"My Atari is really back!" Seeing the news that all Atari games were launched on mobile phones, countless Americans exclaimed.
Their memories and emotions towards Atari were undoubtedly very deep. Although Atari was once hated more than a certain penguin company, time changes everything. It would gradually dilute the unpleasant memories of the past, leaving only the good ones.
Many people would disagree, arguing that people remember hatred more deeply. Then, please try to recall all the memories from birth until now. Besides the hatred generated by your original family that has always accompanied you and influenced your life, are there any isolated hateful events that you can recall within a minute?
Conversely, what happy memories can you recall within a minute? In reality, humans' memory of beautiful things is stronger than their memory of hatred.
The above is just to prove that after all Atari games were launched on mobile phones, the sales of Tianxing series mobile phones in the United States once again surged. At its peak, the Tianxing 5 mobile phone on the black market even soared to $10,000.
However, this price only lasted for less than one night. Because soon, BLm Company announced on its official Weibo that the second batch of Tianxing 5 mobile phone blind boxes would be fully stocked tomorrow, with a quantity of up to 100,000 units, enough for all interested users to try their luck.
This batch of blind boxes was specifically prepared for the Tianxing 5 mobile phone. The price of each blind box was uniformly $2. At the same time, the ordinary prize in the blind box was very straightforward, with only one item: a phone bill voucher for Atari Mobile Communications.
Of course, this voucher has usage restrictions. It is a ($5-$2) voucher, meaning that to use one voucher to reduce the price by $2, you must top up at least $5 for phone bills. This is equivalent to buying $5 worth of phone bills for $3.
However, there are no usage restrictions on the vouchers, and they can be stacked infinitely as long as one is willing.
Next are the rare prizes. The choices here are not so monotonous, including Tianxing 5 premium phone screen protectors, Tianxing phone cases (available in 18 different styles), exclusive earphones, exclusive battery packs, exclusive car chargers, and so on. In total, there are over 30 types of mobile phone accessories.
Finally, there is only one reward for the deluxe prize, which is the Tianxing 5 mobile phone itself.
Finally, the probabilities were also announced. The probability of winning an ordinary prize is 90%, the probability of winning a rare prize is 9.9%, and the probability of winning a deluxe prize is 0.1%.
This means that to draw a Tianxing 5 mobile phone, one would theoretically need to spend $2,000 to buy 1,000 blind boxes to have a chance to win.
In addition, the long-suspended Jiangnan Coin exchange for Tianxing phones activity has also been restarted.
However, after the company reorganization, the Jiangnan Coin in the United States has been renamed BLm Coin, and it is habitually referred to as B Coin. Its price is the same as in China, which is 16,000 B Coins for one Tianxing 5 mobile phone.
However, the exchange price is different. B Coins can only be exchanged using US dollars or blind boxes sold in the United States.
The ordinary prize in the $2 blind box can be exchanged for 8 B Coins. US dollars cannot be directly exchanged for B Coins.
Rare prizes in blind boxes can be exchanged for 40 B Coins.
In other words, blind boxes actually have a guaranteed minimum. Even if one's luck is extremely bad and no rare or deluxe prizes are drawn, one only needs to spend $4,000 to buy 2,000 blind boxes to guarantee 16,000 B Coins, which can be directly exchanged for a Tianxing 5 mobile phone.
But in reality, even if one draws the rare deluxe prize, the drop rate of rare items is still relatively stable. Calculated at $200 for 9 ordinary prizes and one rare prize, which equates to 112 B Coins, it actually only costs about $2,800 to guarantee a Tianxing 5 mobile phone.
Therefore, as soon as this policy was announced, the price of Tianxing 5 mobile phones on eBay directly dropped from over $10,000 to around $3,500, and then stabilized at this price with little change in a short period.
Some people might find it strange. Wasn't it calculated that it only takes $2,800 to guarantee a Tianxing 5 from official channels, so why is the price on the second-hand website still $3,500?
Ahem, do you think Americans' calculation skills are as honed since childhood as Chinese people's?
There is an American joke that can explain everything. If you look at product prices in American supermarkets or various stores, you will find that.
American product prices are either in dollars or cents, and there is only one unit.
For example, a product priced at $1.3 would only be marked as 130 cents, and never as $1 and 30 cents.
Besides, there are rarely any decimal points in product prices.
This is because once a product price requires conversion between cents and dollars, most Americans would rather not buy it than do the extra calculation.
Similarly, if there are decimal points, they definitely won't buy it because it's too troublesome to calculate.
And when checking out, if there are scattered cents, the cashier will usually round up the change and offer a handful of candy to represent it.
For example, if the final price is $5.49 and the consumer gives a $10 bill, they should theoretically receive $4.51 in change.
However, the cashier will absolutely not give that exact amount, because they cannot calculate it. So, they will generally only give $4, and then casually grab a handful of candy to represent the change.
The number of candies is also not fixed; it is based on the difference in the rounded cents and the cashier's feeling. Anyway, it's about going with the gut feeling.
Miraculously, American consumers generally don't fuss over this issue because they also cannot calculate how much change they are supposed to receive, so they simply accept a handful of candy.
After all, if they were to object to the candy being too little, or refuse the candy and demand exact change, they would have to calculate the exact amount themselves, which is too difficult for the American people.
Because of this, many Americans prefer to buy large quantities of items that are priced in whole numbers. Some Americans even only buy items with whole-dollar prices to avoid this situation of not being able to make change.
From this, it can be seen that the vast majority of American people are unable to directly calculate the guaranteed minimum price through a series of rules.
It's impossible. 80% of Americans calculate that it takes $4,000 to guarantee a Tianxing 5 mobile phone, so the $3,500 price is still very cost-effective, at least much cheaper than the previous $10,000.
According to statistics, over 300 Tianxing 5 mobile phones were sold on eBay that night at the price of $3,500, which was basically all the inventory held by scalpers.
However, even though they were selling so hotly, the scalpers were crying their eyes out. This is because the Tianxing 5 held by the scalpers was mostly acquired at the price of $4,000 per unit, and now that the official shipment has started, they have lost everything.
Moreover, the scalpers dared not refuse to sell. After all, although Americans have issues with their math skills, scalpers' math skills are absolutely top-notch, and they know the actual guaranteed minimum price.
Therefore, if they don't sell quickly at the current price of $3,500, will they wait until most people realize that they can get it for $2,800 and come online to buy these $3,500 items?
So the scalpers were crying so miserably, but soon they discovered that even worse things were about to happen.
Because the next day, when the second batch of Tianxing 5 mobile phones began selling in the United States, all 200+ sales outlets of BLm Company across the country were packed.
Especially in front of the counters selling Tianxing 5 blind boxes, there were basically two or thirty people queuing up.
And these buyers were extremely generous, usually taking out $100 and buying 50 Tianxing mobile phone blind boxes at once.
While buying, they would also say that it was too cheap, only $100.
Indeed, at $2 per blind box, even for the average American worker, this price is very low. Just one less cigarette would be enough to buy 10 blind boxes. Who could refuse such a price?
For only $100, one can enjoy the fun of opening 50 blind boxes. This is unimaginably cheap.
And this has nothing to do with the consumption level of Americans. After all, even if $100 is converted to RMB, it is only 800.
Spending 800 RMB to enjoy the fun of opening 50 blind boxes, with each blind box costing only 16 yuan, and with the chance to open the top-tier phone, would you be willing to pay?
It's definitely a massive sell-out!
Moreover, the blind boxes themselves are very cost-effective, and there is no possibility of losing money.
It's one thing to open deluxe and rare prizes, which is an absolute windfall.
But even if an ordinary prize is drawn, it's a $2 phone bill. One can directly top up $2 at the newly renamed Atari. Stark Mobile Communications outlets.
Although this requires an additional $3 in cash, the $5 phone bill is real and credited instantly, usable like a normal phone bill without any other consumption traps. Is this a loss?
Even if you say that buying 100 yuan worth of blind boxes might require topping up another 150 yuan for phone bills, which seems a bit too much, but haven't you truly received 250 yuan worth of phone bills?
Under normal circumstances, you would have to pay this much for phone bills in two or three months, wouldn't you? If you save the phone bill money for the next two or three months, is that a loss?
This is definitely a huge profit!
What if you say you are not a user of Atari Mobile Communications, and you cannot use the topped-up phone bill?
That's fine. After all, if you get a Tianxing 5 mobile phone, you can only bind it to an Atari Communications contract. So, instead of abandoning your previous mobile communication company, why not switch to the cheaper and more affordable Atari Mobile Communications and enjoy more preferential phone bill policies and data services? Isn't that great?
Great, it's absolutely fantastic.