How Super Mario Run shows our preference for a shady deal

The reviews for Super Mario Run right after the launch were brutal. The majority of reviews were 1-star and something to the effect of “WTF?? $10 for this game, are you kidding me?”.

Meanwhile, Clash of Clans is sitting on a near 5-star rating. This is a game that has been built specifically to reel you in, hook you, and suck money out of you. Every element of the game is designed to addict you, make you want more, and make you pay for it. The maker of Clash of Clans, Supercell sold to Tencent for $10 billion, and had been making $964 million in pure profit off $2.3 billion in revenue…that is just off of 3 games. They are a cash machine. Yet even with that ruthless ability to remove you from your money, people love them.

This is the state of online attention commerce.

Imagine if the two competing pitches were:

“Give us $10 and we promise you maybe 30–40 hours of high-quality entertainment, playing one of the most classic games ever to exist. If you work hard, you will win and complete the game. If you enjoyed it, maybe we can make this deal again for a followup game.”

vs.

“We will provide you with a free game that you will never be able to complete. Once our algorithms show you in a state of addiction, we will began to ask you for money to continue on in this never-ending game.”

Which one sounds like a better deal?

The troubling part is, as a society we have become fully conditioned to the latter. We experience a negative reaction when provided with a clear transaction, and prefer retreating to that world of nebulous, shady transactions we cannot quite identify.

This naturally extends to social media, entertainment, news, and any other arena of attention commerce. When we get annoyed when asked to pay for something, make sure to remember, it’s at least an honest proposal. It is a clear-cut transfer of payment for a good or service. When you transact with the currency of your attention, remind yourself to ask, what is the price.

It’s not a coincidence that the companies who don’t ask you for money, are somehow the most profitable in the world.