Adding Game Mechanics To Daily Deals

unreadyandwilling.com

11 points·KenjiCrosland··7 comments

People from my university had just recently created a startup with similar mechanics, based in Poland -- it has English interface too, though no support for other currencies yet.

http://clicxs.com/how-does-it-work/

Basically, you pay a small amount of money to uncover a price of a given item, decreasing it as a byproduct. For instance, if a price is 50 PLN, uncovering a price (which costs 2.50 PLN) decreases it by 1 PLN. The more people uncover the price, the cheaper it gets, until someone actually buys it.

1 PLN is about 0.35 USD, by the way.

That's pretty cool, kind of like a reverse auction. Only one person gets to buy the item though?

Yes, uncovering only decreases price of a specific item, so if it's sold, the price is back up.

I like the idea of adding game mechanics to daily deals, but I'm not really sold on the idea of doing it for travel. Seems like it would be best if it were applied to products that can be sold in more locations. Travel would need to be city specific and it requires a major commitment.

Yeah, it might work if you only started in one city, just to test the product though.

It's the online gambling part that's the hugest hurdle. After that it's the business deals. And you're conceding you're gonna do it in a narrow niche.

Add those three together, and you got a business model that's not worth doing. "Cool" idea but not worth it.

A lot of game companies get around this hurdle with virtual currency, although this might get a little over-complicated for your average deals site user. You're probably right though.

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