Renowned investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett once said, “You can determine the strength of a business over time by the amount of agony they go through in raising prices.” Buffett and his partner, Charlie Munger, realized that customers come to depend on products and become desensitized to price once they form routines around a product. The duo have pointed to consumer psychology as the rationale behind their famed investments in companies like See’s Candies and Coca Cola. Buffett and Munger understand that habits give companies greater flexibility to increase prices. For example, in the free-to-play video game business, it is standard practice for game developers to delay asking users to pay money until they have played consistently and habitually. Once the compulsion to play is in place and the desire to progress in the game increases, converting users into paying customers is much easier. The real money lies in selling virtual items, extra lives, and special powers. As of the conclusion of 2017, Candy Crush Saga had been downloaded nearly 3 Billion times. The game’s “freemium” model converted some of those users into paying customers. This netted the game’s maker nearly $1 million per day. #ProductDesign #HabitForming #ConsumerPsychology #Hooked …see more