Introduction: The lottery is due to gambling gameplay, is a kind of gambling entertainment activities with "shackles", although there are restrictions on shackles, but "small and broad" stimulates people's hidden gambler thoughts, stirs up human greed, makes people want to stop, so it has always been favored by games and operating activities, and various ways of playing lottery games are not in the crowd. This article hopes to analyze how users are played by various probabilities from the three psychological stages of users participating in the lottery, step by step design, so as to form habits to prevent users from being deceived.

First, why do we all like "lottery"?
For the user,
First, we like to be small and big, and get something for nothing.
An instinctive drive for human development when we get a larger return with a smaller investment, there is a gambler's thought in anyone's subconscious, which is the most primitive greed of the original self, so we always like, always expect to get it for free, and the lottery just satisfies this desire of ours.
Second, the tendency to overconfidence
Although we all know that "ten bets and nine losses", the probability of lottery is very low, but our fluke psychology makes us always overestimate the probability of their own success, it is this confidence that makes us know the result but also willing to carry out tentative actions, which is why we know that the probability of winning the welfare lottery is so low, still attracting many people to enjoy it.
Third, get the thrill of victory through simple rules
The rules of the lottery are often relatively simple, compared to our daily life need to work through layers of effort to get the sense of achievement, the pleasure of the lottery is more simple and direct, real-time, so the temptation for us is great.
For operations,
First, two or two strokes of jackhammers to control costs
The lottery creates the illusion that everyone can win the jackpot by creating a limited inventory of prizes, or giving the illusion that you are the next lucky person, like a black hole, attracting people to participate, and the more people participate, the lower the marginal cost. You can leverage more people at a very low cost.
Second, blur value, clean up inventory, stimulate consumption, etc
If we want to sell a 1w yuan thing, directly marked price to sell, may not be able to accept such a high amount, but if put into the lottery, each time only 10 yuan may be able to get this prize, the user may go to try their luck, through the user's continuous behavior to blur the user's actual investment, so as to pay for this equipment, before the domestic fire of 1 yuan treasure actually uses this mechanism.
Third, stimulate activity, improve retention, user growth, etc
Random rewards are a key step in the addiction model, and Skinner box has also shown through experiments that random rewards are more conducive to the persistence of behavior than fixed rewards. Therefore, the product is often through random rewards, attract the user's retention, if the user just got a good reward, will think that their luck is very good and continue to retain, if the beginning did not get a good reward, can also attract users to continue to invest, become one of the effective means to attract users active.
Second, the three psychological stages of participating in the lottery
The mental journey of the lottery in which users participate can be divided into three stages, according to the different psychological characteristics of users in the three stages, we can adjust the mechanism and rules for sex to give users the best play experience and reduce the cost of user participation, including actual costs and psychological costs.
1) The temptation phase
Users at this stage often have great doubts about the return of the lottery, if they can afford the cost range, they will try it, so at this stage is mainly to reduce the cost of the user's first participation, such as some free lottery opportunities, 100% must play and other forms, to guide users to try.
2) Chosen Son
This stage is the user after having won the prize once after the preparation of the entry, this unexpected reward, can make him have confidence in his own RP, think that he is the chosen one, and full of expectations and motivation for the reward of subsequent participation. Therefore, the core of this stage is to maintain and strengthen the user's idea of "son of heaven" through mechanisms such as class bottom draw and cumulative probability, so as to prevent users from being hurt by the distant probability and giving up.
3) Addiction stage
This stage has been strengthened by the previous stage, and it can already be called a gambler. From Skinner's theory, we know that at this stage, even if the desired reward is not received in the short term, the behavior may continue to be maintained for a long period of time before dissipating. But at the same time, at this time, the user has paid a considerable cost, obtained their own expected rewards, enthusiasm will be reduced, back to rationality, so at this stage we need to fuzzle the value of the user's actual investment through gift tests, token conversion and other forms, and can also upgrade the reward to continue to stimulate the user.
Third, the rules of play at each stage
1. The temptation and doubt phase
The core lies in laying the groundwork for the next stage by reducing the cost of user attempts, triggering user behavior, and giving users appropriate rewards, some common lottery rules are as follows:
1) Free to try out opportunities
Before the user has not deeply participated in the activity (recharge or complete the task) to get the lottery opportunity, you can give away 1 to 3 free attempts to reduce the user's vigilance, smoothly participate in the activity, and at the same time cultivate the user behavior through the free opportunity to help users understand and cognitive activities. Free opportunities can also be given or refreshed according to the number of days, but the overall gift should not be too much, limited cost, too much will reduce the value of each draw, but also convey a cheap feeling to the user.
2) Newcomer guarantee
In the first or the first few times the user participates in the lottery, he must receive a relatively large reward. Users are not aware of this mechanism, so let users establish initial confidence in their current RP and lottery activities, so that they can get larger rewards and are full of expectations, deepening the user's continuous participation and enthusiasm;
3) 100% must be hit
Filling the prize pool with prizes with relatively reduced value, such as points, coupons, etc., as a guaranteed reward to achieve the concept of 100% must be hit, is also a means of unloading the user's defense. However, at present, this gimmick is used more, and users have a certain immunity to this kind of lottery, and the effect can be limited;
4) Gift of raffle props, loss aversion
Before the user conducts the lottery, give the user some props that can be used in the lottery process, such as the probability doubling card, the winning result doubling card, etc. Props will generally have a countdown to use, and through visual emphasis, the user is driven by loss aversion, to strengthen the user's driving force to participate in the conversion. The key to giving away props is to effectively convey the value of the props to the user, and at the same time let the user have a concept of privilege, surprise and scarcity.
2. The fantasy of the Chosen Son
The core is to maintain and strengthen the user's confidence in their RP, to avoid the loss caused by the long-term failure to win the expected prize, the commonly used lottery rules include:
1) Cumulative probability
Cumulative probability is a kind of bottom-up pseudo-random probability algorithm, if the user accumulates how many times does not win the jackpot, the next time must win or increase the probability of winning. This rule can directly tell the user, such as the game often uses the cumulative 100 draws and does not win the ssr, then the next time must be won, you can give the player a fixed expectation, to a certain extent, reduce the player's frustration of not winning, and the user may also draw for the jackpot when the user draws to a certain extent. You can also not tell the player, let the player think that it is their own 'luck', so that they are convinced of the probability of the lottery and their luck, and continue to participate.
2) Guaranteed rewards
A type of guaranteed design, every time the player draws whether it is a winning prize, they can get the reward of points (fragments), and the accumulated points can be exchanged for some rare items. To create a kind of lottery for users is valuable, essentially similar to the mechanism of how many draws must be won, but the points play is more flexible, users can use different points to redeem items, not necessarily how many times to accumulate.
3. Addiction phase
Users have been deeply involved in the gameplay, but with the increasing depth of participation, synchronization is also prone to fatigue, burnout feelings, so it is necessary to constantly maintain the user's freshness and attract users to continue to participate.
1) Blur value and enhance the winning experience
Obscure the cost paid by users, through the gift of lottery opportunities, consecutive discounts, token conversion, etc., weaken the concept of how much money each user draws is equal to, or avoid being directly linked to how much effort is perceived. Make users think they're getting a lottery at a very low, vague cost. This can both reduce the player's frustration of not winning the lottery and stimulate the player's continuous participation.
2) Reward upgrades, continuous stimulation
Upgrades and replacement rewards, when the player continues to participate to a certain extent, the user has received most of the current rewards, and there is no freshness for the prize pool. It is necessary to change the prizes in the prize pool and invest new prizes to continue to form an attraction for players, or upgrade the prize pool, after the number of user participation reaches a certain level, you can unlock a higher level of the prize pool to attract players to continue to participate. For example, the division of the golden chest, silver chest, and ordinary treasure chest prize pool level often appears in the game;
3) Change the packaging to maintain freshness
Regularly changing the packaging and design elements of the page and gameplay can avoid the player's aesthetic fatigue and reduce the desire to participate. At the same time, for some users with low RP and not drawing their favorite prizes, there is a hint of starting over, the new packaging means a new beginning, and their own RP may also change. Like the new and tired of the old, the nature of people, so although the bottom probability of the lottery can not change, but the packaging must be updated regularly to maintain the freshness of users.
4. Summary
In short, camp activities and lottery in the game should start from the user's three mental stages, design probabilities and gameplay, and protect the user's participation experience. Moderate active participation, you can experience the fun of the lottery, as a leisure and entertainment activities to adjust life. But also avoid disguised gambling, excessive participation in addiction, affecting normal life.
This article is originally published by @I Am Ge S and everyone is a product manager, unauthorized reproduction is prohibited
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