Next game to star extravagantly expensive experiment in 'the psychology of monetisation'
Peter Molyneux's next game is to include an item of DLC priced at £50,000.
The item, available to a single player for a one-time purchase, is not a money making exercise however. Speaking to New Scientist Molyneux claimed it is an experiment in the psychology of monetisation.
The DLC is to be part of forthcoming title Curosity, the first release by Molyneux's recently established studio 22 Cans. The game centres around a black cube in a virtual room that players can chip away at with chisels. As players toil, small fractures appear in the cube; fractures which can be seen by all other chisel-bearing gamers.
In the cube lies a prize for the first player to unveil it. New chisels can be bought as DLC items. A 59p iron chisel, for example, multiplies a player's impact on the cube ten-fold. And one chisel, priced at $50,000 and 'made' of diamond is 100,000 times more powerful.
"It's an insane amount of money," Molyneux told New Scientist. "This is not a money-making exercise; it is a test about the psychology of monetisation."
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Molyneux's experiment is apparently conceived to “record and study how news of what's inside spreads across social media in an attempt to explore the psychology of social media users. We will rely entirely on social media."
Out soon on PC and mobile, Curiosity will provide data for 22 Cans' next game, which is expected to see release in two-years' time.
Molyneux set up 22 Cans in May after departing Lionhead.
Presumably the point of an experiment, especially a commercial one, is that you learn something useful that is ultimately actionable in some way. I fail to see what Molyneux and his team will learn about the broader, addressable virtual goods market if one or more of his 50k chisels is sold.
So long as we are getting all experimental, I'll posit a hypothesis. The column inches (that do little to further the understanding of the actual product itself) that Molyneux will generate with this stunt will be more than if he was to find his answer (where the question is presumably, is the upper limit for virtual goods pricing higher than popular wisdom suggests) through buying and analyzing data.
I suppose, that hypothesis has already been proven right...
I don't think Apple has a 50K tier, so does it mean the game won't be on iOS?
