Whether or not developers like the term “whales,” the truth is that big spenders are still very big business for free-to-play games. Gamasutra points to a report that says that the top 10% of spenders in mobile games made up 64% of the revenue for those titles.
In-game purchases are on the increase, too. In January, 2.3% of players spent money in mobile apps, up from 1.5% in January 2014 (back when only 50% of spenders were whales, by the way). Those spenders dropped an average of $29.17 per game.
With both spending and big spenders on the rise in the mobile market, it could be indicitive of the same trends in MOBAs and MMOs. Should devs be chasing whales now more than ever to bring in those big profits?
[Source: Gamasutra]
