[Karrot_Kream]

It's hard for a person in the throes of addiction to last as a whale for long. Most long lived whales are likely to be from wealthy families, or the fun side addiction for a very wealthy individual. That doesn't change the fact that there are addicted people who spend a large percentage of their income on a game. Whales are one thing and addicted players are another.

[patrec]

> It's hard for a person in the throes of addiction to last as a whale for long.

They don't have to. Repeatedly unearthing cow-clickers whom you can milk for $10'000 before sending them into financial ruin sounds like a much more viable business strategy to me than trying to build a portfolio of people both rich and dumb enough to sustainably cow-click.

[Karrot_Kream]

> build a portfolio of people both rich and dumb enough to sustainably cow-click

I think you're putting wealthy folks on way too high of a pedestal. The wealthy aren't some hyper-rational, utility-maximizing robots. They're people with likes and dislikes like any other. Being a whale for a very rich person or a very rich family is a drop in the bucket in terms of their net worth. Plenty of people can keep their degeneracy to a budget.

[j_4]

I don't necessarily disagree, but for the purpose of my argument this is splitting hairs. Both audiences are functionally the same from the game design standpoint.

[cycomanic]

Why do you think the mechanics of nonchemical addiction are different to chemical addiction? I certainly see plenty of nonrich people being addicted to drugs and essentially spend everything they have on drugs (the proximity to crime is obviously an additional factor)