[tsantero]

>> A very small percentage of people buy stuff in games. Of this small percentage you have people who will spend a LOT. These are your die hard fans. I know, because I am one of them and won’t bat an eye spending $50 in a game I like.

I would love to analyze the in-game purchase data across multiple free-to-play games on multiple platforms (e.g. facebook, app store, etc) in order to see the distribution of user spending habits. While I'm sure there are power users who spend magnitudes more than the average, I'm skeptical that they're the main driver of revenue. What I'd like to see is the average % of users who make in-game purchases, the average in-game purchase over time, frequency of purchases and what % of total revenue the average represents.

Unfortunately, I don't think Zynga et al will be releasing this data publicly anytime soon.

[patio11]

I'm skeptical that they're the main driver of revenue.

Your skepticism is founded on a prediction about a measurable feature of material reality, right? Your prediction is catastrophically inaccurate.

http://casualconnect.org/lectures/games-for-gamers/virtual-g... (Particularly slides 16, 17.)

http://gigaom.com/2011/07/25/game-devs-looking-for-revenues-...

http://www.quora.com/Social-Gaming-Startups-and-Companies/Wh...

Feel free to take anyone in the industry out to coffee if you want confirmation.

[tsantero]

Thank you for the links, but in the future don't put words in my mouth and then use them as a basis to insult me.

[patio11]

My inclination when people feel insulted is generally to apologize, but I've re-read my comment twice, and I cannot apologize because I am not contrite. I neither put words in your mouth nor insulted you. You can choose to feel insulted regardless, like you could choose to feel insulted if a teacher said "Nope, there is in fact no carbon in a water molecule -- here's some resources or talk to a chemist and they'll set you straight", but that is entirely under your control. Prior to deciding to become insulted, I might suggest pondering "Do I want to commit to routinely being unhappy when soliciting information about subjects I purport to care about from people who know more about them than I do?"

[mechanical_fish]

This happened to me the other day. It's like I can't write ten words of argument on HN anymore without someone fainting dead away.

This seems like a good time to thank you for correcting many of the catastrophically inaccurate things I've thought over the years. ;)