Say what you will about the free-to-play model or in-app purchases, but they’re here to stay, although interestingly enough it has been found that while these models are indeed doing very well with titles like Candy Crush raking in over $600,000 a day, it turns out that maybe those in-app purchases were done by a very small, but very dedicated, group of players.
This is according to analytics firm, Swrve, who conducted a recent survey on the matter. Based on their findings, which we guess doesn’t necessarily apply to all the games and gamers out there, it has been found that about 0.15% of mobile gamers contribute 50% of all the in-app purchases generated in free-to-play games.
Yup, you read that right, only a fraction of the player base accounts for half of the money made by the free-to-play model. In fact the folks at VentureBeat have a rather apt name for these gamers, calling them “whales” which is also a term used by casinos to refer to big spenders.
It has also been pointed out that based on this data that developers will now realize the importance and significance of these days, and how they should attempt to find ways to attract and retain such users since they are the ones spending the most money.
Of course there is a downside to this and this that for developers who aren’t able to attract such big spenders, it basically means that they’re giving their games away for free. It is a pretty interesting finding which is why you will find, for the most part, that most players would rather pay full price for a game, rather than pay for in-app purchases which would ultimately end up costing them a lot more.
What do you guys think?