout of this site. Is is a bootstrap derivative?
- Maxistentialist 14y agoNope, I made it by hand!
- rickyconnolly 14y agoLooks great. You know how to tread the fine line between 'minimal' and 'too minimal'
- vinhboy 14y agoI really enjoyed the comical way you displayed the data. Very well done.
- geetee 14y agoI would have tossed in a few extra bucks if I knew it was going to charity!
- qu4z-2 14y agoSo just donate a few bucks to charity...
- j45 14y agoCAH is one of the funniest and most enjoyable games I've ever played. I was shocked to discover it was pay what you want, and the cards were completely open to print for myself.
- IheartApplesDix 14y agoWhy did they not donate to Wayback Machine instead? Wikimedia is doing just fine and their fund raising is mostly for advertising and marketing. The site is at zero risk of running out of operating funds. Personally, I'd rather see money go to historic records than revisionist, popular encyclopedia. Source: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_Priorities http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_P... Last financial report: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_Reports/Financial_Statements_Ending_June_30_2012_and_2011 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_Reports/Financ...
- tptacek 14y agoBecause they already donated to Wikimedia. Two good times to recommend alternative charities: (i) on threads where people ask, "where should I donate my money", and (ii) on threads about disasters, when you have an opportunity to spur donations to targeted charities. You almost certainly didn't mean anything by this comment, but you generally want to avoid the appearance of litigating someone's good deed as a missed opportunity to do a better deed. Donations to Wikimedia are a good thing, worthy of congratulations.
- IheartApplesDix 14y agoCertainly, if I was in politics, I'd take your advice. I think it's fair to question where donations go and the decision process, even after the fact. There's always next year.
- kjackson2012 14y agoIt's not a fair question. It's a terrible question because every charity has their own merits, and any ensuing discussion is not fruitful and only causes conflict. What's makes it even worse is your self-righteous tone. Your unfair question basically boils down to "My worthy cause is more worthy than your worthy cause!"
- chc 14y ago
- xxpor 14y ago> We did all of the web design, etc. so these were free. That's not entirely true. Opportunity cost is still a huge cost.
- Goopplesoft 14y agoYeah but you don't quantify it after the decision is made (or the opportunity is chosen).
- achy 14y agoThey should have randomized the default value within a range that automatically narrowed / increased proportionally against the trending of people accepting the default. They could have optimized their return pretty quickly. 'Pay what you want' can be used for both publicity AND pricing optimization.
- gergles 14y agoArgh, I saw this two weeks ago, did a "remember to buy this when you get home" thing, and then forgot. I hope the expansion cards are made available somewhere. I enjoy CAH and am glad to send money as new bits are made available. It'd be interesting to see if the "pay what you want" strategy works for you guys a second time now that you released such detailed data. You'd think it might make people more likely to pay exactly your equilibrium point just to see if they can get away with it.
- thenonsequitur 14y agoI made a similar mistake. I saw it, but saw no clear way to post different addresses for shipping and billing. I asked if there was a way on their facebook page, figuring that if I got an answer explaining how, I would pay (was planning on a $10 payment actually), and than if I didn't get an answer, I would just opt for $0 payment and put in my shipping address. I then went about my business, completely forgot about the question I asked on facebook (because they never answered), and never ended up submitting the form. Oh well.
- kcwebz 14y agoThey need to change their name with all this awesome contributingness to Humanity... well Wikipedia anyway.. I'm sure its helped us all at one point or another.
- psc 14y agoWhat these stats don't show is how many people will go out and buy a full $25 set or have already done so. The expansion isn't particularly useful without the main set, so even if everyone paid $0, it would still probably be a good promotional tool. Plus the cards are awesome, I don't see how anyone could not want go out and buy the full set and the expansions after seeing this pack.
- limbo 14y agoIt seems that most people do not mind paying a bit more to great products, which is great news for individual businesses.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- grogenaut 14y agoIt'd be awesome to post the names of all of the freeloaders or just choose some random ones and put them on cards in an expansion pack to server as a warning to other "freeloaders".
- sesqu 14y agoIf you want to go that route, just don't offer your product for $0.
- mhb 14y agoLittle Monkey Caye (Caribbean island for $55K): http://www.caribbeanislandbrokers.com/islands-for-sale/Little-Monkey-Caye http://www.caribbeanislandbrokers.com/islands-for-sale/Littl...
- gregcohn 14y agohere's what it looks like at high tide: http://bit.ly/R2WTFc http://bit.ly/R2WTFc
- frozenport 14y agoIts not a real island unless you can go galt on it!
- RaphiePS 14y agoI wonder if they could have made more by using Humble Bundle's model of unlocking an extra if the buyer pays more than average. Keeps the attractive flexibility of pay-what-you-want, but actually incentivizes people to pay up.
- alexbosworth 14y ago$36,550 to the credit card companies against $70,066 profit?
- Zolt 14y agoIt’s a sad day: I am starting to realize I am old. I went to the website, saw it was a card game and thought I would learn more about it as I like card games. I play card games. I clicked on "How do I play Cards Against Humanity" under the "Your dumb questions" but quickly lost interest when I would have had to click on "Read the fucking rules" to learn more about the game. I get it... it is probably an edgy game... it probably is not for me. I guess I will never know as I just don’t want to "read the fucking rules". EDIT: Fixed typo.
- JimmaDaRustla 14y agoBurst out laughing at the cricket section! Read the comment, then scroll through all the crickets.