You heard me. Is eight dollars five dollars? Or is eight dollars 10 dollars? Why are you making that face right now? Stop making faces and answer the question: How much is eight bucks?
Stephen Totilo, games journalist and author of the Game File newsletter, got into the ontological nature of eight bucks in a recent conversation with Nick Kaman, co-creator of the video game Peak, a cute indie climbing adventure. Kaman and his collaborators developed a theory of spending to arrive at a decision to charge $8 for their new game. According to their theory, eight bucks is the upper threshold of five-buck-dom.
"In a player’s mind, what does it mean to spend five bucks? Well, that’s five bucks. But six bucks? Well, that’s still five bucks.
"Four bucks is also kind of five bucks," he continued. "Three bucks is two bucks. And two bucks is basically free.
"So we’ve got these tiers: You know, twelve bucks … that’s ten bucks. But thirteen bucks is fifteen bucks.
"And we found that eight bucks is still five bucks. It doesn’t become ten bucks. Seven ninety nine, that’s five bucks, right?
"So, eight bucks going to five bucks is the biggest differential we could find in pricing, so we found it very optimal."
Let us now assess the various assumptions on offer. Is six bucks five bucks? Yes. If I want to purchase a six-buck item and my wife asks me how much it costs, I can say, "It's like five bucks," without harming the foundations of our relationship. Is four bucks five bucks? Yes. If my child brings me some piece-of-crap impulse toy from the check-out line and it is four bucks, you can bet I will mutter, "Five bucks for this piece of crap."
Is three bucks two bucks? Absolutely not. As Kaman points out, two bucks is zero bucks. Thus, there is no such amount as two bucks, and so three bucks cannot be two bucks. But why is two bucks free? Two bucks is free because you might conceivably have two bucks, but you do not actually want to have two bucks. You do not expect to be able to purchase anything with two bucks. Though you cannot throw two bucks into the garbage, you do not see two bucks in your wallet and think that this will get you out of any trouble, or purchase you anything of value. Two bucks is impotence and confusion, a teasing flash of phony wealth. Two bucks in my wallet is in some ways worse than zero bucks in my wallet, because two bucks add physical bulk while not at all increasing my functional spending power. Two bucks will sit in my wallet for possibly a year. When I have two bucks and spend them, I feel the relief of having been freed from the oppressive weight of the two bucks: Finally, these two bucks are someone else's problem.
Three bucks, now that is significant wealth. One does not so easily part with three bucks. Also no one ever carries three bucks. Who ever heard of having three bucks? In order to make a three-buck purchase, you must break a fiver, and after the transaction you are left with two bucks, which as we have seen is zero bucks. Therefore three bucks is five bucks. It is the worst version of having five bucks, but it is five bucks.
Is 12 bucks 10 bucks? Yes. Is 13 bucks 15 bucks? Also yes.
"And we found that eight bucks is still five bucks," says Kaman. Outrageous. Because no one has ever had three bucks, it is also impossible to have eight bucks. (It is technically possible to have eight bucks if you have four $2 bills, but having four extremely rare $2 bills is like having several hundred dollars.) To spend eight bucks, one must break a larger bill, and receive in return Evil Zero Bucks. If I spend eight bucks on something and tell my wife that it was a five-buck transaction, I have lied. If my child wants a check-out toy and it is eight bucks, I do not think of spending five bucks, I think of other, better things that I could have done with 10 bucks.
The two things ignored by Kaman's incredibly wrong spending assumption are currency denominations and the value of annoyance. Even though Peak is not being sold in cash transactions, the mind still references bills when considering price. A person's social standing can suffer severe harm in that awkward time spent fishing around for a fiver after having counted out a handful of twenties. This is why, above $100, values cease to round to multiples of five. An item that is 143 bucks is not 145 bucks. In fact, even an item that is 145 bucks is not 145 bucks. A 145-buck purchase is either 140 bucks, 150 bucks, or even 160 bucks, but it is absolutely never 145 bucks. You would be considered unserious, and possibly even suspicious, if you claimed to have made a 145-buck purchase.
I will grant that eight bucks is pretty close to the line. This is because eight bucks is not quite Cheap 10 Bucks. Due to the value of two bucks (zero), eight bucks is actually Annoying 10 Bucks. To spend eight bucks, you have to give up one crisp bill and descend into a psychologically destructive bucks situation. Certainly I would not be happier to spend an even 10 bucks—what am I, Bill Gates—but the transaction would be less complicated, logistically and emotionally, to say nothing of mathematically. Because eight bucks is a deeply annoying way to spend 10 bucks, I can feel a certain temptation to promote eight bucks to a very efficient way of spending five bucks. But I am mature enough to know that this is self-deception, and dangerous.
There are those who force eight bucks into the five-buck category. Defector's own Barry Petchesky threatened to use his editing powers to reverse the position of this blog, no doubt due to a desire to justify his personal spending habits. This is a person who engages in all manner of risky consumer behavior. Naturally it behooves him to deflate the value of eight bucks; probably the bag of dog kibble that he brought home Saturday night despite not having a dog ran a cool $7.99. Ah, whatever, it was only five bucks, he insists, while spitting out a mouthful of something called "Buddy's Best Birthday Bites" that was machine-stamped to look like little cupcakes but was scientifically formulated to taste like something that died five days ago. To me it is unconscionable for Nick Kaman to target the poor addled Barrys of society with his devious pricing model.
To prove once and for all that eight bucks is not five bucks, consider Kaman's own discounting strategy. As a promotion, Peak's creators launched the game with an initial price of five bucks, marketed as a temporary introductory deal. Ah ha! If eight bucks was five bucks, this would be a discount of zero dollars, and no one would give a rip. But the discount works precisely because eight bucks is not five bucks. Wow! What a deal! Half off! Eight bucks is 10 bucks.
