Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Gardens was expressed in terms of her not wanting to lose. She had little hope of
matching it with the other properties to get a monopoly—but she also did not de-
sire that. To her (and to the rest of us), the utility of Marvin Gardens had nothing
to do with its value. It had to do with power (such as it was).
When money is used as the example, many of us can relate to the difference be-
tween value and utility. We all have likely gotten into a discussion over whether or
not something was “worth the price� that was set for it. The price the parties were
discussing—the one on the tag—was the same for both people. Therefore, the
value
that would be paid for the item would be the same. The difference is in what we
expected to get for that amount. Some people would be willing to pay that price for
an object and others would not. They may have a greater notion of utility for their
money than other people.
Even this example is complicated somewhat by necessarily including the opin-
ions of value (and utility) that the people have for the item in question. If you were
to remove
any
exchange from the process entirely, people's relative utility for the
same value of money becomes a bit more apparent. For example, if you were to lose
20 dollars somewhere, would you try to find it? Ten dollars? Five? One? At what
point is the utility of the money you lost so low that you no longer care?
Even this question is a little knotty in that we must account for the time spent
looking for the lost money. If I dropped a dollar bill at my feet, I would bend down
to pick it up. If I was told I dropped a dollar back in the parking lot, I wouldn't
bother. While the value was still the same, my utility for a single dollar is not worth
the time and effort to locate it.
What's It Worth to You?
In a different scenario, I was once caught behind a woman in the grocery store.
Apparently a small can of peas had been scanned incorrectly—or at least different
from the price she claimed she saw on the shelf. We were stalled waiting for the
helpful grocery clerk to go and ascertain the validity of what she saw. I was stand-
ing behind her with a single item—mildly perturbed over having to wait. When I
overheard that the difference between the scanned price and her claim was about 20
cents, I reached into my pocket, pulled out 20 cents and placed it on the counter
between the customer and the cashier saying “here, I'll cover the difference.�
The customer turned to me and (much to my amazement) explained with
rather animated excitement that the store rules stated that if something was
scanned incorrectly, you received it for free. It didn't take me but a moment to
glance at the register and see that the can of peas had rung up at a whopping
78 cents. Knowing that I had plenty of change in my pocket, I reached back in and
plopped what likely amounted to two entire cans of peas on the counter.
