Greetings!
I'm Shelix. I'm one of the elusive whales that social media companies chase with freemium games. I just uninstalled HoDA. The point of this - my last post on the CG forums - is to share the following:
-Definition of a whale
-Why are whales important?
-What attracts whales?
-Capital Games Image
-HoDA progression
-Exit Survey of a Whale
Whale: Definition
whale 1 [hweyl, weyl]
noun, plural whales ( especially collectively ) whale.1.A person who spends exorbitant currency through microtransactions in a social media game.
Contrary to rumor and speculation, whales do not usually have highly addictive personalities, gambling addictions, nor do we max out credit cards to fund our habits. Rather, we are typically highly successful business people who value time more than money.
How do I spend $15,000 through microtransactions in a game? $100-$250-$500 at a time. Whales are highly organized, and microtransactions get a budget like everything else in life, pursuant to negotiations with spouses or checking accounts. I want to spend $1,000 on a special event. My wife wants a new car. We both get what we want.
Decisions for microtransactions happen the same way that business decisions are made. Two weeks of conference calls and e-mail exchanges to fix a $20,000 mistake is more wasteful than shelling out the $20,000 to just FIX the mistake and put it behind me. In a freemium game, spending a few weeks/months/years competing with people doesn't provide instant gratification, and if throwing money at it will put me on par, I'll get out the debit card. Justification is easy, if we even need to call it that. $100 for a gem pack? That's half the cost of my lunch bill on Tuesday. We're not filthy rich - just successful. Like most elites, we have our own circles. An IT director. A small business owner. A senior project manager. In some freemium games, we make our own guilds/clans/groups to completely dominate a server. If not, we respect each others' boundaries.
But one and all, we make measured decisions that the money/fun tradeoff is worth it, and so we spend.
Why Are Whales Important?
Whales pay for games. We're the post-production investment. Developers don't create games like this to advance the art of an intellectual property. They are not stewards of culture, nor philanthropists. They require paychecks, and a game release is a calculated risk to attract customers.
Call me the brinksman of blunt, but free games are not designed for free players. Whales pay for these games. Free players are the unwashed masses that exist for whales to gleefully trod upon to get our fun. Forums like this are full of free players complaining about having to "Pay to Win" to succeed. Their whining is only relevant insofar that without free players to stomp, beat down, and tread upon, whales wouldn't arrive.
Capital Games Image:
Whales are intelligent. We read.
Forbes has a great article about EA being voted the worst company in America in 2013. They beat out Bank of America and received a golden poo award. DLC abuse, lawsuits, server closings, and the disastrously abusive foray into freemium games titled Dungeon Keeper Online make us wary of offerings coming from any EA studios.
I'm an avid Dragon Age fan, and picked up HoDA with tremendous trepidation - how do you balance a game being offered against your favorite IP with that game being offered by the most predatory and untrusted gaming company in America? My solution: Drop $100 into it initially, then play the "Wait and see" game for a few months to see what develops.
HoDA Progression
I started in February. $500 and three months later, I hit what whales call the "barrier reef." Either we start plunking down serious money or we walk away. I won't list all my heroes - I have some nice tier IVs, and particularly thought the new keeper and the fast LC made vicious additions to my blue team.
The problem is HoDA is devolving. The opposite of evolution. Capital Games has been so careful about not nerfing the "Blue AoE" team out of concern for upsetting whales - but have either implemented or neglected enough other unfriendly design decisions that they have still upset the cart.
For example - the new PvP events system. Capital Games is proceeding under the auspice of "Testing a myriad of new event formats." I can get behind paying to win for legendaries. I'm a whale. It's a point of pride to be able to outspend other people.
Here's the barrier reef: Characters and faction are horribly unbalanced.
If I don't already have the best team, there is no way to spend to the top.
If I spend my way to the best team, the top rewards are irrelevant.
In one fell swoop of a design decision, being a whale is now irrelevant. PvE has a fixed progression, and a defined end, so there is no viable path beyond spending in PvP events to succeed in PvP events, which brings us back to the text in bold.
Adding insult to injury, PvP events now causes a banner loss.
CG: You can always give. You may *never* take away without alienating your customers.
PvP events had legendary awards. You took them away.
PvP events had fixed character rewards. You took them away.
PvP events had no banner losses. You took them away.
"Testing new ideas" is irrelevant. You can never take away from a customer. Sell them more - you may never sell them less. I have zero faith in a return to sanity. This is the most abusive gaming company in America.
I repeat - this design has invalidated spending. Winning: 8 banners. Losing: 16 banners. Without the best team, I cannot progress up the ladder. If I spend to get the best team, the ladder awards are meaningless.
Exit Survey of a Whale
I'm sure that there is a SQL database that has me listed as a whale for having spent $500. My point is - anyone who isn't freemium player can spend that much. In the elusive whale-hunting circles, we're $10,000+, and you get that at $100-$1000 per month. A game needs the longevity and progress path to justify expenditure.
HoDA has a fixed progress path with a definite end (Map 9), and a Tier IV cap on heroes (longevity). What tempts someone with Tier IVs to keep spending? Tier 5-9. When I look at what another $500 or $5000 would get me...it doesn't get me anything I don't already have, nor does it enable me to do anything I can't do now - for better or worse.
And thus, at this whale's barrier reef, I turn away instead of breaking through.
I'm Shelix. I'm one of the elusive whales that social media companies chase with freemium games. I just uninstalled HoDA. The point of this - my last post on the CG forums - is to share the following:
-Definition of a whale
-Why are whales important?
-What attracts whales?
-Capital Games Image
-HoDA progression
-Exit Survey of a Whale
Whale: Definition
whale 1 [hweyl, weyl]
noun, plural whales ( especially collectively ) whale.1.A person who spends exorbitant currency through microtransactions in a social media game.
Contrary to rumor and speculation, whales do not usually have highly addictive personalities, gambling addictions, nor do we max out credit cards to fund our habits. Rather, we are typically highly successful business people who value time more than money.
How do I spend $15,000 through microtransactions in a game? $100-$250-$500 at a time. Whales are highly organized, and microtransactions get a budget like everything else in life, pursuant to negotiations with spouses or checking accounts. I want to spend $1,000 on a special event. My wife wants a new car. We both get what we want.
Decisions for microtransactions happen the same way that business decisions are made. Two weeks of conference calls and e-mail exchanges to fix a $20,000 mistake is more wasteful than shelling out the $20,000 to just FIX the mistake and put it behind me. In a freemium game, spending a few weeks/months/years competing with people doesn't provide instant gratification, and if throwing money at it will put me on par, I'll get out the debit card. Justification is easy, if we even need to call it that. $100 for a gem pack? That's half the cost of my lunch bill on Tuesday. We're not filthy rich - just successful. Like most elites, we have our own circles. An IT director. A small business owner. A senior project manager. In some freemium games, we make our own guilds/clans/groups to completely dominate a server. If not, we respect each others' boundaries.
But one and all, we make measured decisions that the money/fun tradeoff is worth it, and so we spend.
Why Are Whales Important?
Whales pay for games. We're the post-production investment. Developers don't create games like this to advance the art of an intellectual property. They are not stewards of culture, nor philanthropists. They require paychecks, and a game release is a calculated risk to attract customers.
Call me the brinksman of blunt, but free games are not designed for free players. Whales pay for these games. Free players are the unwashed masses that exist for whales to gleefully trod upon to get our fun. Forums like this are full of free players complaining about having to "Pay to Win" to succeed. Their whining is only relevant insofar that without free players to stomp, beat down, and tread upon, whales wouldn't arrive.
Capital Games Image:
Whales are intelligent. We read.
Forbes has a great article about EA being voted the worst company in America in 2013. They beat out Bank of America and received a golden poo award. DLC abuse, lawsuits, server closings, and the disastrously abusive foray into freemium games titled Dungeon Keeper Online make us wary of offerings coming from any EA studios.
I'm an avid Dragon Age fan, and picked up HoDA with tremendous trepidation - how do you balance a game being offered against your favorite IP with that game being offered by the most predatory and untrusted gaming company in America? My solution: Drop $100 into it initially, then play the "Wait and see" game for a few months to see what develops.
HoDA Progression
I started in February. $500 and three months later, I hit what whales call the "barrier reef." Either we start plunking down serious money or we walk away. I won't list all my heroes - I have some nice tier IVs, and particularly thought the new keeper and the fast LC made vicious additions to my blue team.
The problem is HoDA is devolving. The opposite of evolution. Capital Games has been so careful about not nerfing the "Blue AoE" team out of concern for upsetting whales - but have either implemented or neglected enough other unfriendly design decisions that they have still upset the cart.
For example - the new PvP events system. Capital Games is proceeding under the auspice of "Testing a myriad of new event formats." I can get behind paying to win for legendaries. I'm a whale. It's a point of pride to be able to outspend other people.
Here's the barrier reef: Characters and faction are horribly unbalanced.
If I don't already have the best team, there is no way to spend to the top.
If I spend my way to the best team, the top rewards are irrelevant.
In one fell swoop of a design decision, being a whale is now irrelevant. PvE has a fixed progression, and a defined end, so there is no viable path beyond spending in PvP events to succeed in PvP events, which brings us back to the text in bold.
Adding insult to injury, PvP events now causes a banner loss.
CG: You can always give. You may *never* take away without alienating your customers.
PvP events had legendary awards. You took them away.
PvP events had fixed character rewards. You took them away.
PvP events had no banner losses. You took them away.
"Testing new ideas" is irrelevant. You can never take away from a customer. Sell them more - you may never sell them less. I have zero faith in a return to sanity. This is the most abusive gaming company in America.
I repeat - this design has invalidated spending. Winning: 8 banners. Losing: 16 banners. Without the best team, I cannot progress up the ladder. If I spend to get the best team, the ladder awards are meaningless.
Exit Survey of a Whale
I'm sure that there is a SQL database that has me listed as a whale for having spent $500. My point is - anyone who isn't freemium player can spend that much. In the elusive whale-hunting circles, we're $10,000+, and you get that at $100-$1000 per month. A game needs the longevity and progress path to justify expenditure.
HoDA has a fixed progress path with a definite end (Map 9), and a Tier IV cap on heroes (longevity). What tempts someone with Tier IVs to keep spending? Tier 5-9. When I look at what another $500 or $5000 would get me...it doesn't get me anything I don't already have, nor does it enable me to do anything I can't do now - for better or worse.
And thus, at this whale's barrier reef, I turn away instead of breaking through.
Comment