Topic: $78,000 DLC chisel > Curiosity ended, prize revealed!

[idolminds]

Oh Molyneux....

Curiosity is a simple game for "PC, iPhone, all that stuff" where players tap away at a giant black cube in a white room, chiselling smaller cubes off with each touch, Molyneux explained to GameTrailers (which is also where we got that snazzy image of the cube).

"Curiosity: what is inside the black cube?" it will ask. Every player in the world is working on the same cube, until one--and only one--will remove the final block and discover what's inside. This, Molyneux told New Scientist, is the crux of the experiment: how will this news spread across social network, will people work together, and how will they prove they opened it?

22Cans is also running an experiment in monetisation, selling chisels of increasing strength. An iron chisel for 59p (a buck) is 10 times more powerful than tapping, and it runs all the way up to a unique, one-off diamond chisel costing £50,000 (about $78,000). Will one player buy the diamond chisel outright, or a group, or no one?

Whatever happens, Molyneux insists, "This is not a money-making exercise; it is a test about the psychology of monetisation."

EDIT: So what was inside?

[scottws]

I think you might have missed the point.  I think it's a pretty brilliant experiment considering what he says his goal is.

[MysterD]

I don't think Bill Gates will buy this chisel...

[Quemaqua]

If I was rich, I'd buy the chisel, then hope that I could get the last chip (which is still probably almost infinitely impossible depending on some factors). If I did, I'd never tell anyone else in the world what was actually in the cube.

[scottws]

 

[idolminds]

Oh yeah Im not saying its not an interesting concept/experiment. Its just...wow, 78 grand? Really? At that price you better be guaranteed to see whats in the cube.

And when first reading the description I thought it was going to be a "game" were you can chisel out a sculpture and then share it with others. Which would be pretty awesome and I would totally buy that.

[Xessive]

I think you might have missed the point.  I think it's a pretty brilliant experiment considering what he says his goal is.

Isn't that the case with all of Molyneux's games?

[scottws]

Oh yeah Im not saying its not an interesting concept/experiment. Its just...wow, 78 grand? Really? At that price you better be guaranteed to see whats in the cube.

One one hand I agree with you.  On the other... anyone who would spend that much on this probably can stand to completely waste it.  Hell, even if they "won", I can't imagine the reward of winning would truly be worth that much money.

But again, given what he is studying, maybe the price isn't absurd.  He's curious if someone will blow a very large sum of money in order to give themselves a huge advantage.  He's also curious if people would pool their money to buy it, but I don't see that happening because one person still has to wield it.

[Xessive]

This is starting to sound like the video game episode of Community.

[idolminds]

Today is the day. The center was reached, one person gets the prize. And the prize is....

[Xessive]

Huh, now I'm even more curious.

[Quemaqua]

Who would have thought it'd actually turn out to be interesting? Now, of course, they have to make the new game not suck. Cool idea, though.

[idolminds]

Heh

This morning, an 18-year-old named Bryan Henderson from Edinburgh, Scotland, destroyed the last cube.

“People are going to hate me for this,” Henderson told Wired in a phone interview, “but I only registered for the game earlier this morning, about an hour before I won the thing.”

[Cobra951]

That's no different from someone winning millions with a single lottery ticket, while the longterm repeat buyers get nothing.  It's pure luck.