You order a new wall in a building game. A timer appears: 8 hours. Under it, a button: finish now for 160 gems. Every wait in a free game is like this. It is a price, and there are two ways to pay it. With time, or with money.
1 hour20 gems to skip
1 day260 gems to skip
1 week1,000 gems to skip
Real numbers from one big building game. Skipping one hour costs 20 gems. A day costs 260. A week costs 1,000. At about a cent a gem, a day's wait is about 2.60 dollars and a week is about 10.
Wait a day
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Pay 260 gems
The timer says one day. The skip costs 260 gems. What are the two ways to get the wall?
Only wait. Gems speed it up a little but cannot finish it.
Not yet. The button finishes it at once. A skip is a full skip, otherwise nobody would pay for it.
Only pay. The wall will not build unless you skip.
Not yet. It builds by itself in a day. The game wants you to feel the day is long, but it never stops the clock.
Wait a day, or pay 260 gems now.
Right. Both roads end at the same wall. The game earns only from the second one, so everything about the screen points at it.
A wait is added→Skipping is worth something→The skip is sold for gems
A computer can build a wall instantly. The 8 hours are not needed for the wall. They are put in so that skipping is worth something, and then the skip is sold. A wait also makes you leave and come back, which the game counts, as you will see later.
Move the control to set how long the timer says. The gem prices are real; the dollars use one cent a gem, the price in the 500-gem bundle.
Gems to skip it1 gem
Gems for each hour skipped60 gems
1 minuteSkipping 1 minute costs 1 gem, about a cent. Sixty of those minutes would cost 60 gems; the game charges 20 for the hour.
Gems to skip it20 gems
Gems for each hour skipped20 gems
1 hourSkipping 1 hour costs 20 gems, about 20 cents. That is about 20 gems for each hour skipped.
Gems to skip it260 gems
Gems for each hour skipped10.8 gems
1 daySkipping 1 day costs 260 gems, about 2.60 dollars. That is about 11 gems for each hour skipped.
Gems to skip it1,000 gems
Gems for each hour skipped6 gems
1 weekSkipping 1 week costs 1,000 gems, about 10 dollars. That is about 6 gems for each hour skipped.
Which wait costs the least in gems for each hour it skips?
The week. A thousand gems for 168 hours is about 6 an hour.
Right. The hour costs 20 an hour and the day about 11. Long waits are cheap by the hour so that a big skip looks like a bargain, and a big skip is a big purchase.
They all cost the same by the hour.
Not yet. They do not. The week costs a third as much per hour as the hour does. The price per hour falls as the wait grows.
The hour. Twenty gems is the smallest number.
Not yet. Twenty is the smallest total, but it buys only one hour. By the hour it is the dearest skip on the list.
Move the control.
Skip all 8 hours160 gems
Skip the last 5 minutes5 gems
The closer you are to done, the easier the skip is to sell. With five minutes left, the skip costs 5 gems, and 5 sounds like nothing. Almost nobody pays 160 gems to skip a whole wall. Many pay 5 to skip the end of one.
3 hoursLeft
↓→
20 gemsEach hour
A build has 3 hours left. Skipping costs 20 gems an hour. How many gems to finish it now?
gems
Right. Sixty gems, about 60 cents. Small enough to pay without thinking, and the game shows the button at exactly the moment you are waiting for nothing else.
Each of these is a way a wait got paid. Which was it paid with?
One card at a time. Tap the pile it belongs to.
Card 1 of 5
Left the game overnight and found the wall built in the morning.
Spent 260 gems to finish a day's build at once.
Watched a 30-second ad to cut two hours off the timer.
Opened the game at lunch just to start the next build.
Bought the 500-gem bundle to skip a week's upgrade.
Left the game overnight and found the wall built in the morning. → Time
Not yet. Paid with time. The eight hours passed while the player slept, and no gems moved.
Spent 260 gems to finish a day's build at once. → Money
Not yet. Paid with money. The gems came from a bundle bought with dollars, so this wait was paid for in cash.
Watched a 30-second ad to cut two hours off the timer. → Time
Not yet. Paid with time, thirty seconds of it. The money came from the advertiser, not the player, so from the player's side this is a time payment.
Opened the game at lunch just to start the next build. → Time
Not yet. Paid with time. Coming back at lunch is the wait doing its second job: bringing the player back.
Bought the 500-gem bundle to skip a week's upgrade. → Money
Not yet. Paid with money. A whole week skipped in one purchase is the sale the long timer was placed there to make.
Paid with time
↓→
The same wall
↓→
Paid with money
Right. If gems that came from dollars moved, the wait was paid with money. If only hours passed, or an ad ran, it was paid with time. Both are real payments, and the game takes either.
0 of 5Lives
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2 and a half hoursAll 5 back in
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99 centsOr
A puzzle game gives you 5 lives. A lost life comes back every 30 minutes, or 5 lives cost 99 cents. You lose all 5 at nine in the evening. What is the game selling you?
The next two and a half hours. The lives come back free; the 99 cents skips the wait for them.
Right. It is the same trade as the wall. Lives are a timer drawn as hearts, and running out of them at nine in the evening is the timer's best moment to sell.
Nothing. Lives are a rule of the game, not a product.
Not yet. Lives are a rule of the game, and the rule has a price on it. A rule you can pay to skip is a product.
The lives themselves. Without paying you would have none.
Not yet. The lives come back on their own, one every 30 minutes. What is for sale is not the lives but the time until they return.
Lesson complete
A wait timer is a price: the game charges hours or gems, and lets you choose which.