Any Empire
Sergeant
You seem rather clueless on how data works, and even less clear on how a sample of players on a forum (beta forum) may not be representative of the total population of beta players.And you have the data ( Data: "a series of observations, measurements, or facts; information " [American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing ] ) from beta to suppport that research???
Looks to me you are rather clueless on how beta works.
Let’s try to walk through this.
1) Evidence on behavioral economics and behavioral finance is well documented, with multiple sources of empirical and theoretical evidence.
NB: You frequently complain about folks not looking things up on the forum before making statements. How about doing reading and reflecting on behavioral economics (BE) first? Try searching for undergraduate -level articles by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.
2) In very (too) brief: data are used to construct models, based on a set of starting assumptions about how the world works. The models are tested against various real life and scenarios, to see how well prediction fits with observations. NB: you might benefit by reviewing the differences between primary data (data one collects) vs secondary data (Data others collect, that one uses).
3) In this case, behavioral economics (BE) suggests that folks will tend to be reluctant to lose anytime of perceived value (in this case diamonds) for something of lesser value, even if classical economics predicts it would be rationale for them to do so, as the diamonds were 'free').
5) For example, the BE concept of “Anchoring”—the tendency to give disproportionate weight to benchmark price—can drive purchasers’ reactions to pricing far more than “objective” arguments. In this case, while the price for the reindeer items may be a discount from Inno’s regular ‘store’ prices, by placing it as a reward, the ‘anchor’ for assessing value is that rewards are typically expected to be ‘free’.
6) As seen by numerous comments and complaints on this forum, many beta forum users said they were upset because they thought the items should be free; i.e. their “anchor” was “rewards = free”. So the BE model seems to work, when applied to beta forum users.
7) Basing predictions on this observed data, and applying BE theory, suggests that Inno should lower the price, to attract more diamond purchasers.
8) However, forum users are a tiny part of the player base. So, it is important to also test if they are a representative sample of the entire population of beta users. Maybe most Beta players have a different "anchor" for their pricing decisions. To do this, one compares the BE model’s predicted possible outcomes with the observed (actual) outcome. In this case, it is seeing what decision Inno makes on the price.
9) First, the assumptions are that a) Inno is a profit-making company; b) they collect and use reams of data on player behaviors and purchasing habits; and c) their pricing decisions then use their data to ensure long-term profitability. That is, they won’t make a pricing decision to optimize profits from 1 event, at the expense of driving away so main players (customers), that it causes Inno to go bankrupt in longer-term.
10) Given those 3 reasonable assumptions, BE model would predict that
a) if the Devs lower the price, it would signal their primary data showed that not enough players in beta paid diamonds for reindeer, and thus Inno responded by decreasing the price to maximize profits. And that beta forum users are representative of beta players overall.
b) conversely, if Inno keeps the price stable, their primary data indicated enough beta players players did, in reality, pay 2995 diamonds for Inno to make a profit.
c) If Inno increases the price, that suggests that so many players took up the offer, that Inno felt there was room for a further price increase.
11) Yet, what is observed (fact, direct observation) is that pricing stayed the same.
12) The inference is that sufficient numbers of beta players did accept the 2995 diamond price. Inno apparently, feels that they can make the most profits by keeping the 2995 diamond price.
12) Also, it seems that in this one specific case, beta forum users are NOT a representative sample of all beta players, in terms of purchasing decisions for reindeer items.
That is, if you accept the assumptions that Inno Devs are motivated enough to make decisions to maximize profits, based on using the huge amount of data that they possess.
Able to follow that?
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