I kinda find it surprising to assume a company like Mihoyo consistently makes record profits from just a few whales addicted to gambling. It litteraly makes no sense.
I also don’t see these companies disclose their revenue per user statistics, could you share some of what you read positing current gatcha games are sustained by whales ?
Thanks! To TLDR my answer, the first link gives interesting numbers but are very generic, and as the top gatcha devs won’t give breakdown numbers of user spending patterns, in the end it doesn’t tell that much more.
I should disclaim I do play gatcha games on a somewhat regular basis (I need to know how they work for various reasons) and follow the different communities around.
On the first link:
> Whale game users: 1% of the players, generate 64% of the income spending 2,694 dollars per year.
> Medium-high game users: 3% of the total, generate 20% of income spending 373 dollars a year.
> Average game users: 2% of the total, generate 4% of income and spend $ 104 per year.
First, that 1% of “whales” at 2,694$ per year is interesting, as it puts it around the 2,482$ said to be spent on entertainment on average in the US [0], which doesn’t seem to be freakish in context.
Then there’s also no breakdown of social games and “normal” games, like Minecraft which for instance has monthly subscriptions for online services, and other games who have season passes or allow to buy in-game contents like songs, levels etc.).
Sure social games must have a decent share, but right now for instance I see in my [edit to US ranking] Roblox, Apex, Pokemon Go in the free app ranking and they aren’t gatcha. The above number must also including straight purchaseable games.
It’s interesting numbers, but don’t tell us much about gacha games in particular (though the author has opinions on the subject, which I mostly agree with).
The second link is from 2015, that’s almost the beginning of the field, the candy crush days and developpers not understanding clearly what is ok and what is not. A lot has changed since.
I don’t have access to the third link, it asks me to pay to become premium (the irony), and it’s also from 6 years ago…
I also don’t see these companies disclose their revenue per user statistics, could you share some of what you read positing current gatcha games are sustained by whales ?