Boiling the frog

Probably many of you have heard of a classic experiment. They say if you throw a live frog into boiling water, the frog will jump out immediately and survive. However, if you put the frog into cold water, and warm it up slowly, the frog will not jump out and gets boiled eventually. I'm not sure if this experiment would work in practice, but it is a classic example to model human behaviour.

Why do I bring this up? Because Wartune is a master of boiling us like a frog. I remember when I started playing Wartune. I was excited that I don't have to spend money, I can get everything, just a bit slower - except for the pretty wings. Then, after some weeks, when I knew I like the game, I made my first recharge to buy a pair of wings. In a game like this, making the customer to do the first recharge is always the most difficult task. It must be always a small sum - 5 USD is just perfect as the weekly tempting recharge bonuses suggest.

After you recharged 5 USD a few times, you will be confident to make a bigger one - 10, 20 or 40 USD, if there are some tempting sales. You spend 10-50 USD monthly, and you still playing. And, after like a half year, you say, gee, I already spent over 100 USD! So making a 100 USD recharge now looks more reasonable. Time passes, and there comes the big mega-ultra recharge promotion, for 500 or 1000 USD, offering treasures beyond your dreams - and you don't even have to spend it, you get this huge bonus pack for recharging! And since you recharged 50-100 USD several times, you say: I will play for a year more, I would recharge this amount eventually anyway. Of course, after you have the balens, they disappear much faster; not like when you have to touch your credit card each time when there is a sale. And, you get boiled, like a frog.

The first year (10 months) when I played Wartune, I spent an average of 70 USD monthly (10-20 only first months, more later). When our server merged in 2013, they put up a recharge bonus of 500 USD. I said it's too much money, so I passed. In the next 7-8 months, I spent that amount, and told myself, it was a mistake not to do the recharge, I lost all the bonuses. So when the next merge came around in 2014, I was ready to be boiled: I made the 500 USD recharge. Saying myself, this will be enough for another half year at least. Of course I was wrong, a gadzillion of big spender events started to follow, and the 50.000 balens disappeared in 2 months, making my monthly spending increase from 70 to 250: so the game became more expensive - due to a „good offer”. What a paradox situation...

My blog is about how to build a strong character using a minimal amount of balens: but this „minimal” is quite relative thing :) As things get cheaper and cheaper, as you got bigger and bigger bonuses and more sales, it is harder and harder to resist. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you could see that I say „don't buy” to 9 sales/promotions out of 10. But sales became so common, there is always one which is just too good to refuse. And then we begin finding excuses: „I can afford it”, „Others spent more”, „I am a god on my server for this price” etc.

When I started playing Wartune, my friend told me: „Wartune is a game where you can spend an unlimited amount of money. But still, whenever you buy balens, always think of the possibility that you can quit tomorrow. Will you regret the total amount you spent?” He played for a year, spent 200 USD, and quit without a second thought. Some months later, he restarted on a new server. He never bought a balen but he still have fun.

This game creates a very strong addiction. And when you have the balen, it is much harder to resist. Btw, the current event („balen lode”) looks interesting. Looks like I spend 5k balens, then I get it back, +2k bound balens. But the trap is here, to use this, you must recharge. And then you have the balens, you spend them much faster... Very smart, I have to admit.

So always keep in mind how much you spent in total, and what is your monthly spending. Is that increasing? If yes, be careful: you are just getting boiled!