Let’s go whaling: Tricks for monetising mobile game players with free-to-play

Must see video for anyone interested in the topic, from someone explaining how to do these monetizations tactics: ▶ this video

Reminds me of this must see video for anyone interested in the topic, from someone explaining how to do these monetizations tactics: ▶ this video Sometimes I wonder what is is about specifically mobile gaming that makes this sort of thing so much more prevalent. Like it is very far from absent from PC or consoles, but it's still a bit different.

Gamification as a field of study also reminds me a lot of this video[1] of a talk about tips for game developers. It is very interesting because it is from 2016 which is close to the time period you mentioned. I’m pretty sure this video has been shared on Hacker News a bunch. [1]: ▶ this video

I’m not too familiar with gacha games, so I was intrigued. I thought the criticism of EA’s former CEO was funny. But the rest of the article felt like a lot of term-dropping and examples that aren't linked together into a cohesive theory, so I’m kind of disappointed. I think this industry talk about monetization ( ▶ this video ) and Tynan Sylvester’s book “Designing Games” were a lot more informative. For example, the blog post says this but then doesn't really elaborate on what any of the clauses mean ("repeatable design levers", "without compromising the core gameplay experience"): > A healthy long-term monetization system should therefore have repeatable design levers that can be used to reliably generate demand without compromising the core gameplay experience. In contrast "Designing Games" has a whole section on fixed/variable reward schedules, e.g. (pg. 210): > We can avoid such shelf moments by superimposing several fixed ratio schedules. Consider what happens when the player can get a dollar for every 10th chest, a diamond for every 10th rock mined, and an arrow for every 10th goblin killed. ... The player shifts focus back and forth between activities, never missing a dopamine-driven beat. I asked some friends who play gacha games and they mentioned “stamina” mechanics as something that makes these game addictive. I’d never heard of it before, but apparently you’re limited to perform X number of actions per day. You can purchase some additional stamina/actions, but this c

To be honst I think state run lotteries are a pretty good idea, if they would replace other forms of gambling, which apparently is becoming less and less true, especially with the rise of the completely under regulated prediction markets. Regarding the subject at hand, I think a very obvious and necessary first step is banning children from participation. Obviously this is easily circumventable, but at will at least be some form of harm reduction. I think another possibility as a first step is a forced limit on how much an account is allowed to spend in a given time, e.g. the company is only allowed to add digital goods not exceeding X euros to the owners account, together with restrictions on how these items are traded, this will make whaling impossible, which is apparently the most important demographic for developers. [ ▶ this video ]

These patterns do really take away the feeling of joy, fun and sense of accomplishment of playing games and replace them with pain, stress, fear and probably, every negative feeling you might think of. It's sad to witness the tragic shift from "pay to play" to "pay to win". You might be interested to watch this video entitled Let’s go whaling: Tricks for monetising mobile game players with free-to-play : ▶ this video , which has been referenced by many YouTube analysis, and for good reason. Also, this paper was a nice read for me: Predatory monetization schemes in video games and internet gaming disorder ( link )

> These types of purchases are common in mobile game revenue models where the base game is ‘free-to- play’, but the player is encouraged to spend money to make unimpeded progress in the game I miss the old 90's days at the arcade where we were stacked horizontally in a queue waiting for our turn, holding coins in our hands. We've been forced to trade the "pay to play" purity of skill and community for the predatory economics of "pay to win." This evolution is well-explained in this video ( ▶ this video ), entitled "Let’s go whaling: Tricks for monetizing mobile game players with free-to-play." which has been cited in countless YouTube analyses, and for good reason . It perfectly captures the sad reality of modern gaming culture and how deeply monetization has replaced passion.

> All the "ethical problems" usually are just older (usually) men in IT not understanding that people want to pay money to have fun. Fucking absurd, to be frank. Watch a GDC talk on growing mobile F2P revenue and you will be exposed to a slew of deceptive methods for psychologically manipulating players (who are often kids) into addictive spending habits, often literally through gambling mechanisms. ▶ this video

> Only bit I disagree with is that the big spenders are doing it purely because of addiction or gambling. People spend big in games because: * The spending is very stimulating visually and audibly (think lootbox openings) * The gains from their spending translates directly to game-social prestige, game power, or both (i.e. an Advantage) * This Advantage allows them to lord over the players who have spent less (or 0 in the case for F2P players) Whether that manifests into addiction depends entirely on the rest of the game's design (but you know, games that introduce the Advantage tend to want to make a lot of money by getting you hooked on spending...) > Second, games provide a sense of community. A lot of game revenue is monetizing people's desire to not be alone. Calling these players addicted is I think reductive. Yes, these games do provide a sense of community because they are purposefully designed to do so. Without an incentive to play while getting lorded over by whales, the fish will leave. Without a bunch of fish to lord over, the whales will leave. Again, this depends on the game's design, but the vast majority of them encourage addiction to the Advantage and its use against others. Maybe you can extend this analysis to IRL stuff. I don't know because I don't participate in any of it. Source: [Let’s go whaling: Tricks for monetising mobile game players with free-to-play]( ▶ this video )

A 2016 talk by Tribeflame CEO Torulf Jernström about the monetization of mobile games called "Let's Go Whaling!" also caused a bit of a ruffle a while ago. Ominously delivered with smug smirk, met by smug laughter: "I'll leave the morality of it out of the talk. We can discuss it, if we have time, later." ▶ this video Turns out they would have had time later but for some reason opted not to.

Yep. Been following this for a while. Mobile games are basically built for "hunting whales": people with deep pockets and nothing else to spend on other than games, so they'll happily drop tens of thousands of dollars on gacha gambling crap. ▶ this video

It's sickening, really. Jim Sterling's video on lootboxes [1] really hammered it home for me, especially the section where he quotes from a talk by one such developer [2]. The talk is literally titled "Let's go whaling", a reference to getting people to "whale" the game by paying tons of money. Fate Grand Order, a gacha game, even lampshades it: > What’s interesting about Fate/Grand Order is that the game’s marketing features a vicious caricature of dedicated players. She’s a slobbering, lecherous, gambling-addicted little monster. > Fans love her. [From [3]] 1: link 2: ▶ this video 3: link