The Whale is Facing Extinction
This game is built on a 3 tier system of whales, dolphins and FTP. It has historically been a balanced ecosystem, where one cannot survive without the other. The whale is becoming an endangered specie...
Forum Discussion
I know i wrote this in the other thread, but i thought I should post here as well,
I've only been playing this game for a few months, so I'm still learning how everything works with whales, dolphins and ftp. But I did play clash of clans for years, pretty much from the beginning and I saw how that game went through a lot of changes.
Its important to point out, as with other freemium games, most people aren't really f2p, or at least completely free to play. And that should be the goal of any company that has game like this.
In the beginning with clash, and probably with this game as well, the whales were huge and led to massive profits. Im not sure on the numbers, but I would definitely surmise that the whales in clash created much more revenue for supercell than the whales in this game. And for years, supercell just raked in the profit from the whales and tried their best to suck every dollar possible out of them. for those who played this game, just think level 11 walls. Anyway, this went on for some time. The powercreep was on. But at some point supercell saw the writing on the wall and began to make some drastic changes. They didn't do this all at once, but over time, they completely changed the game. Now of course, the whales revolted and many did leave the game. Some even were able to get their money back via apple (long story). But supercell stuck to it and didn't budge.. why?
Because they knew that if they continued down the path (powercreep) they would lose both kinds of revenue, the micro purchases from the casual player and the whales. So they made the smart decision to focus on the casual player and gear their game towards them. Well not just casual player, but also the hardcore player who is mainly free to play, but may spend 20 dollars a month.
Now from what I can tell, EA is not going down this path. But I don't think they are trying to rely solely on whales or even dolphins. They seem to be going for both, giving the whales what they want, but also not alienating their f2p player and enticing them to spend a small amount (I do think they can do a better job of this)
There may come a time, when EA has to decide who they are going to build their business model around, but I don't think EA is ready for that.
I've only been playing this game for a few months, so I'm still learning how everything works with whales, dolphins and ftp. But I did play clash of clans for years, pretty much from the beginning and I saw how that game went through a lot of changes.
Its important to point out, as with other freemium games, most people aren't really f2p, or at least completely free to play. And that should be the goal of any company that has game like this.
In the beginning with clash, and probably with this game as well, the whales were huge and led to massive profits. Im not sure on the numbers, but I would definitely surmise that the whales in clash created much more revenue for supercell than the whales in this game. And for years, supercell just raked in the profit from the whales and tried their best to suck every dollar possible out of them. for those who played this game, just think level 11 walls. Anyway, this went on for some time. The powercreep was on. But at some point supercell saw the writing on the wall and began to make some drastic changes. They didn't do this all at once, but over time, they completely changed the game. Now of course, the whales revolted and many did leave the game. Some even were able to get their money back via apple (long story). But supercell stuck to it and didn't budge.. why?
Because they knew that if they continued down the path (powercreep) they would lose both kinds of revenue, the micro purchases from the casual player and the whales. So they made the smart decision to focus on the casual player and gear their game towards them. Well not just casual player, but also the hardcore player who is mainly free to play, but may spend 20 dollars a month.
Now from what I can tell, EA is not going down this path. But I don't think they are trying to rely solely on whales or even dolphins. They seem to be going for both, giving the whales what they want, but also not alienating their f2p player and enticing them to spend a small amount (I do think they can do a better job of this)
There may come a time, when EA has to decide who they are going to build their business model around, but I don't think EA is ready for that.
