7 ms·

Only bit I disagree with is that the big spenders are doing it purely because of addiction or gambling. Most big spenders are incredibly wealthy, like buy $30,

by a13o 4y ago

Only bit I disagree with is that the big spenders are doing it purely because of addiction or gambling. Most big spenders are incredibly wealthy, like buy $30,000 wristwatches for fun wealthy. Games have figured out how to 'go infinite' on their spend possibilities and capture wristwatch money from these folks. The other thing novel to games is social aspects. Just like buying fashion to wear in public, games let you show off your money in a way other mediums don't. Music has a near equivalent with VIP passes and private shows, but scaling these are human-bound in space or time respectively, which games aren't limited by. Second, games provide a sense of community. A lot of game revenue is monetizing people's desire to not be alone. Calling these players addicted is I think reductive. Are people addicted to church? To golf? To therapy? Maybe some of them, but it's a poor generalization.

adamauckland 4y ago
What do people do to afford $30,000 throwaway wristwatches? There can't be that many of them in the world, that's the definition of the top 1%?!
- mousetree 4y ago
  Why are they throwaway?
  - daemoens 4y ago
    Some of the people who can buy 30k watches have so much money that it can become just another throwaway item.
- daemoens 4y ago
  Lot of kids/young adults with old money is my guess. These people will never have a reason to work so will pad out their days with things like this.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  If you're on a million a year, 30k is about 11 days' income.
- ffssffss 4y ago
  The top 1% by household income in the US is about $500k a year. There are more than 100 million households in the US, so that's conservatively at least 1 million families who could afford to support a 5 figure microtransaction whale. That's a lot of money!
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  be born wealthy.
rng_civ 4y ago
> Only bit I disagree with is that the big spenders are doing it purely because of addiction or gambling. People spend big in games because: * The spending is very stimulating visually and audibly (think lootbox openings) * The gains from their spending translates directly to game-social prestige, game power, or both (i.e. an Advantage) * This Advantage allows them to lord over the players who have spent less (or 0 in the case for F2P players) Whether that manifests into addiction depends entirely on the rest of the game's design (but you know, games that introduce the Advantage tend to want to make a lot of money by getting you hooked on spending...) > Second, games provide a sense of community. A lot of game revenue is monetizing people's desire to not be alone. Calling these players addicted is I think reductive. Yes, these games do provide a sense of community because they are purposefully designed to do so. Without an incentive to play while getting lorded over by whales, the fish will leave. Without a bunch of fish to lord over, the whales will leave. Again, this depends on the game's design, but the vast majority of them encourage addiction to the Advantage and its use against others. Maybe you can extend this analysis to IRL stuff. I don't know because I don't participate in any of it. Source: [Let’s go whaling: Tricks for monetising mobile game players with free-to-play](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4&t=0s)
- Buttons840 4y ago
  > The spending is very stimulating visually and audibly (think lootbox openings) This reminds me of an article (which I can't find again) talking about "the toy in the interface". A good game will be fun to simply interact with on a user interface level. Has anyone built a lootbox simulator yet? Skip the game and just do lootboxes. Give people a way to scratch their lootbox itch for free. If done well enough, with a good toy in the interface, this could actually draw attention and profits away from those who exploit.
  - LikesPwsh 4y ago
    Casino apps are exactly that, and highly profitable
    - 4y ago
loveparade 4y ago
> Most big spenders are incredibly wealthy, like buy $30,000 wristwatches for fun wealthy. Games have figured out how to 'go infinite' on their spend possibilities and capture wristwatch money from these folks. Do you have any data to back up this claim? I don't have data to prove the opposite either, but I don't believe this is true. I know multiple big spenders in real life. They have a very average income, but instead of putting the ~$500-1000 that's left each month into a saving accounts, they spend it on mobile games, i.e. make bad financial decisions. FOMO is probably the main driver. I'm sure the people you refer to exist. There are whales that are so rich that they don't care about wasting $10-100k on a game, but I don't believe these are the majority of players that spend large amounts. I think the big spenders on average have below average income, they are just bad at self-restraint, and/or relatively young and inexperienced with money.
- a13o 4y ago
  I worked in the F2P industry a decade ago and have many anecdotes. Oil sheiks with a direct line to the development team. Wire transfer support for big spenders to get around throughout restrictions on normal payment processing. Spend anomalies in graphs with 7 figure y-axes because some lawyer discovered the game while stuck home with the flu. A lot of customer support energy was put into white glove service for these players because of how important they were to the revenue graph. Kongregate used to share data pretty liberally and had a wide view of the industry in their day. They were playing with less zeroes than the big names but the trends were the same. https://blog.kongregate.com/dont-call-them-whales-f2p-spenders-and-virtual-value/ https://blog.kongregate.com/dont-call-them-whales-f2p-spende... I'm out of the game for a while now but keep in touch with former colleagues and they've gotten much better rounding out the spender curve. But the folks at the tail still got that wristwatch money. If you don't have a spend stream for them you're leaving a huge piece of your revenue on the table.

by a13o 4y ago

adamauckland 4y ago

What do people do to afford $30,000 throwaway wristwatches? There can't be that many of them in the world, that's the definition of the top 1%?!

mousetree 4y ago
Why are they throwaway?
- daemoens 4y ago
  Some of the people who can buy 30k watches have so much money that it can become just another throwaway item.
daemoens 4y ago
Lot of kids/young adults with old money is my guess. These people will never have a reason to work so will pad out their days with things like this.
HPsquared 4y ago
If you're on a million a year, 30k is about 11 days' income.
ffssffss 4y ago
The top 1% by household income in the US is about $500k a year. There are more than 100 million households in the US, so that's conservatively at least 1 million families who could afford to support a 5 figure microtransaction whale. That's a lot of money!
Tiktaalik 4y ago
be born wealthy.

rng_civ 4y ago

> Only bit I disagree with is that the big spenders are doing it purely because of addiction or gambling. People spend big in games because: * The spending is very stimulating visually and audibly (think lootbox openings) * The gains from their spending translates directly to game-social prestige, game power, or both (i.e. an Advantage) * This Advantage allows them to lord over the players who have spent less (or 0 in the case for F2P players) Whether that manifests into addiction depends entirely on the rest of the game's design (but you know, games that introduce the Advantage tend to want to make a lot of money by getting you hooked on spending...) > Second, games provide a sense of community. A lot of game revenue is monetizing people's desire to not be alone. Calling these players addicted is I think reductive. Yes, these games do provide a sense of community because they are purposefully designed to do so. Without an incentive to play while getting lorded over by whales, the fish will leave. Without a bunch of fish to lord over, the whales will leave. Again, this depends on the game's design, but the vast majority of them encourage addiction to the Advantage and its use against others. Maybe you can extend this analysis to IRL stuff. I don't know because I don't participate in any of it. Source: [Let’s go whaling: Tricks for monetising mobile game players with free-to-play](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4&t=0s)

Buttons840 4y ago
> The spending is very stimulating visually and audibly (think lootbox openings) This reminds me of an article (which I can't find again) talking about "the toy in the interface". A good game will be fun to simply interact with on a user interface level. Has anyone built a lootbox simulator yet? Skip the game and just do lootboxes. Give people a way to scratch their lootbox itch for free. If done well enough, with a good toy in the interface, this could actually draw attention and profits away from those who exploit.
- LikesPwsh 4y ago
  Casino apps are exactly that, and highly profitable
  - 4y ago

loveparade 4y ago

> Most big spenders are incredibly wealthy, like buy $30,000 wristwatches for fun wealthy. Games have figured out how to 'go infinite' on their spend possibilities and capture wristwatch money from these folks. Do you have any data to back up this claim? I don't have data to prove the opposite either, but I don't believe this is true. I know multiple big spenders in real life. They have a very average income, but instead of putting the ~$500-1000 that's left each month into a saving accounts, they spend it on mobile games, i.e. make bad financial decisions. FOMO is probably the main driver. I'm sure the people you refer to exist. There are whales that are so rich that they don't care about wasting $10-100k on a game, but I don't believe these are the majority of players that spend large amounts. I think the big spenders on average have below average income, they are just bad at self-restraint, and/or relatively young and inexperienced with money.

a13o 4y ago
I worked in the F2P industry a decade ago and have many anecdotes. Oil sheiks with a direct line to the development team. Wire transfer support for big spenders to get around throughout restrictions on normal payment processing. Spend anomalies in graphs with 7 figure y-axes because some lawyer discovered the game while stuck home with the flu. A lot of customer support energy was put into white glove service for these players because of how important they were to the revenue graph. Kongregate used to share data pretty liberally and had a wide view of the industry in their day. They were playing with less zeroes than the big names but the trends were the same. https://blog.kongregate.com/dont-call-them-whales-f2p-spenders-and-virtual-value/ https://blog.kongregate.com/dont-call-them-whales-f2p-spende... I'm out of the game for a while now but keep in touch with former colleagues and they've gotten much better rounding out the spender curve. But the folks at the tail still got that wristwatch money. If you don't have a spend stream for them you're leaving a huge piece of your revenue on the table.