Many game companies specifically target vulnerable people, who end up spending their entire pay check every month, and are called Whales.
I’m on a game, Whiteout Survival, you’ve probably never heard of it. I haven’t spent a penny, but I was curious about how much one obscure “upgrade” cost. Mind you, there are hundreds of purchases in the game.
It was $100 US, and it said 29,000 had been sold… in the last WEEK!
2.9 million dollars a week for NOTHING. And that’s just that one obscure item, far from their biggest seller.
And that’s just in one game you’ve never heard of.
You’re a non-monetizer, just like 95% of the players. The game will make you some form of offer in order to convert you into a paying minnow, dolphin or whale. Whales are rare, less than a percent of the players, but they generate a significant amount of the revenue.
Companies compare their conversion rate with each other and have specific goals to meet. 5% for example is good. If your company has say 3%, you’ll want to focus on improving that. Each product will have a specific goal here, and otherwise is shut down because there’s a customer acquisition cost. Games easily cost more to market than to develop.
A lot of effort is spent on the first offer. This is where you’ll see a screen that makes an amazing offer you’ll seriously consider. It’ll have something that is high value but incredibly cheap and so temporary. This isn’t to earn money, it’s simply to convert you. Because after you’ve spent your first dollar you’re likely to keep spending.
Yeah it’s been showing me that banner every time I start the game since the very beginning.
And I nope it every time.
I knew multiple people who spent several ten thousands USD in State of Survival. A fucking mobile game.
A buddy of mine spent several thousand on Marvel Heroes. He wouldn’t go out to lunch with us, and finally I asked him what was going on. He eventually told me, we had a “dude…we are adults and can’t be doing that shit. Imagine the hookers and drugs you could have bought!”
He quit, but still tells me he thinks about it and is immediately filled with regret.
Reason for saying that?
BTW: not the company reporting those numbers. Google Play’s numbers.
I was suckered into the shark cards on GTA Online, I worked terrible hours and it was my escape.
I bought shark cards for thousands of SEK ocer a year or so, not much in compared to normal whales, but I did feel the addiction drawing me in harder.
Then one day I had just had enough, and uninstalled the game, else I knew I would continue.
I am glad though, the money I spent was not wasted, it taught me a valuable lesson about what to look out for, and how to recognize sinkholes like this.
It’s good that you managed to wake up and take care of yourself. Players with that pattern are called dolphins.
They have ARPU targets (Average Revenue Per User) and UAC targets (User Acquisition Costs). Whales contribute significantly to the game’s bottom line. Non-paying customers are vital, because player population is a game quality, and Whales need a population to notice how awesome they are.
But game companies don’t tend to separate Whales from other players (at least not the ones I’ve worked for), they tend to care about ARPU, which is more stable, and a much easier target to shoot for. And they want to keep UAC down, which lowers the required ARPU for a successful game.
Here’s an industry talk about how to prey on whales
