A study recently published by Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) shows some surprising results in regard to mobile games, and who spends the most money on them.
The study refers to whales, which are the the big spenders when it comes to mobile games; the people who move beyond the free to play offerings, and spend money on games. In EEDAR's report, whales, unsurprisingly, spend the most time on gaming, and spread their gaming time among multiple gaming platforms. They are also younger than the average mobile gamer, and are mostly male. Accoding to EEDAR's report, the people spending the most money on mobile games, are young males who already play video games on PC, consoles, or handhelds.
The report is the result of a survey conducted earlier this year that sought responses from over 3,000 self-identified mobile and tablet gamers.
You can check out the infographic EEDAR assembled below, which contains data gathered from the 2013 Deconstructing Mobile & Tablet Gaming report.
Our Take
There is a distinction here that I am not entirely sure is being qualified when it comes to the term 'whale' in this report. When I hear the word whale in regard to mobile gaming, I think of the consumer that continuously buys lives to play Candy Crush, or spends money on Smurfberries to speed up the processes of the Smurf Village game for iOS. These in-app microtransactions are a point of contention for the traditional gamer. Looking over the numbers EEDAR has offered here, I certainly fall under the definition of whale, because I buy mobile games all the time. I buy games on every platform. I do not, however, spend money on microtransactions that I feel are exploitive, or hinder the challenge of a game. I tend to think of whales as the people who do spend money on those microtransactions, and am most curious who those consumers are. At its base level, this report to me says, fans of video games also buy mobile games.