5 ms·

"Laurey LoL statistics indicate players spend an average of $92 a year on the game."

XCSme 5y ago
The thing about IAPs in games is that most money comes from whales, people spending thousands of dollars for customizations or pay-to-win items, this rises the average by a lot. It would be nice to see the distribution of payments.
- dematz 5y ago
  This is the only thing that makes me pause before dismissing the article as ridiculous in cases where it's people choosing to spend money on cosmetics. There might be whales who are addicted to the spending or gambling somehow. Otherwise as someone noted it's just price discrimination, and in a way that lets people try and play games for free. Really I love what video games have become.
hfourm 5y ago
I may spend 100-200 a year on Valorant. However, I am getting way more per hour value out of it than say, a 50 - 60$ single player game that I quit after a single play through. Or worse, the 50-60$ AAA titles that popup every few years, get a swarm of players in the first few months, then die off as the ADHD Twitch community moves to something else.
andechs 5y ago
The median spend might be zero $ per year.
- spiderice 5y ago
  Also might be more. And with a game like Lol, where it is literally pay to win, I wouldn't be surprised if it were more.
  - loustak 5y ago
    Lol is not a pay to win game. Saying otherwise tell me you never played the game. Best players in the world start new accounts with no champions and are still able to climb to the top of the ladder. Also, since a few years the game literally give you tons of content such as champion and cosmetics for free.
  - comrh 5y ago
    What aspect is pay to win?
    - Strom 5y ago
      You need to pay for champions, they are not unlocked for free.
      - philipov 5y ago
        You do not have to pay for champions, you can unlock them for free using easily-obtainable Blue Essence. Paying to unlock champions is pay-to-progress, because it gets you caught up to everyone else faster, but doesn't give you a competitive advantage.
        setr 5y ago
        You say progress, but it’s kind of both an endless treadmill and you’re weaker usually by lack of options; When I used to play LoL, like 5-7 years ago, I was playing a rate of like 3-4 hours daily, which barely scraped by the amount of essence needed to buy the next releases champion, let alone the runes system they had introduced at the time (don’t know if it’s still around) which had a fairly dramatic impact on the early game especially for specific characters. That is, while technically the game could be played purely on free tier and eliminate any competitive advantage… it requires a lot of effort to keep up. Not nearly as bad things like FarmVille used to pull, but definitely enough to say that ponying up cash is eventually needed. And having more options available to you (both characters and runesets or whatever they do now) is definitely an advantage, and a significant one at that

The thing about IAPs in games is that most money comes from whales, people spending thousands of dollars for customizations or pay-to-win items, this rises the average by a lot. It would be nice to see the distribution of payments.

dematz 5y ago
This is the only thing that makes me pause before dismissing the article as ridiculous in cases where it's people choosing to spend money on cosmetics. There might be whales who are addicted to the spending or gambling somehow. Otherwise as someone noted it's just price discrimination, and in a way that lets people try and play games for free. Really I love what video games have become.

hfourm 5y ago

I may spend 100-200 a year on Valorant. However, I am getting way more per hour value out of it than say, a 50 - 60$ single player game that I quit after a single play through. Or worse, the 50-60$ AAA titles that popup every few years, get a swarm of players in the first few months, then die off as the ADHD Twitch community moves to something else.

andechs 5y ago

The median spend might be zero $ per year.

spiderice 5y ago
Also might be more. And with a game like Lol, where it is literally pay to win, I wouldn't be surprised if it were more.
- loustak 5y ago
  Lol is not a pay to win game. Saying otherwise tell me you never played the game. Best players in the world start new accounts with no champions and are still able to climb to the top of the ladder. Also, since a few years the game literally give you tons of content such as champion and cosmetics for free.
- comrh 5y ago
  What aspect is pay to win?
  - Strom 5y ago
    You need to pay for champions, they are not unlocked for free.
    - philipov 5y ago
      You do not have to pay for champions, you can unlock them for free using easily-obtainable Blue Essence. Paying to unlock champions is pay-to-progress, because it gets you caught up to everyone else faster, but doesn't give you a competitive advantage.
      - setr 5y ago
        You say progress, but it’s kind of both an endless treadmill and you’re weaker usually by lack of options; When I used to play LoL, like 5-7 years ago, I was playing a rate of like 3-4 hours daily, which barely scraped by the amount of essence needed to buy the next releases champion, let alone the runes system they had introduced at the time (don’t know if it’s still around) which had a fairly dramatic impact on the early game especially for specific characters. That is, while technically the game could be played purely on free tier and eliminate any competitive advantage… it requires a lot of effort to keep up. Not nearly as bad things like FarmVille used to pull, but definitely enough to say that ponying up cash is eventually needed. And having more options available to you (both characters and runesets or whatever they do now) is definitely an advantage, and a significant one at that