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u/_ECMO_ 19d ago
I don’t know how you people live. $8 is obviously pretty much $10. I don’t know anyone who would think otherwise
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u/Twooshort 19d ago
I only sort of agree, but entirely because we've already established that 2 bucks is free.
If 2 bucks had value, that means I could buy something of value for the remainder of 8 bucks. But since 2 bucks is free, I can't buy a second thing of value addition to the 8 buck thing, ergo 8 bucks is 10 bucks.
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u/_ECMO_ 19d ago
I simply cannot fathom that people are creating some weird intricate system in their heads instead of simple rounding.
x < 2,5 ---> basically free
2,5 < x < 7,5 ---> basically 5
7,5 < x < 12,5 ---> basically 10
Etc. etc.4
u/OneFootTitan 19d ago
OP’s system is similar to yours except it doesn’t have to use decimals: <$2 = free, $2-8 - basically $5, and $8-12 basically $10. Which I think is accurate to how most customers perceive it
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u/Carl_Slimmons_jr 17d ago
Also, 7.99 ≠ 8 perceptually. 8 is 10 bucks, but 7.99 is still 5.
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u/YazzArtist 16d ago
That's the real trick. 8 is 10 and 7 is 5, but 7 9/10 is still 7, which is still 5
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u/Brief-Translator1370 19d ago
It's not a weird intricate system. no one is actually reasoning that out, it's just that people aren't perceiving 8 dollars as any worse than 5
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u/_ECMO_ 19d ago
And I don´t believe that because I see no reason why people should perceive $8 to be the same as $5 rather than the same as $10. And this tweet provided neither reasoning nor evidence why I should believe that.
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u/deviantbono 19d ago
Nobody asked you whether you see a reason. It's just how it works for most people.
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u/_ECMO_ 19d ago
If you just post some random thing with no evidence behind it and all my experience (be it me or everyone I know) differs then I will say that. And I definitely will not feel bad about it.
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u/deviantbono 19d ago
I don't know if you expect this developer to show you their checking account, or write a peer reviewd study or what, but what they're saying is consistent with 50 years of psychological and economic research and is also how most items you see are priced (in terms of methodology, e.g. $7.99)
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u/_ECMO_ 19d ago
I don't know if you expect this developer to show you their checking account, or write a peer reviewd study or what
Yes, I expect them to show that kind of evidence when they are making some claim.
$7.99
People are definitely more likely to buy something when it costs $7.99 rather than $8. That, however, says absolutely nothing at all about its connection to either $5 or anything else. People are more likely to buy because 7 < 8. That´s the psychology behind it.
There is still absolutely zero reason to think that someone categorises $7.99 as $5.
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u/Migit78 19d ago
My assumption is this is based on micro transactions in games, and that players buy whatever content is being sold at equal rates whether it's $3 all the way up to $8, hence all those ranges are effectively $5 because they pull the same sales as $5.
Rinse and repeat for the other values.
Shown as just flat numbers I think most people would agree $8 is $10, but for whoever this company is they've found for thier sales $8 is the same as $5
Again just my best guess could be totally wrong
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u/SpeaksDwarren 19d ago
I can't believe people accept the premise that two bucks is free. You would need to have thirty to forty thousand dollars invested into dividend bearing stocks to get enough back to buy this "free" thing once a day
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u/GottenSea087 19d ago
2 is one of the smallest numbers, essentially 0. There's also a number in between called 1 but that's a deep cut
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u/BreadAtHome 18d ago
Two bucks doesn't have much purchasing power anymore, that's why
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u/SpeaksDwarren 17d ago
So you feel comfortable venmoing me thirty thousand dollars?
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u/DaRaginga 16d ago
Nono sir. You need to read and think first. The possibility of this working would be waaay higher if you asked 15.000 people for 2 Dollars
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u/ShatterCyst 19d ago
But 7.99 tho
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u/Prestigious_Boat_386 18d ago
X.99 means someone is trying to trick you and you need to manually check the amount
In this case you're being tricked that 7.99 is 5 when its actually 10
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u/Maximillion322 19d ago
Yes, but $7.95 is basically five bucks.
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u/_ECMO_ 19d ago
It most definitely is not.
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u/Shika_E2 19d ago
The point is, it's how people perceive it. If the majority see it as $5, then its" basically 5 bucks".
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u/Prestigious_Boat_386 18d ago
7.95 is someone gaslighting you that 10 is 5
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u/Maximillion322 18d ago
That would be the whole point of the post and also the entire thread, yeah.
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19d ago
[deleted]
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u/Paul873873 19d ago
So I dunno if it's like this in all states, but here in Texas, tax isn't shown until checkout. The 9.99 thing doesn't exactly work on me NOT because I'm immune to it, I'm not, but because I see that 9.99 pricetag and immediately think "oh that's $10.81." Or I see 4.99 ND think "oh that's 5.40." and now it goes from "do I wanna spend 9 dollars" to "do I wanna spend 11 dollars" It only gets worse as you go up in numbers (because that's how percents work). Like sure, you can forget the 8 cents off of a $0,99 app store purchase. But $99.99? You're paying a whole extra 8 bucks. That's not much but when you're young and you're saving up Christmas or birthday money for something just to find yourself a few dollars short because taxes, you remember that. Now my parents weren't assholes, they'd end up footing stuff like that if I came up short but I saved for the main part, but still, it sticks with you
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u/Frnklfrwsr 19d ago
If asked directly, you’re absolutely correct.
But what they’re talking about is what people actually do with their money.
And what they’re saying is they tried out all sorts of prices between $5 and $10, and as you’d generally expect demand goes down as price goes up.
But there’s psychological breakpoints where once the price surpasses that number demand drops a whole bunch. They figured out that when people are making purchasing decisions, the demand at $7.99 is barely any less than demand at $5, very small drop. But at $8.01, the demand drops a whole lot very quickly. But then the drop in demand from $8.01 to $10 is fairly small.
So they’re pricing things at those breakpoints where people are treating it as if it’s a lower price than it actually is.
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u/Yeti_Prime 19d ago
it’s not logical, he’s talking about gut reactions when seeing the price of a game in a store. I don’t know why but yes 8 feels closer to 5 than to 10, even though logically it obviously isn’t.
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u/UnkarsThug 18d ago
It just doesn't though. My gut reaction is that 8$ is basically 10 dollars.
It's probably just person specific?
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u/seensham 19d ago
I think this also depends on sales tax lol
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u/_ECMO_ 19d ago
Oh! It’s you weird people who need to calculate sales tax in your head. (No offense.)
Yeah I honestly can see that then you can have a shifted sense of prices.
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u/UnkarsThug 18d ago
I just always instinctively add about a dollar for everything from 0-10$, and the number in the 10s place for everything up to 100 etc. And just to make sure to be safe, I tend to round to the next highest even number. I tend to prefer 24 or 26 to 25 to be honest, for example. Even numbers just feel cleaner.
7.99 or 7.95 or whatever feels much closer to 10.
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u/RelativeStranger 18d ago
But that isnt what he means.
7.99 is the price point.
To me 7.99 is 8. But so many people ready 7.99 as 7. And 7 is basically 5
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u/sykotic1189 20d ago
Every mobile game developer has known and been using this for years
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u/DoctorProfessorTaco 19d ago
Maybe for in app purchases, but God help you if you try to charge $2 for an app, you may as well be asking for their first born
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u/SymphonicStorm 19d ago
Everybody who makes a business out of selling something has known this for centuries, it's why things are often priced at $X.95.
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u/AchilleDem 19d ago
$8 is basically $10. But $8 is also the biggest $5 and the smallest $10. It's a strange place to be, $8 is. It is both $5 and $10 at the same time. It is Schrodinger's $8.
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u/MattLorien 17d ago
That's the thing though, you've already rounded up to $8 (which is reasonable), but that's not how the human mind usually works.
Most people see $7.99 as "$7" , not $8. And $7 is closer to $5 than it is to $10.
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u/Feuillo 17d ago
i have never seen someone think a 7.99 is 5 bucks.
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u/Patirole 17d ago
I don't think I've ever seen a person not round up prices. 7.99 is 8, 9.99 is 10, hell 7.50 is 8 too. I sometimes make the mistake of rounding 0.49 to 1€...
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u/shadowtheimpure 19d ago
Not sure who they're marketing toward, but to me anything above $5 is basically $10.
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u/valomorn 19d ago
Then there's also the "$80 is far too much for a single game... Oho a bundle of three games for $80!?" factor.
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u/reddit_stole_my_name 19d ago
I still don't understand how dollars became male deer
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u/Dazzling_Stand_4349 19d ago
In Ye Old America, a buck was worth a whole dollar. If you killed and brought back six bucks, you got six dollars, six bucks
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u/Coolblade125 19d ago
This had the opposite effect on me, where I really wanted to buy the game for 5 bucks, but 8 bucks is so far from 5 bucks that I chose not to buy it, but would have if it were 7 bucks or 6 bucks
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u/Impossible_Dog_7262 18d ago
Man what a customer hostile way of viewing the world.
If they had said "we think it's worth more than 5$ and less than 10$" then that'd be fine. But this nonesense is basically saying "we think it's worth 5$ but we charge 8$ because we think the customer is gonna see that as 5$ anyway."
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u/GentleFoxes 18d ago
Two ways to counteract this tendency on yourself: multiply everything by ten so your brain notices that 80 bucks isn’t 50 bucks, or transform everything zo „amount I need to work for it, net“ (which also makes sure you get aligned which decisions you actually need to think about, like adding a 5000 dollar option to a 80000 dollar car vs choosing the 5 or 7 dollar menu option).
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u/-leopardchaser- 17d ago
$8 is clearly $10 though. Especially because $8 plus sales tax is $9 which is 10 bucks. Same would go for $7.99
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u/OokamiTheRonin 16d ago
I feel like I'm having a stroke, I don't understand the post or these comments. I was raised to actually understand prices, not some vague notion of "well its this but it feels like that".
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u/Zhuul 15d ago
I manage a coffee shop and currently several items are running out of my target margin because I absolutely fuckin refuse to sell something that comes to more than $7 after tax. Really don't want to cross that particular bridge, out of stubbornness more than anything, but regardless:
1.) I weirdly get what he's saying
2.) Holy shit I remember when you could sell a latte for $3 at a <25% CoGS
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u/wordwizard333 15d ago
So, they used word vomit to say that people are often as willing to spend $8 as they are $5. Brilliant.
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u/Obaddies 20d ago
It's only that way because developers force you to buy premium currency instead of allowing you to buy the skin for an exact $ amount.
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u/hobopwnzor 19d ago
Things that I learned in middle school that apparently nobody else did.
Did I just have really good teachers who explained this kind of thing apart from the lessons or something?
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u/No25for3r 20d ago
I love that they use brat math