Artificial Scarcity and Emotional Manipulation

The recent poll about daily rewards and other related cosmetic discussions have led me to delve a bit into the nature of artificial scarcity and the manipulative nature of withholding as a means of encouraging someone to do something. I've had many, many, words run through my head in regards to the topic (that in part kept me up last night) but in an effort to remain civil I shall be succinct.

I find the use of a monthly deadline to encourage people to give money, relatively speaking 'Right Now', to a game (that is only in alpha) rather than giving a reasonable time for love and appreciation to blossom into a heart of giving, to be emotionally manipulative.

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Heruwolf

@maouw Don't get me wrong. A cosmetic store IS the better option compared to Lootbox, gacha and P2W options. I've also said previously that I would have no issues with the monthly cosmetics in a store if the game was actually released. But this looks like a studio that is trying to make up money that it has yet to spend despite having full funding for the game. Which while, yes, is a good business decision, looks scummy.

Caeryl

Noaani wrote: »

mcstackerson wrote: »

Isn't it also emotional manipulation if they make something you think looks cool and would like to buy? they are manipulating you into wanting something by making it visually appealing to you.

By the reckoning in this thread, Intrepid making a game that people wanting to play, thus requiring them to pay a subscription is emotional manipulation.

You’re being intentionally dense. Selling a service per-month that gets constant upkeep is far different than selling a “Only this month! Get it now or miss out! Limited time!” offer.

You cannot be honest if you try to insist that both are being sold at face value. FOMO raises prices past their worth, it raises prices out of fear, its literal purpose is to convince people on the fence to shell out the money they otherwise wouldn’t if it was something they could buy at another time.

There are seminars on taking advantage of human psychology to maximize profits, and FOMO (flavor of the month/fear of missing out) tactics are very high on the list of manipulative practices that are used to increase revenue. It’s not a theory either, Steven publicly said the limited time was to increase sales.

Certainly it isn’t the worst evil, but it’s dishonest to claim it isn’t a manipulative practice.

Warth

FOMO is just a poor man's excuse for his lack of self control.
It's easier to blame the evil corporations for the inability to keep your hands of the cake rather than facing the fact that the lacking self control and psychosis over potentially missing out on something unimportant should be worked on.

Noaani

Heruwolf wrote: »

The largest problem I have is that as Maezriel stated the shop has so far been in every stage of development. Intrepid is literally selling in game items for a game that is years from release and that may not ever release.

I agree with this, but only just.

Intrepid did say a while ago that people should look at the *supporter* packs as just that, something you buy to support Intrepid. They have said a few times that this should be your primary reason for buying a supporter pack.

An argument absolutely could be made about them continuing to introduce new cosmetics when the idea was to support them rather than get cosmetics, as could one be made about them not highlighting the above point on the shop itself, but as far as I am concerned, those two things are literally the only scope for complaining that we have.

When you look at those two points, and contrast them to other games, complaining about them does seem quite petty.

Caeryl

Warth wrote: »

FOMO is just a poor man's excuse for his lack of self control.
It's easier to blame the evil corporations for the inability to keep your hands of the cake rather than facing the fact that the lacking self control and psychosis over potentially missing out on something unimportant should be worked on.

Bruh these tactics were designed to get people to buy things when they otherwise wouldn’t, for prices higher than they would if it wasn’t limited. Steven himself said that is why he went with limited time sales, to increase the likelihood that people would buy them. It’s not some conspiracy, it is literally the purpose of these marketing decisions.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

mcstackerson wrote: »

Isn't it also emotional manipulation if they make something you think looks cool and would like to buy? they are manipulating you into wanting something by making it visually appealing to you.

By the reckoning in this thread, Intrepid making a game that people wanting to play, thus requiring them to pay a subscription is emotional manipulation.

You’re being intentionally dense. Selling a service per-month that gets constant upkeep is far different than selling a “Only this month! Get it now or miss out! Limited time!” offer.

That particular "point" I made was in relation to the completely rediculous definition (or lack thereof) that people were trying to apply to the term "emotional manipulation".

It was them that said that anything a company does that manipulates (ie, alters) anyones emotions is emotional manipulation. Since want is an emotion (desire), that means any company that creates any product that people want is - by their definition - emotionally manipulating people.

It wasn't me being dense, it was me pointing out the arguments others in this thread were making.

And for the record, I totally agree that it is a stupid argument, which is why I wasn't making it.

There is absolutely scope for emotional marketing. I am not debating this. It is a thing, it's fine.

However, emotional manipulation is also a thing. If you google emotional advertising, you will get information on it, examples of it, why companies do it, etc. If you google emotional manipulation, you will get information on how to spot if you or a loved one are in a relationship that is emotionally manipulative.

As terms, these two SHOULD NEVER BE CONFUSED. Emotional manipulation is a thing. It is it's own thing. It is a bad thing. There are ways of manipulating emotions that are positive, or that are morally neutral, and these should never be confused with the term emotional manipulation.

This is how if you are sitting in your living room watching Netflix with the AC on, you probably shouldn't call that "Netflix and Chill", even though that is literally exactly what you are doing.

Warth

Caeryl wrote: »

Warth wrote: »

FOMO is just a poor man's excuse for his lack of self control.
It's easier to blame the evil corporations for the inability to keep your hands of the cake rather than facing the fact that the lacking self control and psychosis over potentially missing out on something unimportant should be worked on.

Bruh these tactics were designed to get people to buy things when they otherwise wouldn’t, for prices higher than they would if it wasn’t limited. Steven himself said that is why he went with limited time sales, to increase the likelihood that people would buy them. It’s not some conspiracy, it is literally the purpose of these marketing decisions.

@Caeryl feel free to post a clip of Steven saying that.

Because everything i heard from him since 2017 was tge exact opposite

Nerror

Warth wrote: »

@Caeryl feel free to post a clip of Steven saying that.

Because everything i heard from him since 2017 was tge exact opposite

https://youtu.be/JH-sX1aFljM?t=3646

Around the 1 hour mark.

I want to incentivize purchase in the cosmetic shop for sustainability of what expansions we have intended, since we are not a box cost. I want to incentivize purchase by offering limited items: limited time, limited quantity, so you have confidence that when you purchase them, they won't be offered later on in some other way.

https://sleeknote.com/blog/fomo-marketing
FOMO works on everyone. Not for the same things of course, or sub-tactics, but trying brush it off as a poor people's excuse is... a nice term would be "extremely wrong and misguided".

Edit: When I said "everyone", I meant with somewhat normal mental health. There are probably some mental disorders out there that resist FOMO. Maybe psychopathy? I don't think psychopaths feel fear the same way.

mcstackerson

Ok, what other way would you recommend giving value to these cosmetics pre-launch?

Without a game, cosmetics have no value. If the game was out, you would be able to use the cosmetic as soon as you buy it but since it's not, there is no reason to buy cosmetics.

If you believe ALL FOMO marketing is bad then is kickstarter and all crowdfunding sites that give rewards to backers bad? What about steam sales? Temporary sales are FOMO marketing, do you think all temporary sales are bad. What about limited time events in games that have limited time rewards? That's technically FOMO, are all of those bad?

Is it wrong for them to reward players for taking a risk and supporting their development before they have finished it?

Nerror

mcstackerson wrote: »

Ok, what other way would you recommend giving value to these cosmetics pre-launch?

Without a game, cosmetics have no value. If the game was out, you would be able to use the cosmetic as soon as you buy it but since it's not, there is no reason to buy cosmetics.

If you believe ALL FOMO marketing is bad then is kickstarter and all crowdfunding sites that give rewards to backers bad? What about steam sales? Temporary sales are FOMO marketing, do you think all temporary sales are bad. What about limited time events in games that have limited time rewards? That's technically FOMO, are all of those bad?

Is it wrong for them to reward players for taking a risk and supporting their development before they have finished it?

My take:

This is definitely not a black and white issue. There are gray areas and nuance and degrees to this. Temporary or seasonal sales aren't bad IMO, because they work on price rather than availability of the product. I wish that's how they decided to do the cash shop instead. Big sale the month the new cosmetics are released, and then normal price after that. They can't do that retroactively, sure, but going forward they can do whatever they want pretty much.

For limited time goods it depends, are they recurring or one-off things? How often do these time limited offers occur? Can the items be traded after the fact, like they can in real life?

A game with a recurring winter event might have cosmetics exclusive to that event. If people miss out, they'll have to wait a year to access them again. I personally have no problem with that.

If the winter event has exclusives that people can only get that year, and next year they have different exclusive cosmetics, I like it a lot less. The only mitigating factor is if it's just one event that year, and not a constant thing.

I am still only talking about the cash shop here. If the items are exclusive to an achievement tied to an ingame event, where the players had to complete said event, I feel differently about this. It's more ok to have exclusive stuff earned through ingame means in seasonal events, I think.

What the current cash shop is doing is non-stop, back-to-back, one-time only, non-tradable cosmetics, with no way to get variants of the same cosmetics later on in the game. For years. That's a bit much.

But even that wasn't a huge deal for me until Steven proposed adding the same fomo system tied to daily login rewards. People having to log in 30 days a month to be able to get an exclusive, one-time only, non-tradable cosmetic. Every single month for the entirety of the game. That would be disastrous for the game.

Caeryl

mcstackerson wrote: »

Ok, what other way would you recommend giving value to these cosmetics pre-launch?

Without a game, cosmetics have no value. If the game was out, you would be able to use the cosmetic as soon as you buy it but since it's not, there is no reason to buy cosmetics.

If you believe ALL FOMO marketing is bad then is kickstarter and all crowdfunding sites that give rewards to backers bad? What about steam sales? Temporary sales are FOMO marketing, do you think all temporary sales are bad. What about limited time events in games that have limited time rewards? That's technically FOMO, are all of those bad?

Is it wrong for them to reward players for taking a risk and supporting their development before they have finished it?

The value should come from whether people like the aesthetic of the items or not, if they would want to use them. Value should never be sourced from artificial exclusivity. People will buy $25 skins whether they’re limited or not, just look at League of Legends, or FFXIV, or WoW, or ESO. Buying these packs is not ”being rewarded” in any way, especially at this stage. They simply bought a product, maybe one they would’ve bought anyway, but definitely one that’s limited availability played a role in their decision. These are not exhaustible resources being offered. An infinite number of these designs can exist in the game with no additional cost to Intrepid, so they should all remain in the store indefinitely, or on a cycling basis. These are the most respectful ways to approach a cash shop.

I’ve already said, as have many others, that not all FOMO is malicious, but all FOMO tactics revolve around getting more (money, time, goods) without any additional investment of resources. So while temporary sales, launch pricing, and timed events fall into the broad category, they are not malicious. However, monthly retiring cosmetics for an unfinished (yet unplayable) game tied into a pre-purchase of $300+ dollars, sold much higher and with more frequency than they would of they simply stayed in the store or cycled through regularly, is what I would consider malicious FOMO tactics.

Kickstarter is toeing a fine line and I would actually call the practice unsound in general. Between the asset flips, false promises, investing with no (or very little) tangible return, people who dip with their funds never to be seen again. It’s a system extremely prone to abuses.

On top of all of this, the basic point is, if it was about supporting the game, why make the items limited at all? Someone will want to buy an older design for the same price as a newer one, there’s no loss there for Intrepid. What benefit does the monthly time window bring to players? It doesn’t endear new supporters to see a cash shop existing for an incomplete game. There’s no pride to be had in “I paid for this” as opposed to a cosmetic earned via skill/time/dedication within the game. Your argument alone shows how these marketing methods are manipulative, they’ve got you paying for exclusivity rather than the design being offered. If you say cosmetics have no value without a game, then you’ve acknowledged that (to you) their full price is about the limited availability.

Noaani

Nerror wrote: »

FOMO works on everyone. Not for the same things of course, or sub-tactics, but trying brush it off as a poor people's excuse is... a nice term would be "extremely wrong and misguided".

Edit: When I said "everyone", I meant with somewhat normal mental health. There are probably some mental disorders out there that resist FOMO. Maybe psychopathy? I don't think psychopaths feel fear the same way.

I disagree with you here.

I only know two or three people that it works on. I know more people that are unlikely to buy something because they are willing to wait for a better version or better deal than I know that are likely to buy a thing because it is only on offer for a limited time.

In my opinion, people with - as you say - "normal mental health" would never ascribe the word "need" to a cosmetic only purchase in an MMO, regardless of its production state. Not that everyone going after cosmetics is like this, but there are many that are that do.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

Your argument alone shows how these marketing methods are manipulative, they’ve got you paying for exclusivity rather than the design being offered. If you say cosmetics have no value without a game, then you’ve acknowledged that (to you) their full price is about the limited availability.

You are forgetting the detail of support from both sides of this argument. To me, that is what any purchase st this point is about - supporting the game. I own cosmetics that I know full well I will never use, I bought them to support Intrepid - that is their value to me.

In return, Intrepid have said that only people that supported them equally early will ever have that specific cosmetic, which is cool as it means that when the game is out I can see people that supported the game early as I did.

As I've been saying, the issues only come up when people stop looking at these supporter packs as a way to support Intrepid, and instead treat them like the actual in game cosmetics shop.

Asgerr

As I keep coming back to this thread what I keep noticing is:

The idea that because you liked a product you were too late to buy, you feel you are entitled to have it one way or another.
If it is to coerce it out of the company by calling their marketing strategy, emotionally manipulative or predatory, then you do that.

I work in IT support for some big tech company's hardware products. Some customers call in a month after a promotion is over and yell at me for not being allowed to have access to that promotion. They refuse to accept that we can't just change the rules we set for ourselves and everyone else. It has to be possible *just* for them

This is what this sounds like. Entitlement to something that will ultimately have zero impact on your gameplay experience and life overall.
And if you claim it will. Then you, my friend, have a problem that requires therapy. And I don't say that lightly. I had a friend who was like this and it came from a deep rooted issue in his childhood.

Nerror

Your anecdotal evidence is pretty useless. I'll take science over that any day. FOMO tactics are proven to work on most people. The term may be relatively new, but the tactics are as old as humanity.

Noaani wrote: »

In my opinion, people with - as you say - "normal mental health" would never ascribe the word "need" to a cosmetic only purchase in an MMO, regardless of its production state. Not that everyone going after cosmetics is like this, but there are many that are that do.

Nobody said anything about "need". Don't move the goalposts please.

Noaani wrote: »

As I've been saying, the issues only come up when people stop looking at these supporter packs as a way to support Intrepid, and instead treat them like the actual in game cosmetics shop.

Completely wrong. I buy packs to support the development, full well recoqnising and disliking the manipulative methods they are using to increase sales. By their own admission too. What part of Steven saying "I want to incentivize purchase by offering limited items: limited time, limited quantity" is so hard to understand. It's a FOMO tactic by definition. Saying it's not a part of FOMO tactics is as ridiculous as saying "gouda isn't cheese". It's not based on reality or logic for sure.

Heruwolf

Noaani wrote: »

You are forgetting the detail of support from both sides of this argument. To me, that is what any purchase st this point is about - supporting the game. I own cosmetics that I know full well I will never use, I bought them to support Intrepid - that is their value to me.

If it's support they are looking for, why not just have these cosmetics be out permanently? I'd buy some of them. If it's support why can't I buy them individually? Why do I have to buy a large pack of theoretically useless items to support a game that I may or may not like in the future? Why can't I buy snail-boi? Why can't I buy the wolf pup? Why can't I buy the wolf-drawn sleigh?

Asgerr wrote: »

Entitlement to something that will ultimately have zero impact on your gameplay experience and life overall.
And if you claim it will.

To claim that you know what will and will not have impact on my gameplay experience is extremely high-horse of you. Collectors lives won't realistically change if they don't get to purchase something they've been trying to collect, but they will have an emotional response if they can't get the item. You don't get to decide what people get enjoyment out of, and you especially don't get to decide if something will or will not impact someone's life. I worked for a large telecommunication company, and I know all about the "new customer promotions" that current customers get no access to. I understand the reasoning behind these sales tactics. Hell, I understand the sales tactics that Intrepid is employing. My complaint here is that people in this thread want to talk about how the shop is solely for support and it's primary purpose is for support, but I'm sorry, that's BS. If it's for support they would have everything be available with specific support packages that only give access to the testing phases with MAYBE a specific cosmetic to show off that you supported and had access to early testing phases. Instead the shop requires you to buy a package of multiple cosmetics that you may not like just to be able to buy future packages ala-carte.

A much better setup would be to have all cosmetics available for purchases and have thresholds of money spent to get into the testing phases so that the barrier to entry is the same so that the quality of testing is still good. Or as I said above multiple packages of never changing cosmetics that specifically show that you had access to the testing phases.

The current setup is very obviously the use of a FOMO tactic to get money for "future development" for a game that's not even out yet. Which screams money-grab!

Noaani

Nerror wrote: »

Your anecdotal evidence is pretty useless. I'll take science over that any day. FOMO tactics are proven to work on most people. The term may be relatively new, but the tactics are as old as humanity.

I'm not saying they aren't, I am saying they do not work on everyone.

People that are able to suppress impulse don't suffer from it.

I work with people with a rational mindset bu necessity, and opt to associate with similar people almost exclusively outside of work. As such, no one I know is overly susceptible to FOMO.

You may well be, I neither know nor care. I am simply plpointing out the fallacy of the statement that everyone is susceptible to it.

Kuldjux

Is this the right room for an argument?

Heruwolf

I wouldn't really call it an argument, more so a debate. There is a very fine line there though, imo. Is this the place for a debate? Absolutely.

Noaani wrote: »

Nerror wrote: »

Your anecdotal evidence is pretty useless. I'll take science over that any day. FOMO tactics are proven to work on most people. The term may be relatively new, but the tactics are as old as humanity.

I'm not saying they aren't, I am saying they do not work on everyone.

People that are able to suppress impulse don't suffer from it.

I work with people with a rational mindset bu necessity, and opt to associate with similar people almost exclusively outside of work. As such, no one I know is overly susceptible to FOMO.

You may well be, I neither know nor care. I am simply plpointing out the fallacy of the statement that everyone is susceptible to it.

So basically what you are saying is that you're a minority and very picky about your friends? Cool, so this doesn't effect you. We aren't talking about whether or not it effects you specifically, we are talking about whether or not this is healthy for this game. We are also talking about whether or not they are intentionally using these tactics, which as stated in the PAX 2018 video, they are, and they know they are, and they're not shy about it. The fact is, it's scummy, and at first glance, I'll be honest, this entire game looks like a scam. Now when you dig deeper and you see the amount of work that has been put into it and watch all the videos and look over the wiki, you can realize that it's not. However, at first glance, and first impressions especially for an MMO are wildly important, it looks like a scam.

Fallacy's aside, business would not use these tactics if they didn't work. Let's get back to the matter at hand, and potentially come up with solutions that we can agree are less predatory.

Songcaller

I can't help but feel we have an old argument ongoing.

We had this debate over Apoc. We are now having the same debate over The Shop. If The Shop wasn't present, perhaps we'd have the argument over the access points. You aren't forced to comply with anything IS has done or will do. You have freedom of choice. You have freedom of will.

Until we have a solid product viable and playable anything can change whether or not we will be playing Ashes of Creation. The matter will be different for us all. We have been brought together because of IS and Ashes of Creation. We all accepted the terms by which we have arrived here. Some have bought packages, some bought kick-starter, some have bought skins and some haven't bought skins.

If you do not like a certain practice, then do not condone the practice. You can't cease a practice because some people appreciate the practice. It is not one size fits all. The argument is a microcosm right now because we have nothing tangible to relate to. The truth remains that most of the cosmetics will be out-classed by in game rewards and transmogs in the long term. Perhaps we should use the short term to go around in circles or perhaps we shouldn't go around in circles at all.

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