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Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want"

cardsagainsthumanity.com

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Re: Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want"

#101
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine more people might have paid if you made the default $3.99. $1.99 is practically zero, so people may consider it less of a difference.

Agreed. I considered having it show various different values at random to do testing on the payments received when users are presented with them, but honestly there just wasn't enough data to pull that off and make it worthwhile. I think my total sales were <40 (downloads were in the tens of thousands, IIRC).

I would be interested to see data from the Humble Bundles on pay-what-you-want pricing. They seem to have done things over the past few sales that have resulted in higher averages.

Re: Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want"

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly, 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.

It'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!"

I think you're reading way to much into this. You probably shouldn't be making any technical decisions if you're going to take every bit of advice personally.

Re: Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want"

#103
post #2

I 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 :)

I'm surprised at those people too. Almost 20%. I would not have thought it to be such a high number.

Re: Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want"

#104
post #47
post #2

I 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 :)

You 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.

I 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.

Re: Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want"

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But surely your time was worth something. Isn't that the first lesson of running a business -- pay yourself first?

If you're doing something you really love, money is just a side effect.

Loving what you do never bought groceries. So the actual answer has to be 'I have enough money from other sources to live on'.

Re: Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want"

#106
post #76

It 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"

So, a couple months back I released a WebGL Enabler for iOS with a pay-what-you-want model: http://demoseen.com/webglenabler/ I keep meaning to write a blog post about the results, but ~99.5% of people paid $0. Of the people who paid, probably around 50% paid the $1.99 I had as default, but what's really interesting to me is the way people priced it if they changed the value. I got a number of payments for amounts li…

I think more people would pay something instead of nothing if the default price was higher, eg if it was a $50 default those that paid $0 would be more inclined to even pay $1 because the value is percieved to be more. However, id like to see it tested.

Re: Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want"

#107
post #76

It 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"

So, a couple months back I released a WebGL Enabler for iOS with a pay-what-you-want model: http://demoseen.com/webglenabler/ I keep meaning to write a blog post about the results, but ~99.5% of people paid $0. Of the people who paid, probably around 50% paid the $1.99 I had as default, but what's really interesting to me is the way people priced it if they changed the value. I got a number of payments for amounts li…

I'm not sure if you considered this and your payment model made that easy or even possible, but I would guess that many people would like to try it first without paying anything and after that, they would pay whatever they think it is worth for them.

I would have done this. And if there wouldn't be an easy way later on to pay/donate, I would have just leave it unpaid.

Re: Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want"

#108
post #7

Interesting. 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).

It 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.

Why 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.

Re: Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want"

#109
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You 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.

I 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.

Life 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.

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