
Cards Against Humanity: Results of "pay what you want" - thaumaturgy
http://www.cardsagainsthumanity.com/holidaystats/
======
MicahWedemeyer
It seems like one takeaway is that a significant portion of people will just
pay the default as stated, even if given a choice. I think people just have a
hard time deciding what something is actually worth, so they'll take whatever
advice is given. So, when pricing your products, if you're wondering if you
should charge more, the default answer should be "Yes"

~~~
daeken
So, a couple months back I released a WebGL Enabler for iOS with a pay-what-
you-want model: <http://demoseen.com/webglenabler/>

I keep meaning to write a blog post about the results, but ~99.5% of people
paid $0. Of the people who paid, probably around 50% paid the $1.99 I had as
default, but what's really interesting to me is the way people priced it if
they changed the value. I got a number of payments for amounts like $1.25 and
$1.50, and I remember looking at those completely baffled -- who cares enough
to pay anything for this (you could just download it for free -- I don't mind)
but not enough to pay an extra $0.49? Really wish I had an answer there; maybe
people just like 'getting a deal'?

~~~
dvirsky
aren't a lot of people who have jail-broken iOs devices, already by definition
people who want paid apps for free?

I'm an Android guy myself so I might be wrong here (and your app is an example
of non pirate usage for jail-breaking), but I often hear young relatives
talking about jail-breaking their iPhones to save those $1-2 on apps, which to
be honest, is pretty shitty behavior IMHO (yeah, I lecture them, they look at
me like a crazy old person)

~~~
Karunamon
>aren't a lot of people who have jail-broken iOs devices, already by
definition people who want paid apps for free?

Careful not to fall into the trap of conflating jailbreaking with piracy.
There are many, _many_ good reasons to JB not even counting apps that end in
-ous. Google voice and SMS extensions, f.lux, theming support, wifi tethering,
and a great deal more low level customization than Apple gives you.

~~~
dvirsky
As I said, I'm an Android user primarily because it gives me much more freedom
without rooting, and the few iOs devices I have (and hardly use) are not jail-
broken. But people I've met who jail-break their iPhones do it mainly to
pirate apps.

------
Caerus
I ordered this pack and paid the default $5 by mistake (with a bit of
laziness), and would bet quite a few others had the same experience.

When ordering, you had to enter your amount before adding it to the cart, with
$5 as the default. There wasn't an option to change it later that I could
find. By the time I realized it couldn't be changed, I was through most of the
ordering process and didn't feel like starting over.

It would be interesting to see how much better they would have done with
either a more intuitive checkout (assuming I missed an option) or had more
options in the process.

~~~
matthooks
Developer for the site here. We definitely talked about this in the post
mortem. Do you have any specific changes that you would have made to make the
process more clear?

~~~
Caerus
I don't remember having any trouble with actually ordering the pack.

I do remember trying to bump the payment to $10 and not being able to. Adding
an option to change the amount paid during checkout or making it much more
obvious if there was one may have helped your "haul".

~~~
thomaslangston
Note that the humble bundle actually lets you increase your contribution
"after" you've paid as well. They might be worth emulating there.

------
gawker
I think it's absolutely great that they've donated all the proceeds to
Wikipedia :) Congratulations. It's heartwarming to know that although there
are some free loaders, you were still made a pretty penny.

On the other hand, how come all the design work, copy writing, etc are
considered free? That's just masking the actual cost of the product.

~~~
Maxistentialist
We made those things with our own hands.

~~~
shmageggy
But surely your time was worth something. Isn't that the first lesson of
running a business -- pay yourself first?

~~~
clone1018
If you're doing something you really love, money is just a side effect.

~~~
jacalata
Loving what you do never bought groceries. So the actual answer has to be 'I
have enough money from other sources to live on'.

~~~
lotyrin
The money spent on essentials may also be essential, but things can both be
essential and the side effects of processes which have some other primary
intent.

~~~
jacalata
Doing something for free doesn't get you any cash as a side effect.

~~~
lotyrin
I'm not sure why you don't get this, but there's a huge gap between not having
money be the primary intended result of your actions and having money not at
all be a result of your actions.

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matthooks
Hey guys,

I developed this site. I'll be around for a little while if you have any tech
questions.

Edit: Please note that this pay what you can was just for the holiday-related
expansion set, not the full game.

~~~
shizcakes
One comment: Myself and others were initially confused by the layout of the
page into thinking that CAH had turned a massive loss. It's only when you get
to the bottom that there was any indication of sales.

~~~
matthooks
For the infographic?

~~~
aw3c2
I am not the parent poster, but for me, yes, the infographic!

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mephi5t0
I am surprised there were jerks that paid 0. Really? You can't afford give
them five bucks? You spend more on beer OR lunch OR coffee in Starbucks if you
feel kinky. At least humble bundle not allow you to pay 0 :)

~~~
aw3c2
You are a jerk for calling them jerks. If it is "pay what you want" then you
are invited to do exactly that. If you want to pay nothing, you may do so. It
is perfectly inside the rules of the event.

~~~
pflats
Yes, it is within the rules of the event. There are lots of ways to play
within the rules and still be a jerk.

Everyone who bought the cards for under $3 was faced with a decision: do I
want these badly enough to literally cost the people who make them money?

Did you answer yes? Cool, you probably acted selfishly. Own it.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Yet they did not cost these guys money. The game's creators advertised a pay-
what-you-want event because they had a reasonable expectation of making a
profit (for charity) even though many people would pay $0.

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gergles
Argh, I saw this two weeks ago, did a "remember to buy this when you get home"
thing, and then forgot. I hope the expansion cards are made available
somewhere. I enjoy CAH and am glad to send money as new bits are made
available.

It'd be interesting to see if the "pay what you want" strategy works for you
guys a second time now that you released such detailed data. You'd think it
might make people more likely to pay exactly your equilibrium point just to
see if they can get away with it.

~~~
thenonsequitur
I made a similar mistake. I saw it, but saw no clear way to post different
addresses for shipping and billing. I asked if there was a way on their
facebook page, figuring that if I got an answer explaining how, I would pay
(was planning on a $10 payment actually), and than if I didn't get an answer,
I would just opt for $0 payment and put in my shipping address.

I then went about my business, completely forgot about the question I asked on
facebook (because they never answered), and never ended up submitting the
form.

Oh well.

------
mhb
Little Monkey Caye (Caribbean island for $55K):

[http://www.caribbeanislandbrokers.com/islands-for-
sale/Littl...](http://www.caribbeanislandbrokers.com/islands-for-sale/Little-
Monkey-Caye)

~~~
gregcohn
here's what it looks like at high tide: <http://bit.ly/R2WTFc>

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jsilence
I wonder what the effect would be if you'd simply state the production cost
per unit on the ordering page, while still allowing people to pay zero $.

~~~
Itaxpica
They did, several times (breaking it down in to the $1 for production and $2
for processing/shipping like on that page). They also suggested $5 as a fair
price, and pointed out that it cost them $3 to make the set one last time on a
nag screen if you tried to pay $0 (fun fact: the site wouldn't let you donate
anything greater than 0 but under fifty cents, since they would lose money on
credit card fees).

~~~
matthooks
Correct -- we used Stripe, which has a minimum charge of $0.50.

------
amirmc
Interesting. Even though around 20% of people didn't pay anything, they were
still able to turn a profit.

I'd love to compare the results of this with other 'pay-what-you-want'
schemes.

Edit: _"We did all of the web design, video production, motion design, and
copy writing ourselves, so these were free."_ I wonder if the cost of this
would technically have put them at a loss (I suspect not).

~~~
mattmaroon
It would almost have to. $70k is not even one man year's worth of effort from
someone skilled at any one of those things individually.

~~~
d3ad1ysp0rk
Why are you considering a year's salary for a holiday pack/site? It's hard to
imagine 2,080 hours (40x52) went into the entire thing.

~~~
mattmaroon
"We did all of the web design, video production, motion design, and copy
writing ourselves". Doesn't seem that hard to me. And we're talking less than
a year's salary for someone skilled at any of those things, let alone all.

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j45
CAH is one of the funniest and most enjoyable games I've ever played. I was
shocked to discover it was pay what you want, and the cards were completely
open to print for myself.

~~~
mkinsella
Only the Holiday pack was pay what you want. The base game is $25 or free to
print.

~~~
j45
My bad, I was referring to the base game. Since it was out of stock at the
time I wish I could have sent it to a print-on-demand place for delivery, even
if it cost more in the time being.

------
Zolt
It’s a sad day: I am starting to realize I am old.

I went to the website, saw it was a card game and thought I would learn more
about it as I like card games. I play card games.

I clicked on "How do I play Cards Against Humanity" under the "Your dumb
questions" but quickly lost interest when I would have had to click on "Read
the fucking rules" to learn more about the game.

I get it... it is probably an edgy game... it probably is not for me. I guess
I will never know as I just don’t want to "read the fucking rules".

EDIT: Fixed typo.

------
psc
What these stats don't show is how many people will go out and buy a full $25
set or have already done so. The expansion isn't particularly useful without
the main set, so even if everyone paid $0, it would still probably be a good
promotional tool.

Plus the cards are awesome, I don't see how anyone could not want go out and
buy the full set and the expansions after seeing this pack.

------
achy
They should have randomized the default value within a range that
automatically narrowed / increased proportionally against the trending of
people accepting the default. They could have optimized their return pretty
quickly. 'Pay what you want' can be used for both publicity AND pricing
optimization.

------
ececconi
You know I never thought too much about Cards Against Humanity before this, it
always popped up as a best seller on Amazon but I didn't feel like giving it a
whirl. This story alone, is making me very intrigued on what the game is like
to play.

~~~
criley
It's an adult version of Apples to Apples. Think MadLibs, except one player
readers the "madlib" and the other players draw from their hand to answer.

Example:

"Alternative medicine is now embracing the curative powers of ______ " was
read aloud in my group.

I played the card that reads "Literally eating shit" and won the round,
because the question reader liked my answer the most.

~~~
pacaro
Played this for the first time on Saturday.

I had the "Haiku, pick 3" black card

which resulted in <http://imgur.com/pcfgJ>

I was laughing so hard that I was crying, just trying to read them out loud.

------
Bjartr
How the heck did I miss this

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RaphiePS
I wonder if they could have made more by using Humble Bundle's model of
unlocking an extra if the buyer pays more than average. Keeps the attractive
flexibility of pay-what-you-want, but actually incentivizes people to pay up.

------
rickyconnolly
I really enjoy the flow and layout of this site. Is is a bootstrap derivative?

~~~
Maxistentialist
Nope, I made it by hand!

~~~
rickyconnolly
Looks great. You know how to tread the fine line between 'minimal' and 'too
minimal'

------
geetee
I would have tossed in a few extra bucks if I knew it was going to charity!

~~~
qu4z-2
So just donate a few bucks to charity...

------
grogenaut
It'd be awesome to post the names of all of the freeloaders or just choose
some random ones and put them on cards in an expansion pack to server as a
warning to other "freeloaders".

~~~
sesqu
If you want to go that route, just don't offer your product for $0.

------
ececconi
Cards Against Humanity did something pretty amazing for Humanity.

------
kcwebz
They need to change their name with all this awesome contributingness to
Humanity... well Wikipedia anyway.. I'm sure its helped us all at one point or
another.

------
limbo
It seems that most people do not mind paying a bit more to great products,
which is great news for individual businesses.

------
xxpor
> We did all of the web design, etc. so these were free.

That's not entirely true. Opportunity cost is still a huge cost.

~~~
Goopplesoft
Yeah but you don't quantify it after the decision is made (or the opportunity
is chosen).

------
JimmaDaRustla
Burst out laughing at the cricket section! Read the comment, then scroll
through all the crickets.

------
joezhou
Please at least open source the web design part next time so we can all
contribute!

------
alexbosworth
$36,550 to the credit card companies against $70,066 profit?

------
IheartApplesDix
Why did they not donate to Wayback Machine instead? Wikimedia is doing just
fine and their fund raising is mostly for advertising and marketing. The site
is at zero risk of running out of operating funds. Personally, I'd rather see
money go to historic records than revisionist, popular encyclopedia.

Source:
[http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_P...](http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_Priorities)

Last financial report:
[http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_Reports/Financ...](http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_Reports/Financial_Statements_Ending_June_30_2012_and_2011)

~~~
tptacek
Because they already donated to Wikimedia.

Two good times to recommend alternative charities: (i) on threads where people
ask, "where should I donate my money", and (ii) on threads about disasters,
when you have an opportunity to spur donations to targeted charities.

You almost certainly didn't mean anything by this comment, but you generally
want to avoid the appearance of litigating someone's good deed as a missed
opportunity to do a better deed. Donations to Wikimedia are a good thing,
worthy of congratulations.

~~~
IheartApplesDix
Certainly, if I was in politics, I'd take your advice. I think it's fair to
question where donations go and the decision process, even after the fact.
There's always next year.

~~~
kjackson2012
It's not a fair question. It's a terrible question because every charity has
their own merits, and any ensuing discussion is not fruitful and only causes
conflict. What's makes it even worse is your self-righteous tone.

Your unfair question basically boils down to "My worthy cause is more worthy
than your worthy cause!"

~~~
chc
I believe he's actually arguing "Regardless of which cause is more worthy, my
cause needs the money and Wikimedia doesn't."

------
Breakthrough
Lol best graph ever, "% of the chart that looks like Pacman"

~~~
tlrobinson
Reminds me of this: <http://xkcd.com/688/>

