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.
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!
