Play sessions tend to be three or four times longer than what an average player’s would be.īut these are all still numbers, not faces or personalities. Other companies, like social casino developer Blitzoo, defines various categories of whales based on a combination of factors: total money spent, playtime, experience points earned in-game, and so on. Ninety percent came from those who spent $100 or more, and the top whale had spent $6,700. That’s a big jump from whales on Facebook, for instance, where social gamers could drop $25 per month to meet the same qualification.ĥth Planet chief executive Robert Winkler revealed at the Game Developers Conference Online in 2012 that with its game Clash of the Dragons, 40 percent of revenue came from 2 percent of players who spent $1,000 or more. 5th Planet Games, a developer of social games for both casual and hardcore audiences, starts classifying its players as whales when they spend $100 or more a month. Today, the idea of a “whale” carries a different weight for each company. Longtime game analyst Michael Pachter told GamesBeat that Asia has used free-to-play with microtransactions for 15 years, but it still feels like a relatively new phenomenon here as we wonder whether the business model holds a place in our future. Whales existed in online and mobile video games long before they started appearing in the West. We know they play social games, but are they social? Are their habits casual or obsessive? What kind of people are they? ‘Whale’ has many meanings It’s easy to think of whales anonymously because we’re not quite sure who they are or how they think - they’re often elusive due to the stigma that surrounds them.

But the word “whale” isn’t a flattering term, and neither are the numbers associated with it. As the biggest spenders, they make up a tiny group (think about 2 percent of audiences) that drives most of the revenue for publishers of these games. The “whales” of the social-gaming world are a mystery to most of us.

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