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I think you are taking the metaphor a little bit too literally. :)
by jnmandal 9y ago
I think you are taking the metaphor a little bit too literally. :)
- lloydde 9y agoI came to the article to find out how whale watching tour companies were making most of their money from a few customers. This likely comes from growing up in the pacific north West of North America. It wasn’t until Zynga was mentioned that I caught on.
- carlob 9y agoExactly the same here, I wouldn't have clicked if I knew there were no actual whales involved.
- grawprog 9y agoI don't understand I think that's my highest rated comment on HN. I gotta admit I wrote it before I actually read the article. I really thought it was going to be about whale watching. I've been trying to figure out if there's some kind of brilliant metaphor in that comment but honestly I can't see one now that I've actually read it.
- watwut 9y agoGame industry calls people who spend a lot of money on games "whales". I guess it is because whales are supposed to have a lot of meat. None of people who use it knows a lot about biology and whale is likely the only big animal that can be eaten they know.
- Joe-Z 9y agoThe metaphor is more about how types of fish are distributed in the vast 'sea' of gamers. Most of them are small fish, so they don't pay anything or very little for your game. There's also the term dolphins, for people that pay medium-sized amounts or regularly and then whales for people that pour big amounts of money into your game (and like the headline mentions, these can be ridiculous sums).
- grawprog 9y agoI understand the metaphor in the article. I just don't understand why my comment that actually has nothing at all to do with the article just keeps on getting upvotes. The article makes sense, my comment after reading it makes none. I thought maybe I'd lucked out and came up with something that somehow was actually related in someway but no it's really not applicable. It really confused me at first when I read down and people were talking about the economy and 99%vs1% below in an article I thought was about literal whales.
- seeekr 9y agoHere's how your comment made sense to me even though I had read the article and understood that it's not talking about literal "whales": You mention few customers bringing in the major share of the revenue, and that's exactly what the article linked is about.
- watwut 9y agoI found it hilarious. And it mostly matches the article which is funny. I read a lot about games and whales, but your comment contained something new and refreshing.
- TheCowboy 9y agoI'd imagine whales as slang and whaling metaphors have existed for quite some time. There's the expression "a whale of a tale". I think for gaming it relates more closely to fishing and whaling, and how fishing is perceived. You're not hunting fish, you're fishing. I know poker uses both fish and whales as slang. If you rely on a couple big customers or players then you're waiting for that one big catch most of the time. Whales weren't just caught for their edible meat, and the other products such as oil were likely more important in the past.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y agoIt comes from the casino industry where the big gamblers are "whales". They get all the perks so they can keep on losing money to the house.
- Pulcinella 9y agoYes this is where I first heard the term “whales.”
- chickenfries 9y agoNo it comes from Whaling, as in hunting whales for their spermaceti which was used as a fuel and to make many products. Whale meat is actually not usually sold by whalers. Not a lot of good methods for preserving meat in the 19th C on a boat. Whaling is compared to businesses that rely on a small number of big spenders to be profitable because whaling is a similar high risk high reward business, compared to fishing. Whaling is even more dangerous than fishing, requires being at sea for a month at a time... if you fail to catch a whale, no one on the ship gets paid. Whalers were paid in equity. A lowly deckhand would make a very small amount compared to a spearman who killed a whale or the captain, but there were rewards for spotting the whale and even the deckhand would probably make enough money to take off work for a while before having to return to sea. (Anyone else enjoy Moby Dick?)
- hutzlibu 9y ago>Anyone else enjoy Moby Dick? Yes, but given your slightly OT rant, I suppose your reading is fresh?
- chickenfries 9y agoNo, just excited to get to show off useless whaling knowledge
- hutzlibu 9y agoYeah, I felt that too, sometimes ;)
- emodendroket 9y agoI don't really think this reading necessarily makes sense considering whales are usually compared to small fish. Also, not the 19th Century anymore and anybody hunting whales is doing it for meat, because the "rock oil" revolution happened a long time ago.
- zhte415 9y agoFinance/trading does the same.
- Alex3917 9y ago> I guess it is because whales are supposed to have a lot of meat. I heard it was because Kerry Packer was overweight.
- sillysaurus3 9y agoThat's the delight of HN: It's your highest rated comment because it teaches us something about the world we didn't know. It's interesting, if unexpected.
- sky_rw 9y agoSecondary delight of HN: The top voted comment is from somebody who didn't actually read the article.