I envy the Whales

DaSal

I envy the Whales.

Recently, I Championed a 4* character. Level 180 to 270 cost 287,403 ISO. Champion fee is 12,500. Total 299,903 ISO.

A Mother Lode of 78,000 ISO costs $99.99 US or $139.00 Canadian. At current exchange $100 US converts to $129.45 Canadian.

I would have had to buy 4 Mother Lodes to get the required ISO. With approximately 40 4* characters, that's $16,000! I have no idea how much ISO is required to level a 5*.

We all know some of the whales have all the 4* and 5* characters fully levelled with many duplicates. If you have that much disposable income to spend on a game, you must make damn good money.

I envy the Whales.

Nick441234

Or have no one special in their lives. I know I wouldn't swap my family for a completely covered character on a game.

carrion_pigeons

I don't think the average whale spends a whole lot on directly buying Iso. Instead, they buy a whole bunch of HP for covers and sell the excess covers for the Iso they need.

Buying Iso is actually such a bad deal that even the whales can't justify it. If you guess that the average whale needs an average of a million Iso per month to cover characters, and makes 20k Iso per day playing, then that means they need to spend enough on HP to make up a difference of 400k Iso. That's a few hundred dollars per month.

Enough money that you could pay a mortgage with it, but not so much that a well-off person couldn't casually destroy the integrity of a game without really sacrificing anything.

Hendross

The most well-known whales have said; they do it without ever buying ISO. They turn around the proceeds of selling covers from the 40 pack(s).

revskip

carrion pigeons wrote:

Enough money that you could pay a mortgage with it, but not so much that a well-off person couldn't casually destroy the integrity of a game without really sacrificing anything.

This made me giggle.

The whales are not destroying the integrity of the game they are actually making it possible for the rest of us who don't whale to play the game. The smallish group of whales (relative to the total player base) bring in the vast majority of the money that the publisher makes, which in turn pays for the servers and developers and coders salaries as well as making money for the publisher. In a free to pay market game the whales are the integrity of the game.

Now arguments could be made that spending that kind of bread on a mobile game might not be healthy, and in fact in many ways these types of games encourage people with a serious addiction problem to hit bottom making them inherently dangerous for some people, but it certainly doesn't destroy the integrity of the game.

mikepro

And whales do buy iso at times. I've seen it happen. But it's not regularly thay they do. Some whales will use that iso as a 1x deposit for a 2* insta champ but it all depends on their mood when they buy it

DaSal

I can see why they would buy 40 packs. That is an insulting amount of ISO for $100 US. If they expect people to spend their hard earned money on the game, they have to offer good value. By rights, $100 should get you 500,000 ISO. Perhaps then more people would spend

carrion_pigeons

revskip wrote:

The whales are not destroying the integrity of the game they are actually making it possible for the rest of us who don't whale to play the game. The smallish group of whales (relative to the total player base) bring in the vast majority of the money that the publisher makes, which in turn pays for the servers and developers and coders salaries as well as making money for the publisher. In a free to pay market game the whales are the integrity of the game.

What do you mean by "integrity"? What I mean is, that a game be aimed at and balanced for the enjoyment of the maximum number of people who would actually play it, which is the implied promise of a designer (of any utilitarian thing) putting his work out there in the first place. The fact that whales turn themselves into the game's primary source of income changes the focus of the design from "how do we make the largest number of people happy" to "how do we make the smallest number of people happy". I feel like that pretty clearly contradicts my definition of integrity.

atomzed

carrion pigeons wrote:

What do you mean by "integrity"? What I mean is, that a game be aimed at and balanced for the enjoyment of the maximum number of people who would actually play it, which is the implied promise of a designer (of any utilitarian thing) putting his work out there in the first place. The fact that whales turn themselves into the game's primary source of income changes the focus of the design from "how do we make the largest number of people happy" to "how do we make the smallest number of people happy". I feel like that pretty clearly contradicts my definition of integrity.

I question your "implied promise of a designer".

While its noble, it doesn't fit into the reality of the world.

A gaming company produces games to earn a profit. To make money.

They can make money through the masses and/ or through focusing on the whales. Note, it is possible for them to cater to both the masses and the whales.

They have to somewhat cater to both groups. If they only cater to the whales, the masses will be disillusioned and they all leave; eventually the whales will get bored and leave too. If they only cater to the masses, the whales will not pay much and their profit margin drops; worst case scenario the game had to be shut down.

It's a fun balance they have to take.... It cannot never be an equal playing field.

Using your own words, the company has to balance between "making the majority of the non-paying masses happy" and "making the small minority of the whales happy".

carrion_pigeons

I didn't say anything about the company. Clearly a company is in it for the profit. I said the designer.

A designer is somebody who has a vision for something that people will want to use. Figuring out how to monetize that vision without compromising it (i.e. maintaining its integrity) is the challenge of an entrepreneur.

Linkster79

I'd just settle for being in a position that worrying about if I spend £550 or £1000 in a month is my biggest concern.

notamutant

revskip wrote:

carrion pigeons wrote:

Enough money that you could pay a mortgage with it, but not so much that a well-off person couldn't casually destroy the integrity of a game without really sacrificing anything.

This made me giggle.

The whales are not destroying the integrity of the game they are actually making it possible for the rest of us who don't whale to play the game. The smallish group of whales (relative to the total player base) bring in the vast majority of the money that the publisher makes, which in turn pays for the servers and developers and coders salaries as well as making money for the publisher. In a free to pay market game the whales are the integrity of the game.

Now arguments could be made that spending that kind of bread on a mobile game might not be healthy, and in fact in many ways these types of games encourage people with a serious addiction problem to hit bottom making them inherently dangerous for some people, but it certainly doesn't destroy the integrity of the game.

I take the opposite opinion. Because the whales spend so much money on **** that we don't really want (more characters), the developers have no incentive to create new features or better gameplay. If the whales boycotted 5 stars by not spending money anymore, for example, the devs might've actually got rid of this RNG hell. I blame both whales and the devs for the current state of the game, which in my opinion, has been going downhill for over a year now.

ClydeFrog76

notamutant wrote:

I take the opposite opinion. Because the whales spend so much money on **** that we don't really want (more characters), the developers have no incentive to create new features or better gameplay. If the whales boycotted 5 stars by not spending money anymore, for example, the devs might've actually got rid of this RNG hell. I blame both whales and the devs for the current state of the game, which in my opinion, has been going downhill for over a year now.

Totally agree.

"You can't whale 5*s!", said the devs.

"Just watch us!", said the whales.

"OH CRIMINY, LOOK AT ALL DAT COIN!", said the devs.

And thus we are here, with no new real content and a continuing parade of 5*s pandering to the addicted.

It's depressing.

wirius

I don't envy the whales. What kind of person do you have to be to drop 1000 dollars in a month on a cell phone game? Even if you are rich, that's just embarrassing.

torontoraptors

wirius wrote:

I don't envy the whales. What kind of person do you have to be to drop 1000 dollars in a month on a cell phone game? Even if you are rich, that's just embarrassing.

Yeah that same person probably walked by a homeless person today without even hint of trying to help, even a few bucks.

lukewin

torontoraptors wrote:

wirius wrote:

I don't envy the whales. What kind of person do you have to be to drop 1000 dollars in a month on a cell phone game? Even if you are rich, that's just embarrassing.

Yeah that same person probably walked by a homeless person today without even hint of trying to help, even a few bucks.

Then again, that homeless person might be homeless because they spent all their money on a cell phone game and have been playing with their 5* on the street.

Smudge

revskip wrote:

In a free to pay market game the whales are the integrity of the game.

I don't really have anything meaningful to contribute, but the irony of this unintentional typo is not lost on me

atomzed

carrion pigeons wrote:

I didn't say anything about the company. Clearly a company is in it for the profit. I said the designer.

A designer is somebody who has a vision for something that people will want to use. Figuring out how to monetize that vision without compromising it (i.e. maintaining its integrity) is the challenge of an entrepreneur.

You clearly agree that the designer works for the company. And that the company wants profit.

So why "blame the designer" for the issues?

carrion_pigeons

You clearly agree that the designer works for the company. And that the company wants profit.

So why "blame the designer" for the issues?

I'm not really clear what you're asking, but let me back up here.

Do you ever think of ways the game could be better? Every single day on these forms we get some guy posting a thread with a legitimately worthwhile idea that wouldn't be particularly hard to implement, and every single time the reason why it doesn't get any attention at all is because it would affect the buying habits of whales. I could stack up enough ideas to make a skyscraper that have been offered up on these forums that would make this game objectively better, and the main thing standing in the way is whales.

So please, tell me again how the integrity of the game is not damaged by whales.

acescracked

carrion pigeons wrote:

You clearly agree that the designer works for the company. And that the company wants profit.

So why "blame the designer" for the issues?

I'm not really clear what you're asking, but let me back up here.

Do you ever think of ways the game could be better? Every single day on these forms we get some guy posting a thread with a legitimately worthwhile idea that wouldn't be particularly hard to implement, and every single time the reason why it doesn't get any attention at all is because it would affect the buying habits of whales. I could stack up enough ideas to make a skyscraper that have been offered up on these forums that would make this game objectively better, and the main thing standing in the way is whales.

So please, tell me again how the integrity of the game is not damaged by whales.

Please supply links, documents, financials any ounce of evidence to support your claim that this game makes a majority of it's income from large multiple purchases from a small percentage (compared to active daily users) of whales. I highly doubt you would be making such a claim without knowing d3's financials, so give us some more details.

I do know that the general free to play mobile money making model is to get many small purchases from as many players as they can. This is an old article but it highlights d3's intial goals.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/08/marve ... au-part-1/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/24/marve ... alliances/
"we’ve been furiously optimizing the game, chasing the mythical $1 ARPDAU (Average Revenue Per Daily Active User)."

Polares

notamutant wrote:

revskip wrote:

carrion pigeons wrote:

Enough money that you could pay a mortgage with it, but not so much that a well-off person couldn't casually destroy the integrity of a game without really sacrificing anything.

This made me giggle.

The whales are not destroying the integrity of the game they are actually making it possible for the rest of us who don't whale to play the game. The smallish group of whales (relative to the total player base) bring in the vast majority of the money that the publisher makes, which in turn pays for the servers and developers and coders salaries as well as making money for the publisher. In a free to pay market game the whales are the integrity of the game.

Now arguments could be made that spending that kind of bread on a mobile game might not be healthy, and in fact in many ways these types of games encourage people with a serious addiction problem to hit bottom making them inherently dangerous for some people, but it certainly doesn't destroy the integrity of the game.

I take the opposite opinion. Because the whales spend so much money on **** that we don't really want (more characters), the developers have no incentive to create new features or better gameplay. If the whales boycotted 5 stars by not spending money anymore, for example, the devs might've actually got rid of this RNG hell. I blame both whales and the devs for the current state of the game, which in my opinion, has been going downhill for over a year now.

In this particular case I don't think we should blame whales, anybody should be completely free to do whatever he pleases with his well earned money (I agree there are better ways of spending money, but you can just chose what to do with your money... and your taxes by voting ). So if they have the money and they want to spend it in this game, it is just their prerogative.

On the other hand, devs promised that 5s wouldnt be purchasable just before they released them. And just after a month or so, they changed that completely, and now 5s are purchasable, and they are probably one of their biggest incomes. Devs are the ones to blame, not the whales. Whales are gonna whale (on 5s, 4s, new content, whatever Devs release that they want).

If Devs dont release other type of content is because they dont want to, or they dont know how to (without destroying their current goals). If they knew that by releasing a new game mode X they would get make 50% more money they would do it ASAP, it doesnt matter if they are already getting money, if they can make more money they will do it.