🚧these are quick notes I was doing when hear/read monetization related psychology discussion, every of these points over time will be converted to a dedicated blog post, also I expect the amount of notes to increase over time, but for now publishing them as it is felt better idea than just keep to myself in notekeeper🚧
smaller teams create more social pressure
- Coin Master’s latest event, Plant Buddies, introduces a new take on interaction-based mechanics, where players form up to four two-player teams, each with its own prize meter.
- Coin Master saw a remarkable 14% revenue increase over just nine days. This success mirrors similar events across other top casino apps like Monopoly GO! and Jackpot World, all of which have reported significant revenue boosts with the introduction of interaction events.
- Coin Master’s design puts more responsibility on individuals, fostering a sense of accountability and connectivity that has been missing in most mobile games.
- Unlike traditional larger team events, the smaller teams create multiple sources of social pressure and reliance to participate actively. Players fill meters by earning tokens through the base game and other concurrent events, making each spin count toward rewards. Reaching milestones along the way keeps engagement high, as smaller, achievable goals are more manageable and rewarding for players.
- With close-interaction mechanics continuing to prove their value, this approach is quickly becoming a key strategy for developers looking to boost both user engagement and long-term monetization.
at work – monetization like art or UI – everybody has his opinion
- how it can be better. what price point, what volume what frequency. especially it is hard when ppl who have more power tell you smth to change if you spend some time already. To counter it – be ready for this, have facts to counter it, do not argue when it is not a problem for the company (including you have other things to do) and communicate important things as much as possible, have deep reviews to change things when it is easy to change.
$0,99 is less painful than $1
- Set $0,99 instead of $1: such insignificant changes actually work. There is even research proving this point. Per this paper, scientists found out that when a person buys an overpriced product, the brain areas responsible for pain get activated. Reduced prices activate the area responsible for making decisions. Relieve your users’ pain by reducing the price and using odd numbers.
Add another “size of popcorn”
- Creating a correct product line can help you affect the user’s purchasing behavior. Imagine you went to the movies and wanted to buy some popcorn. A small one was $4, and a large one was $8. You would probably choose the small one. But if there was also a medium for $7, it would make the large one the most profitable option. This is how you can redirect the customer’s attention towards the medium and the large options as they become more advantageous compared to the small ones.
The Rule of a Hundred
- If there’s a discount for a product and it’s less than a hundred conventional units, set the discount as a percentage. If the price is more than a hundred conventional units, it would be better to set the price in a currency. In both cases, the user will choose the discount of a bigger value.
Give deals to players on a silver platter
- Modern people are used to ordering food, booking a trip, or even buying an apartment in one click. They expect the same from in-game purchases, and some users don’t even bother going to the store to choose something among multiple items. An offer is one of the few ways to successfully sell in-game goods. The user is literally handed an offer with a price tag on a silver platter, and then they make a decision on whether to make a purchase or not. A while ago, we were promoting a puzzle set, which helped to increase its conversion to purchases.
mental wallet
- if players used to spend 20$ per week, it is hard to make them spend more , or more frequently.
- in our case if we have hard currency only for a few years, and introduce boosters or heroes, if players used to buy HC, and spend 20$ on it, it is hard to convince some of them to spend more on new things, they can move their spendings from HC to new things, but add new spendings on top of the usual – it’s a challenge.
psychology of waste
- this podcast episode https://open.spotify.com/show/6XyddCZRrSTePvqIeIB8Ch around 30:00
- you want to use the cheapest premium action X that costs 60 gems
- the next cost 140 gems
- the lowest purchase gives you 100 gems
- you buy it but then you are left with 40 gems
- you feel it would be a waste to left these 40 gems unused or what is worse leave the game and forget about them
- so you buy another 100 gems now you have 140 gems and you can use next in line by cost premium action
- you 40 gems won’t be wasted, but the developer got 2 purchases instead of 1
- you can extend it by – using these 140 gems results in getting extra 40 gems for this action as a bonus
- so you now may need to buy 100 gems to use it
FOMO – fear of missing out
- time limited with timer
- x per server with number left indicator
- highlighting progress of others
price sensitivity (sweet spot)
- May 9th Apple price changes – add localization
- This update from Apple shows that they finally understood that price sensitivity (sweet spot) based on fixed price points is a flawed concept. Behavioral Economics confirms that the sweet spot isn’t a price point but a price range (within a range, customers perceive different price points as being the same). Proof of this is that the price increases in the EU did not cause customers to buy less.
Feedly pro vs pro+ subscription trick
price anchoring
- Â user registers
- sees starter pack or sale with huge discount
- Â buys it, feels great because of the deal
- Â but then all the following deals are not that great anymore
-  so he won’t buy until another similar great dial is around
-  and if big deals are not part of constant schedule than he won’t buy
- Â its like me and udemy courses
- Â or its like me and lidl meat discounts
- Â but then, there is this article that says ignore it
Why Free-to-Play Apps Can Ignore the Old Rules About Cutting Prices