I went shopping a few days ago, and even in the middle of a recession caused mainly by lending to people who have no money, this phrase is everywhere:

BUY IT NOW, PAY IN A YEAR

I don’t go for these things. In fact, I only ever bought something (apart from a  car) on credit once, purely because they offered ‘interest free credit’ and refused to give me a discount for paying cash, which I found insulting… Anyway…

Why do these things work? Are people really that stupid to fall for it? Actually yes, and they aren’t stupid, they are emotional, or passionate, and they can’t help it.

I’ve been reading more pop neuroscience books, and reading about the difference between the amygdala and the pre-frontal cortex. Basically the amygdala does the emotional stuff, the PFC does the analytical bit.  The amygdala is seeing “BUY NOW” or more importantly “NOW” and the PFC is seeing “pay later…“.

Why does this work? Because the response from the amigdyla is faster, and often (for most people) louder. It’s especially true for the young, when the PFC is still developing.  Thats partly why they can be more impulsive and reckless, and why kids can’t resist taking sweets even when they understand they will get more sweets later if they resist the urge for 5 minutes (Someone tested that, and found it a phenomenally good indicator of future financial success).

It’s all down to evolution, the amygdala gets first dibs on our attention because it does the rapid pattern-matching stuff such as “IT’S A SNAKE!!!!” rather than the cool analytical “it’s a stick” that takes longer. The amygdala takes care of time sensitive vital emotional stuff like fear, hunger, lust etc. It’s the bit that makes negative scary political TV ads work, and it’s also why BUY NOW PAY LATER works.

Our brains have evolved in creatures concerned for short term survival. Its way more important to eat when we find food than it is to worry about being overweight, hence we have huge trouble  dieting. The same is true of all problems with long term planning. You conciously want to work on your indie game, but your amigdyla just wants you to eat, sleep and have sex. It’s a tug of war!

I’ve read that the stroop test is an indication of how your amygdala beats your PFC, but although it’s fun i’m not convinced. Thats just two different types of pattern matching going on surely?

However, I’m sure there is some truth to the thing that we are hard wired for irrational short term passionate thinking. that’s why some we are rubbish at saving, dieting, healthy eating, or basically doing anything that fights our emotions. we are a long way off becoming vulcans :D

If you are thinking how does this make me sell more games, it’s all about how and why people make purchasing decisions.

You could be playing Gratuitous Space Battles RIGHT NOW. Just Click here for free food sex and sleep.:D

I have had recent (bad) experiences with this phenomena, but it’s not the first time.

How many times have you gone to a website for a game, a service, an ISP, some software, whatever, and found an ‘official’ self-help forum for users? I seem to recall Dell used to do it, and now almost everyone does it.

“Welcome to the community help forums where fellow member of the ABC community help solve each other’s technical problems”

What this translates (to me) as is this…

“Fuck customer service. We will let you dumb schmucks who bought our stuff fix each others problems. Meanwhile, we are on the beach! Good luck losers…”

I check my forums daily. I don’t post in every thread, and I don’t fix every problem, but I at least flipping TRY to do so. I read every support email I get, and I won’t make you jump through hoops to email a real person. The person is ME. here is my email address: cliff@positech.co.uk.  Here is a clickable one:

cliff@positech.co.uk

Here it is bigger;

cliff@positech.co.uk

I get quite a pile of spam because I am so free with my email address. You know whose problem that is? MINE. Whose problem is it not? My customers.

Fuck email forms, fuck ‘self-help community forums. Fuck “your call is important to us” and definitely fuck “We are experiencing higher than normal traffic“. If you bought a game from me, and it doesn’t run email me. email me now, and I’ll do my best to fix it.

And the next time you encounter a software provider or other company that expects you to not only make do with ‘community’ tech support, but to act as their unpaid helpdesk staff, make a mental note to avoid them in future. Only by hurting the business of people like that will things improve…

And just to add some positivity, who can I name with the same attitude?

Seth Godin, the marketing guy.

BMTMicro, my payment provider,

Cater Allen, the UK bank.

errr….. feel free to add to the list.

I was at a restaurant recently and mused on the topic of why we tip waiters in restaurants. You might think it’s because their salary is low, but I suspect not. The salary of the people in Malaysia who made the clothes you bought in the high street is likely lower, and yet nobody tips them. I notice actors at the end of plays take a bow, to much applause, yet the set designer, director and the sound engineer never does. I notice that you tip the taxi driver, but you never tip the train driver. You applaud the band, but never applaud the bands manager or sound engineer…
Why?

Because it’s a matter of visible work. Out of sight, out of mind. This is one of the phenomena that has helped justify widespread on-line piracy. You don’t see any work being done, so you feel no need to reward anyone. Intuitively we know a lot of work went into a movie, but we didn’t see it happen. Intuitively we know that 90% of the experience of Keira Knightley in a movie is down to casting, directors, lighting, sound, make-up, costume design, scriptwriters and marketing. Yet she is worth millions, and most of the people doing the invisible work probably earn the average wage.

It is all too easy to be vastly removed from the people doing the work that we take for granted and don’t see. I’d like to take a minute to remember that the tea i’ll drink today was probably picked and packed in india by people earning a pitiful wage. It was sent by sea to the UK on a ship built by people I’m oblivious to, steered by others, crewed by others, and unloaded at a port by others. There are probably thousands of people who work to ensure it gets to my cup, and I have physical contact with almost none of them. These days the shops themselves even want me to scan and pack my own tea, so the last vestige of contact with anyone associated with the product has been removed.

We live in an age where we are remote from the people involved in the production of what we consume. Over time, hopefully we will learn that just because you don’t see work being done, doesn’t mean work did not happen. And increasingly, people reading blogs like this will be in that same position. People often complain that everyone else doesn’t appreciate the work they do. It’s worth remembering that we can all be guilty of that ourselves.

In other news, I did code for the message handling today. It involved hundreds and hundreds of lines of hopefully stable bug-free code, testing and checking. You didn’t see me type it and test it and design it and check it, but I aasure you I did it anyway :D