As free consumer of these videos and Josh’s content, I want to thank the whales on patreon for funding my entertainment

@Vanadium

2 жыл бұрын

I dont like them but I am also one of the dudes who is around since 1990 for playing games and games nowadays are mostly unpolished. With no real difficult gameplay , you often dont even need a brain to play them. Fuck 4 to play.... this have ruined most things.

@shadowsage2636

2 жыл бұрын

It's one of those situations where you say "i'm glad i wasn't stupid enough to toss money mindlessly, i'll let these idiots do it, laugh and enjoy the game"

@reindogfan

2 жыл бұрын

@@Vanadium most games nowadays are leaps and bounds better than they were in the 90s and certainly are polished. Like Josh says, its purely cause of the 80-20 split that people believe otherwise. 20% of the games that are unpolished get 80% of the attention by media/reviews etc so the situation seems worse than it is. In reality, most modern games are more polished than ever.

@Vanadium

2 жыл бұрын

@@reindogfan na man I don't believe that. Can you explain how blizzard who was the greatest studio could not patch a game? Look just at the wc3 remake. What big games from the past like 10 years ago could not even run probably on mostly everything? How could a big game like BF as an example be full of bug's on release day , how come that day 1 patches are a thing now and would be unheard of 10 years ago? You jumping over my second complaint, lack of gameplay to actually use your brains to get something done. With way less complicated mechanics inside of games it's also more easy to not mess it up.

@reindogfan

2 жыл бұрын

@@Vanadium You've proved my point exactly by bringing up the biggest blunders as portrayed by the media recently, specifically BF. It Takes Two won game of the year and was massively polished and well received. God of War, control, witcher 3, rdr2, Borderlands 3, any of the soulsborne games are all widely loved and well polished and theres hundreds more that people forget about because negativity spreads easier. People just like to complain, it's in our nature so I don't blame you for thinking this way, especially with how much negativity the media spews. And sure, mainstream games are deffo easier mechanic wise now because well... thats what the majority of the audience want. Most players are casual and just want to relax, turn off their brain and enjoy a game so if you want deep mechanics and challenging gameplay, thats always gonna be more niche nowadays but it does still exist. Look at the soulsborne series, or most roguelikes or bullet hell games or hell, even most fps and rpg games provide an extreme difficulty for those who want it, albeit sometimes it takes beating the game first to unlock it in some cases.

The idea that most whales are rich guys with too much money to spend is very dangerous. A lot of whales actually can not really afford their habbit and are more or less ruining theri lives with the addiction. This is especially true if the transactions are gambling based like lootboxes. Yes you read a lot of articles about rich guy spending because they can afford it and feel good about showing everybod that they can afford it ... nobody interviews the guys that eat only bread for half of the month since their paycheck already went t the game of choice.

@leadpaintchips9461

3 жыл бұрын

Tbf, there was a lot of articles dealing with the issues of those who can't afford the addiction around the time that Battlefield made their infamous "Pride and Accomplishment" statement, but those also mostly focused on children overspending.

@XraynPR

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah, like in real life. Some people can afford their lavish spending in order to appear awesome. Many can't.

@rafaelbordoni516

3 жыл бұрын

Jim Sterling made a video interviewing a couple of these people. One guy spent all the money for his university tuition on FIFA packs, another guy had his family take his bank account from him to prevent him from spending it all on CoD lootboxes. It's very sad.

@TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive32

3 жыл бұрын

Rich people who spend thousands on games is a myth, the reason rich people are rich is because they don't spend their money on games and are not spending valuable time on games especially not mmos.

@georgethompson1460

3 жыл бұрын

@@TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive32 Henry caville?

One time I realized that I had spent more than 60 dollars on a free to play game, realized that was more money then a real full priced AAA game and felt bad about myself for weeks.

@Tommy-gc7us

2 жыл бұрын

I spent 20 on my birthday on a game I played for 500 hours

@grimoireweiss5203

2 жыл бұрын

If it's a good game and you spend like 100 hours+ playing I don't see anything bad. These days many AAA games aren't worth their price. There is nothing bad about paying for a game you like and you want to support it. A game that tries to manipulate you into paying now that's something that should be burning in a pit.

@DustMan2704

2 жыл бұрын

Judging a games worth for me is by the "a dollar per hour"-rule , sure i wasted more than the usual retail price of 60 bucks on a mmo, but i also got over 3000 hours of enjoyment out of it.

@DazeyChaineMusic

2 жыл бұрын

good

@littljay1357

2 жыл бұрын

Sometimes I throw a bit of money at free to play games just for gratitude. Usually like 20 or 30 bucks tops, but still. It's enough for me to not feel guilt, but makes me feel like I donated to a company that made a game, that I play and are entertained by regularly.

I'm from Philippines and from my experience, whales are some random students who spent all their allowance just to buy upgrades on free to play games. they see their real life as miserable and they want their game character to live a better life and have more prestige than them. I was thinking that they enjoy the game at first, then I found out that some of them don't even eat lunch daily, I realize that they are already deep in the rabbit hole.

@sayyenkhu6422

Жыл бұрын

If they come from rich family. A typical student doesn't have the cash to become a whale

@Tential1

Жыл бұрын

OK... Maybe in the Philippines. I don't know any of my rich friends in the US where money spent in one place, meant less money to spend elsewhere. I also used to game with whales, and most were 40+ people who NEEDED to spend money in order to be active, as they had a real job. In fact it as STUPID for them to grind, because grinding their real life job and buying items was more efficient.

@Tential1

Жыл бұрын

@@sayyenkhu6422 don't know who you're talking about. It differs. Rich can be upper class. Or it can be like some people I know where, it means their first car is a lambo.

@zee9709

Жыл бұрын

i dont think student in PH can become whale even if he sell himself.... if yo said dubai, maybe i believe

@datpudding5338

Жыл бұрын

​@@Tential1 I have a rich American friend he compensates his mental issues by whaling after seeing some stuff in US service

Fun fact: The term whale and dolphin in terms of spending money on a game actually began as a term in casinos and gambling dens. Fitting.

@Araneus21

2 жыл бұрын

I bet the casino / game owners consider themselves "sharks" good thing there are also the "anisakis" type of players...

@DevourerDragons

2 жыл бұрын

Don't forget krakens, which is a term used for in between, and ironically also for companies buying smaller companies to become bigger, like EA. Or Tencent. Or any other major company you can think of that wants all your money in gacha games.

@sengokuart6548

2 жыл бұрын

@@DevourerDragons krakens, I love the sound of that lol

@HereTakeAFlower

2 жыл бұрын

@@Araneus21 I got the joke because my dad is a veterinarian. Unnecessarily convoluted but not totally inelegant.

@TheStevedie

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah but these are surprise mechanics, not gambling.

Something to keep in that back of your minds: The term "Whale" was used in the casino and gambling industry before it found it's way to video games.

@reborn9641

3 жыл бұрын

Exactly

@reborn9641

3 жыл бұрын

Lol

@notloki3140

3 жыл бұрын

Especially used in Poker where weak players are considered fishes while professionals who "hunt" them down are called sharks. This seems to be the originating area of the terms as they often tend to use the sea to describe various groups of people that engage in that activity. As with most casinos the Poker table is the upper echelon, the game to rule the rest of the game, the invite only prestige gladiator's arena locked behind close doors where you make friends with the big boys. It makes sense for this, possibly only social clan of a casino to issue the terms to describe gamblers.

@Exor2

2 жыл бұрын

@@Shizlgizl That mostly stopped since they call it fat shaming

@blackwater7183

2 жыл бұрын

Only difference is you don't win your money back.

My guild leader spent 30-40k in neverwinter. Always blew my mind. Most of us quit playing but he's still there spending money, maxing his gear

@lubo1358

2 жыл бұрын

Sunk cost fallacy at that point. Man invested a new car into a video game he'll never get back his money now.

@freecomkcf

Жыл бұрын

@@EliteBadFrog does it really matter? i've seen this "if he's got the money, let him spend it if makes him happy" card being pulled on me a lot, but 9 times out of 10 the spending just makes them less happy because they aren't big enough spenders for the whales above them

@grapy83

Жыл бұрын

THat's unbelievable! Is that true?

@Shadgon

Жыл бұрын

neverwinter got around $400 from me over the course of 5 or so years. not a whale by anyy means, but once i did the math, i quit playing. realized it would never be enough

@plunderersparadise

10 ай бұрын

​@@Shadgonye imagine me actually spending 2,500 hours in DarkOrbit trying to be equal to whales lmao. Lost childhood at this point

The only reason why I spend money on MMOs/Online games is to thank the developers for listening to player feedback and dropping new content that I personally enjoyed experiencing. I usually buy a one-time pass or the cheapest package deal because there is no way I can spend hundreds of dollars (let alone thousands) without my conscience drop kicking me.

@Sovek86

2 жыл бұрын

I havnt really spent much on MMO's, I did spend a bit on World of Tanks before I dropped it, but not anywhere near what I know some people spent. That said I HAVE had an active sub to FFXIV over 8 months, but I've had so much fun I dont really care that I'm dropping $15/m on it. I spend 3 times that just on my internet.

@michaelwalters4749

2 жыл бұрын

I have a rule with games like that. If i just started playing it, no more than 60 bucks because that is the price of a normal AAA game. If I have been playing it for many months, I will drop anywhere from 10-20 bucks, as a kind of subscription. I try to be realistic with the spending.

@MasterYoda389

2 жыл бұрын

that's a really pathetic outlook. Devs that make MMOs, don't need your stinkin' "thanks". All you did was embellish those times you told yourself it was okay to spend money on something you fundamentally disagree with. You basically virtue-signaled yourself. That is SO WEAK. All your opinions suck, everyone who gamed pre-2000 knows EXACTLY how games should be played and it's not with this micro-economy nonsense. There's is ZERO reason to tolerate the existence of micro-transactions. Infiltrating a monopolizable currency in anything is an invitation to rhetoric and control. I hope the bulk of you all remember how microtransactions were first presented to the public : as "time-savers", to help the daily working citizen keep pace with the children who are playing all day. OH WAIT, IT LOOKS LIKE THE CHILDREN ARE GETTING STOMPED BY ADULTS WITH TOO MUCH MONEY AND NO RESPONSIBILITY. LET"S MAKE UP BS EXCUSES TO KEEP THE MONEY ROLLING. I swear sometimes you have TO WAKE THE F UP , and realize you're playing a GAME FOR CHILDREN. Maybe if you stopped overusing the "I" pronoun it might fix some underlying ugliness.

@yottawatts9470

2 жыл бұрын

Wow you spend 45$ a minute on internet??!?

@pogtuber5146

2 жыл бұрын

They neither need or deserve your money.

the f2p are also needed to inflate the numbers, nobody is going to whale on a obscure game without a playerbase

@silverreaps6803

3 жыл бұрын

True

@eveemcghee4454

3 жыл бұрын

He said that in the video

@mitchbucannen7814

3 жыл бұрын

i wouldnt bet on that, some people are like those nuys who write first under a video if they think they are the first one. thats the kind of people who would do that

@unknownkingdom

3 жыл бұрын

I'm 70k reep on my raid shadow elgends account and I love it the game kicks ass pure and simple. Dont care are what anyone thinks imma keep dropping cheddar on that game

@BigChow420

3 жыл бұрын

@@unknownkingdom Raid is definitely not for me but u are indirectly sponsoring some of my favorite content creators so thats a W i guess. Keep doing what makes u happy bro just dont let it go overboard.

Second day of June, Year Two-thousand and twenty-one. Still no response from Taquito Bandito. Will keep you all informed.

@RomaniaSon

3 жыл бұрын

He now believes that Josh is a green screen.

@hishammor8490

3 жыл бұрын

Paying the long price instead of apologizing. Classic bandito.

@MrRoxBrown

3 жыл бұрын

The petty is inspiring

@jonathansoko1085

3 жыл бұрын

Plot Twist... Taquito IS Josh

@TND1483

3 жыл бұрын

I guess there's no honor amongst thie....banditos

I once knew a whale. He was a coworker who talked me into letting him be my roommate. It wasn't for a couple of weeks after he was moved in that I realized just how much he was wasting on some phone game. To say the least, he was only around for a couple of months before he was unable to pay his rent and I kicked his ass out. It's hard to entice a person to not kick you out when you've spent $1,200 on a phone game and can't pay $300 rent. I almost got caught up in a game myself. I noticed CUE Cards and thought, "This is actually really cool" then got caught up with limited cards and such. Thankfully I quickly caught on and deleted the game.

@Kijinn

2 жыл бұрын

How did "kicking his ass out" actually work, though? Usually, such a person won't have anywhere to go, so they may try to just stay, unless removed by force...which also isn't easy to do, since law is on their side when the force becomes too harsh. I once had neighbors that had to forcefully remove a member of their shared apartments. There was quite the drama going on in the hallway on the day they finally threw out all of his belongings (months after he was told to move out). The guy was desperately begging any random passerby for help, in trying to avert the fate of becoming homeless.

@che3se1495

2 жыл бұрын

@@Kijinn Change the locks while they're out or go to court.

@MaffeyZilog

2 жыл бұрын

Another way at looking at this is, you had a roommate who had some serious problems which manifest as an unhealthy attachment to a video game where he could escape reality and whatever pain he was in that wasn't being addressed. The person he lived with (you) was so devoid of empathy and understanding that instead of talking to his roommate and offering support, maybe even getting them to open up about what the larger issue was, instead he decided that the best thing to do would be to throw this person out on to the street at the point in which he hit rock bottom. So, instead of what could have been a life changing event that true friendships are based on, something that could have been as simple as just talking through some insecurities or mental health issue, you got to be the straw that broke the camels back and be there to turn a sad and unfortunate series of events in a person's life into a truly life destroying outcome. But hey, you didn't play the game, right?

@bon7029

2 жыл бұрын

@@MaffeyZilog he was a grown ass man who knew what his obligations were. If you want to play mommy to a 27 year old man child, I can get you in contact with him.

@che3se1495

2 жыл бұрын

@@MaffeyZilog Coworkers and roommates aren't your free therapists.

The whole whale oil industry in the Dishonored franchise is an obvious nod to this. The Daud dlc in the first game has a pretty graphic scene of a whale getting sucked dry while it's still alive and the mad scientist found out that by slowly torturing the whale without killing it would get it to produce more oil, a clear reference the gaming industry.

@spencercarruth9706

Жыл бұрын

The name of that whale? Electronic Arts

@zeehero7280

Жыл бұрын

@@spencercarruth9706 No thats the name of the scientist, or whoever executed the scientist's plan

@normanmai7865

Жыл бұрын

@@zeehero7280 Yeah, the name of the whale is Electronic Arts' Monster.

Watched "how to find a whale' and just mind-boggled at how depraved that CEO is. I thought loan sharks and paycheck loans were predatory. That was just sad. He went beyond making games with skill to making games designed to entice addiction just to make more money. That is a whole new low.

@RATGODORIGINAL

3 жыл бұрын

And that low has been hit many, many decades ago. This is ultra-capitalism in it's nature - make more cash to make more cash. An infinite cycle that leads absolutely nowhere.

@notatrollll

3 жыл бұрын

I actually enjoyed how brutally honest it was. Yes, there is zero morality, but at least it is fully explained. You rarely get an inside look into shady business practices like that. Corporate speech is truly an art form, so honesty is so rare.

@superlimeapple

3 жыл бұрын

Can you send a link?

@alw2839

3 жыл бұрын

@@superlimeapple I second this.

@bt4228

3 жыл бұрын

@@alw2839 think they talking about the same video that's shown in this video, the one from 2016.

Whenever I hear "whale" it reminds me of the "leviathan", that I met in a mobile game a few years back. The guy spend $250k in a month and just left the game, because he didn't have time to play it anymore - his company was expanding and all. The difference between that player and the usual whales was massive.

@Schnarchnase

2 жыл бұрын

6:26 yes yes, it was in King's Raid hahaha

@bubblemonkeys

2 жыл бұрын

@@goodiesfeats2252 might aswell just bought the stocks

@masterofhippos1395

2 жыл бұрын

that man is a different kind of whaler i dare say hes a whaler on the moon

@Zeiji369

2 жыл бұрын

I met a whale once, was in a guild with him on the game Naruto Online. He bought everything that was introduced into the game, stronger than literally everyone in the NA servers and had everything introduced. If I remember correctly, it was estimated he spent 70k on one character in game because of the rng system it was released with. He left because he was too busy and I was just kinda dumbstruck that someone could spend that kinda money and just drop it like a leaf in the wind.

@SavolX

2 жыл бұрын

@@masterofhippos1395 futurama reference?

As a frugal person, I literally cannot understand the minds of whales. I feel sorry for them, at the least the non-rich ones.

@SPG8989

2 жыл бұрын

Why feel sorry for them? They are enjoying themselves and you are crying how someone spends their money. Seems they are doing better than you

@somedragonbastard

2 жыл бұрын

@@SPG8989 they're being exploited by a system designed to milk them dry of everything they have. Not all whales have the funds to support this.

@gregoryl.levitre9759

2 жыл бұрын

They are missing out on what gaming is really about. They do not earn anything significant in-game and they never experience the joy of defeating a difficult opponent or team by outsmarting them. They are pathetic.

@MindinViolet

2 жыл бұрын

I confess I am not as frugal as I should be, but even so I am still smart enough not to spend money on these things. I hate seeing how these games exploit gamers. I wish I could make gamers see that they are being taken advantage of.

@DarthRadical

2 жыл бұрын

@Tsukanoma Woodworks There are dumber things to spend money on too. Better being an MMO whale than doing cocaine or gambling at a literal casino. I pity the ones who are so addicted that that they spend more than they can realistically afford - but people should be allowed to blow money how they want. (Though again - still better than a meth-head.)

Josh: "It's a Dungeons & Dragons mug." Me: "It's dice." Josh: "It's full of dice." Everyone: "It's full of dice."

@lolcats4ever

2 жыл бұрын

my guess was tea dammit

@alexreilly6121

2 жыл бұрын

When he said that I chuckled saying ha he's full of dice ;]

@attaxiaffxi7033

2 жыл бұрын

Reminded me of the old spice ads

@staciefreshener4032

Жыл бұрын

Vsauce music played in my mind oddly ( reference to v sauce youtube)

@XHackManiacX

Жыл бұрын

Silly me, I thought it had dragons and dungeons in it. Had no idea how he'd fit a dungeon or two in there, but then I didn't think he'd fit space marines in a mug either lmao

by this stage, someone should just make a game called wallet wars. you literally have a leaderboard of who's paid the most money. thats it. 10/10 IGN

@someoneudontknow3709

2 жыл бұрын

I can almost see the whales spending millions of dollars just to stay at the top of the leaderbored and having bragging rights

@DanielDroegeShow

2 жыл бұрын

Many Roblox games have donation leaderboards. They will even sell you admin commands to literally troll other people's game.

@mechanomics2649

2 жыл бұрын

@@DanielDroegeShow Yikes.

@ItsFinigan

2 жыл бұрын

This is like sugar daddying developers lmao This kinda reminds me of the Fin-Dom crowd..

@1mol831

2 жыл бұрын

I get confused why people spend so much on a game. If so, why not just obtain the entire company if you've got billions.

Games targeting people with addictive tendencies and then milking them dry is extremely upsetting. When I had untreated depression and was isolated from a move to a new country, I got into a spending loop on a mobile game. I became totally addicted to the dopamine hit of the gacha-style and there was enough game play there to convince myself that it was a real game and not just a way to make me spend. I ended up spending thousands of dollars over the course of a year -- thousands I definitely did not have -- on the only thing giving my brain the good chemical. It took several tries to quit the game even though I knew it was predatory because I was so addicted. I wasn't a rich guy trying to crush new players (I wasn't even a particularly high ranking player) -- I was just dependant and vulnerable. I know better now to only play games that have an upfront or subscription cost (and to take my antidepressants) but it was a painful lesson.

@TheUnchosenOne

2 жыл бұрын

Im so sorry to hear about that, its moving to think about your struggle here. Im glad you got out of it, I wish you the best.

@whiskoo9941

2 жыл бұрын

Gacha games are truly disgusting in their practices, void of all shame of their moral compass. Its sad we will probably never see legal action against them in our lifetime.

@Dominator150395

2 жыл бұрын

As Jim Sterling pointed out: we like to think that whales are exclusively investment bankers and other such people who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, but this is simply not true. Many of them are children or people with mental disorders or vulnerability to addiction, who are preyed upon by developers who dehumanize their players (they literally refer to us as fish) and resort to manipulative and exploitative tactics to persuade them into spending.

@ElementalLeaf

2 жыл бұрын

People always say this and I don't get why. There was some dumb mobile game that I ended up getting absorbed into and spending about 1k on in the span of a year. And then one day it hit me what I was doing and I forced myself to delete the game, and I still sometimes think about it and kick myself over how much I wasted on it. I did the same for BDO before I quit that as well in much the same way. Currently Ive spent 1k in Fortnite as well mostly on crossover skins and battle passes in about 6 months. Maybe one day I'll regret that too. Thing is though they're businesses. The point for them is to get money. Whatever I spent, that's on me. It's simple accountability - no one forced me to do it, I did it of my own consent and volition. You cant do that and then turn around and try to villainize the company, at least imo.

@bEnderOfWorlds

2 жыл бұрын

Capitalism prioritizes profit over all else. Any potential vulnerability will be exploited to that end. Yay America.

I feel bad everytime I spend money, even on simple things like $30 for a beer pack... I would probably die with guilt by spending these amounts in games...

@rosalindcormier4384

4 ай бұрын

Same here

@GabrielleTollerson

2 ай бұрын

same

My uncle was a smalltime whale for that Star Trek mobile game. He'd spend 400 too 500 bucks a month on it. Not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but that was his entire entertainment budget for the whole month, every extra dollar he had went into the game. He also hated the game, hated every update, hated the grind, hated the gameplay loop, but he kept spending all that money every month because "Well, I've already invested so much into the game I can't stop now." It's interesting how those two connect, and in the worst possible way for someone with an addictive personality.

I wouldnt say that a game has to be p2w to have whales, games that just sell cosmetics like fortnite have their whales

@GerardMenvussa

3 жыл бұрын

And I am sure they are the most gorgeous of all whales :o)

@HauntedOath

3 жыл бұрын

Path of Exiles comes to mind

@bencegergohocz5988

3 жыл бұрын

That doesn't matter. A cosmetic buyer doesn't affect your experience. In games like league of legends, you can't even find a difference between someone that payed 10k and a f2p player. The whale problem is only a problem if the game specificly makes your time worse if you aren't paying.

@gagne6928

3 жыл бұрын

I imagine it's harder to get people addicted with that system though sadly

@teifan6674

3 жыл бұрын

I think, in principle, yes, but in practice games that sell cosmetic only or stuff like convenience/more inventory space/more character slots usually have a hard cap on how much you can spend on them, because all these things are finite.

I hope next time he asks us what's in the mug, he pours out the letters that spelled out the "taquito bandito is wrong" sign

@wdf70

3 жыл бұрын

They'll have to be green screened though.

@i_die_a_lot_in_video_games

3 жыл бұрын

@@wdf70 damn u right

@xXCrashTXx-1

3 жыл бұрын

@@wdf70 😂

I could be wrong but I believe the term whale actually originated from Poker. "Fish" is a poker term for a player who is very bad at the game, it's basically the Poker term for noob or scrub. This spawned a few more fish-related terms. A "Card Shark" is someone who is extremely skilled at a particular card game, and a Whale, similar to its gaming definition, is essentially a giant Fish. A player who is at a terribly low skill level yet always has more money to lose. Similar to how you described, a large part of profitable poker strategy is centered around exploiting Fish and Whales.

"I work 46 hours a week and earn more than your entire lineage, I will spend the equivalent of a week of basic need products in this single 3D model, I will lead the market and you will be grateful you can even play the same product I'm funding for myself" ~ a whale probably

@thewallsspeaktome3507

Жыл бұрын

from some of the comments I'm seeing here this checks out

@rosalindcormier4384

4 ай бұрын

Other comments point out that a lot of whales can’t afford the spending they do and aren’t rich which is dangerous at that point.

Did you know? When a whale approaches near light speed, to casual players it will actually appear like he would move backwards in time thanks to his incredible financial mass. Thanks to this phenomenon also known as doppler-spender effect, it is possible to observe whaling in Star Citizen even though the game doesn‘t exist yet.

@DevourerDragons

2 жыл бұрын

lmfao

@hyperdude144

2 жыл бұрын

Making a Special relativity joke on a video about rpgs. This cannot get any nerdier. Well, maybe if people start quoting Neal Stephenson.

@_-insertname-_

2 жыл бұрын

I understood every part of this comment. Not sure how to feel about that-

@DevourerDragons

2 жыл бұрын

@@_-insertname-_ Educated-

@DevourerDragons

2 жыл бұрын

@@hyperdude144 “Show some fucking adaptability!” ― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

I watched a documentary about gambling addicts. They said they were spending obscene amounts of money on their habit. The gambling websites would offer them incentives, rewards, personal account managers and generally make them feel really special. Many of these 'whales' went bankrupt.

@sconette8038

3 жыл бұрын

Do you have the name of it? It sounds fascinating

@ohwhatworld5851

3 жыл бұрын

@@sconette8038 I can't remember what it was called. I think it was on the BBC.

@cattysplat

3 жыл бұрын

There a huge amount that goes into feed gambling addicts. Heck, the buffet was literally invented to feed gamblers who never wanted to leave the casino but the place had no staff to serve them.

@amp4105

2 жыл бұрын

@@cattysplat no windows in casinos, air pumped into the rooms etc etc

I found out the biggest whale in my little corner of a certain game has a daughter with leukemia. I wonder if that has something to do with why she whales.

@MarioGoatse

2 жыл бұрын

That's sad. I wonder if her daughter is receiving all the help she needs.

@none_o_ur_bidnis

2 жыл бұрын

@@MarioGoatse oh, she isn't struggling. I'm sure she is

I whaled really hard once in one free browser game that I won't name, but it's still going pretty strong. It didn't have a conventional cash shop or anything, and there was a limit to how high your stats could get even with the best equipment... then I found this one option in premium content that had a chance to raise all your stats slightly. And it was uncapped. I went ahead and did it hundreds of times until I had more than twice the max stats of other players, and while I didn't use it for PVP that much I definitely used it to pull off impossible feats and beat some self-imposed challenges nobody else would be able to do. I wasn't the first person to break the stat caps, but nobody else was anywhere near as high as I went. Some players hated me for it, calling it "unfair", but since I didn't do PVP more than a handful of times and usually by request (with people treating me like an endgame boss... felt pretty good), I didn't feel like I ruined anything. I think the devs refused to penalize me for it since it was a lot of money redoing that option again and again.

What I find annoying as a non-whale is that whale-hunting makes a game's prices stupidly inflated. Example: I started playing AFK Arena a month or two ago. After a few weeks I decided I'd throw the devs some money, as I've been having fun with the game. I figured I'd spend 5-10 euros on it. Then I went through the shop and realized that anything I could buy for that amount wouldn't advance me in the game in any noticable manner. I'd need to spend a lot more than that. So I was in a position of wanting to support the game, but not being able to find a transaction that I'd feel even remotely satisfied with. I mean, the price of a brand new AAA game wouldn't even get you one of the better heroes in the game. It's ridiculous...

@kittyanya

3 жыл бұрын

The .99 deals are actually nice to scoop up for a little progress. The chest event we had would let the .99 deal push you a few chests down if you grabbed the daily .99 each day of the event.

@bencegergohocz5988

3 жыл бұрын

Genshin impact just anounced it's first 2 skins. Bying the new skin to the character "Jean", who you can only get from gatcha to begin with, is 30dollars... Half the price of a AAA title at release. If i look at steam and gog discounts, i can probably get 3 to 5 goty tier games for that price. I'm both a paying player and someone that uses the character but i won't buy that skin cause it's retardedly priced for whales.

@ke5uq1we8h

3 жыл бұрын

Well, you already supporting it by being cannon-fodder for whales in game.

@Phex1

3 жыл бұрын

In this kind of Games you have to spend your Money early on if you want to see progress from it. After you hit the "wall" in Endgame, the cheap Transfers will bring you nothing anymore and you have to throw several hundreds at the game to see any difference anymore. Will only get worse the longer you play.

@andrewsmithphoto

3 жыл бұрын

I agree. I would happily drop $10 on a game I like, but most options in the game stores run close to $50 and all you get is a single item or a useless skin.

So today we learned that sharpest weapon in every mmo is the credit card

@badass6300

3 жыл бұрын

Not true, WoW only lets you buy cosmetics. I don't think ESO has anything pay to win either.

@rex_melynas

3 жыл бұрын

you can literally buy levels in wow...

@badass6300

3 жыл бұрын

@Mike You can buy gold, which can't buy you much. You can get Bind on equip items from the auction house, but they aren't that good and are very rare as well, plus you can't even make a complete set with them. There are like 5-7(depending on the class) of them I think out of 16 items total.

@Geri05

3 жыл бұрын

@@badass6300 You can buy gold, then pay a few million to one of the server top guilds for a full loot mythic raid boost. Gold can literally buy you the best gear available, just not directly off the AH

@badass6300

3 жыл бұрын

@@Geri05 but then every multiplayer game is pay to win.

I love how most of these games are in the bad - mediocre range, it really shows how the amount of money people spend on a game has nothing to do with his quality

As a person who worked in CS and marketing at Casinos I can tell you, the Pareto principle is true in many ways. Including in how 20% of your customers will be behind 80% of the complaints against you, and 20% of that minority crowd will again make up 80% of the more aggressive complaints. Likewise, about 80% of our revenue came from 20% of our visitors, and a smaller 20% of those people accounted for 80% of the larger 80% of revenue.

i understand it, still hate it.

@rogerpiotr6977

2 жыл бұрын

your profile picture makes this 10x more funnier :D

This has taught me (and I already had a suspicion), that once a game starts to cater to whales, it's time to quit the game. That mentality is dangerous to any game. The people who can afford it will pay, and they ones who can't are given a higher incentive to cheat.

@someoneudontknow3709

2 жыл бұрын

Probably explains why some of the better games are single player or not well known multiplayers

@Kynareth6

2 жыл бұрын

Being able to afford it has nothing to do with whaling.

@overcast2018

2 жыл бұрын

I always cheat on these p2w games,, the reactions from the whales is hilarious,

@ShiroCh_ID

2 жыл бұрын

well at least i dont mind if it was p2c or pay to convinience as long as the grind was worth it p2w though uh.. no not so much

@wwaxwork

2 жыл бұрын

The point you are missing is, if the game is open to players, it's already set up to cater to whales.

Having enough money has always been a foreign concept to my brain, so it always hits my brain weird hearing how much money some people spend on microtransactions

this dilemma is a big reason why no mmorpg nowadays lasts very long

I want to introduce you, for those who read my comment, to the disgusting principle of "flower pots". Flower pots are ACCOUNTS, not players, ACCOUNTS that were given items and more to encourage whales to spend more money, by creating "competition". This phenomenon is best to be seen on a certain game called "naruto online". It's basically an ex-browser game (with flash shutting down, they had to make their own launcher) that is a gatcha game based on Naruto. Now unsurprisingly, everything can be bought with premium currency: the newest OP ninjas, power boost items, summoning items. Although not quite as known, their whales are much crazier: they release weekly events, where there is at least once a week an event that gives you extra stuff, usually the newest/current meta characters, for spending money (called recharging). And these go up to 1000€. A week. And people buy them EVERY DAMN TIME. I personally am one of the only F2P on my server left, and always think of it as absolutely crazy. How much money and how little control of their life do these people have? But you know what's worse? They release new servers weekly. 3 English, 1 German, 1 French, 2 Portugese, 2 Spanish, 1 Polish and probably like 5 Chinese servers. And every damn time there are new or old wales on these servers, buying practically everything on release day. With now around 6000 servers overall, they probably have around a revenue of probably around 6m a week. Unsurprisingly, the company behind the company is, you guessed it: Tencent.

@eyoshinthemaximum

2 жыл бұрын

Omfg

@LeoMajor1

2 жыл бұрын

I always wondered if these accounts existed to encourage whales to spend.

@DevourerDragons

2 жыл бұрын

@@LeoMajor1 that's their only purpose

@madrox1989

2 жыл бұрын

I dolphin'd around in AFK Arena for a little bit, and I saw a whale in guild chat complaining how someone else is topping them in the leader boards. I basically hinted at the flower pot idea, and that perhaps they are being strung along. I didn't get any responses to my comment from anyone, but I did notice their activity slow down a little bit :)

@OlafJorigson

2 жыл бұрын

Well Tencent is smart. Thats why they are on of the biggest (if not biggest rn) gaming company of the world.

"He green screened his smarmy British eyebrows on his smarmy British face" -Taquito Bandito, probably.

@alw2839

3 жыл бұрын

Smarmy?? Im an American.

@vedritmathias9193

3 жыл бұрын

Took my brain a moment to really process "smarmy" and so I initially thought you were talking about some tabletop wargame army, and was terribly confused. "Josh greenscreened his tabletop army onto his fa- Oooooohhhhhh."

@emikochan13

3 жыл бұрын

@@vedritmathias9193 SPACE MARINES

The moment you started talking about whales being worth 20,000 regular players, I thought "Huh, that sounds like the 80/20 principle". Then you started talking about 80/20 midway through the video. A+ content!

I always say: As a Freeby, you are not a costumer of the game, you are content for the whales.

@retryhikaru184

Жыл бұрын

a clever observation

@plunderersparadise

10 ай бұрын

An actual NPC

@gary4689

8 ай бұрын

Reminds me of: "If it's free, you're the one being sold."

Probably helps to keep in mind the term "whales" was originally a gambling term, synonymous with "high roller".

@MarriedMule

3 жыл бұрын

And that's why we do what we do. Sure I won't win it back like you COULD with conventional gambling, but I still get the feel good chemicals and I enjoy my time more.

@ironyelegy

3 жыл бұрын

@@MarriedMule i can imagine, but at some point you do wonder if you're sick. right?

@MarriedMule

3 жыл бұрын

@@ironyelegy I mean, I'd love to say yes, but when you're a whale, you usually have whale friends, and either you get the mentality of "at least I'm not spending as much as that one is" or "Damn right I can spend this much on a game, be jealous".

@ironyelegy

3 жыл бұрын

@@MarriedMule yeah... it's like how a narcissist can never love fully. once you've really attained that level of a feedback loop... i mean, you know

@MarriedMule

3 жыл бұрын

@@ironyelegy I get what you mean, yeah. I've stopped whaling personally, but the urge to just drop a ton of cash never fully leaves.

The 80/20 rule is why I keep telling people who ask the question “Why can’t developers make a game where all builds are viable with thousands of possible options?” that even if it WAS possible to balance a game out with that many possible builds, it really wouldn’t matter as the vast majority of people will still gravitate to a small amount of builds.

@SlimeBlueMS

3 жыл бұрын

80% of builds are good, but only 20% are used. That’s why I like to experiment in MMOs and not rely on “the best builds”

@TheNickBrotherhood

3 жыл бұрын

Path of exile in a nutshell

@NeoSuuko

3 жыл бұрын

that makes a lot of sense, i never tought of it that way

@demonvictim

3 жыл бұрын

80 20 rule is just called meta only. The only way it seems viable to create a more expensive meta is to have a shit ton of hard counters. Make it so that its even more rewarding to go against the meta then to follow it. If whatever you have turns into the meta then the cycle just needs to happen again where it's profitable to not be your class

@Meitti

3 жыл бұрын

Really depends on a game and situation. Take example, SMITE. God balance in pro-matches is 96 out of 100+ of them got played at some point, so very balanced, does not follow 80/20. Item and gear balance however depends heavily on the role of the team. Frontline tanks had the most diverse building paths because they're required to counterbuild against the other team (example antiheal-equipment against healing-heavy enemy team). Whereas ADC or the guy who is supposed to do the most amount of damage as quickly as possible only has two builds (crit build, armor pen build) out of theoretical 8 total, so that follows the rule. So the rule tends to break if whatever the rule is subjected to is more adaptive- or situation depending than usual. On the contrast the simple goal of "doing as much damage as possible" followed the 80/20 rule.

8:06 As someone who played Battle Pirates for over 10 years (without spending a penny), I can confirm that there are alot of people in that game that spend rediculous amounts of money. In fact, I'd say there are more spenders than F2P players in the game now, it's not uncommon to hear of someone dropping a couple hundred or even thousand dollars. In fact, get this, even writing a support ticket has a paywall of $50! Josh, I don't know if you read comments on these older videos, but if you do, this game could be a candidate for "Worst MMOs". It used to be an amazing game but it's just gone way downhill since then and I've since pretty much stopped playing because there hasn't been a substantial update in years, all the attention is put on events with the occasional upgrades for buildings in your base that yes, can take over 14 days (or some premium currency in the game, 14 days = about $60 to instantly complete one 14-day upgrade) It hurts asking for a game I've played for so long to be featured on a "worst" list, but at this rate, the company isn't really doing much to improve the game... so let the hammer drop

@RiayToons

Жыл бұрын

לחשוב שבForge of Empires פיתחתי בעבר עיר שאפשרה לי לעזור לשחקנים אחרים אבל אחרי שסיפרתי למנהלי הגילדה שלי שאני אוהב לעזור לשחקנים אחרים כי אני בעצם פדופיל, הם דיווחו להנהלת המשחק והם נידו אותי מלבנות את העיר שיצרתי ולא משנה כמה הבטחתי לשלם להם, הם סרבו לקבל אותי חזרה. הבני זונות ועוד הייתי דולפין שלהם...

Yeah, whaling is conspicuous consumption put into an economic model (Pareto Principle). It really is insidious because it feeds off many traits similar to those found in physical addiction to generalized anxiety disorder and so forth. The fact that gaming companies took this long to exploit it really is surprising but to be honest I think part of that is due to the fact that many in the gaming industry are worried about regulations. Particularly around anything that seems remotely like gambling in the US and the EU.

I am disappointed. I thought there was a new MMO where you could see and interact with whales...

@amannamedsquid313

3 жыл бұрын

Perhaps one day....

@Jackques

3 жыл бұрын

Same 😆

@capnheehee8103

3 жыл бұрын

I was hopeful as well ... something about the notion of a literal "whale mmorpg" sounded sort of interesting. :-)

@lateknight4754

3 жыл бұрын

in ffxiv you can beat one up :)

@3adir_

3 жыл бұрын

Lol same

The problem is not that there are people spending large amounts of money who can afford it. The problems are the numerous psychological tricks to get people spending at all. Especially when one is susceptible to such tricks and cannot afford it. I have an addictive personality, spend way to much on some games. The solution was to cut my losses and uninstall it. But the sunken cost fallacy is a real thing.

@Johny9405

3 жыл бұрын

The real problem is a lot of these games are aimed at children, which are easily influenced. There's a reason why minors can't go to a casino.

@Kamakiri711

3 жыл бұрын

@@Johny9405 True. What with all the gambling mechanics like loot boxes etc.

@Walamonga1313

3 жыл бұрын

How about you don't play games? Ever thought of that? Doesn't even have to be quitting gaming once and for all, just play other genres that don't milk. You've only yourself to blame if you fall for these schemes

@Kamakiri711

3 жыл бұрын

@@Johny9405 surprise mechanics iirc 🤮

@potatoesstarch2376

3 жыл бұрын

@@Walamonga1313 brilliant advice m8. Why don't you head down to the local AA group and ask them if they ever considered not drinking. Or maybe find some heroin addicts and ask if they've ever considered not doing drugs? Ooh or maybe find yourself a cult and ask all the members if they've considered not joining cults? Really helpful shit thank you for contribution.

In uni, during one of the classes we had on project management, we actually had a discussion about subscriptions, freemium and other monetization techniques and when someone said "I think microtransactions should be banned" and "free games should be free, not freemium" my professor's answer was simply "Noone works for free, not you and not me". I think it's interesting that so many have objections on "pay-to-win" but neither want to pay subscription fees etc. - How are game studios supposed to finance the running cost of an online game with servers etc. without any revenue?

@axel198

2 жыл бұрын

Well, the one thing games have been good at is coming up with new and novel ways to fund game development. WoW was a pioneer of the subscription model, but that generated enough backlash that a bunch of blizzard developers splintered off to make Guild Wars - explicitly to not have a subscription model. Freemium, Pay to Play, one time purchase... The reasoning behind subscriptions is that it allows for continual income over time that maintains servers, as you said. It's not that the other options don't work (Guild Wars is still online), but subscription models and pay to play offer a level of security that is much more appealing to investors and shareholders. There's plenty of methods you can use to continue to fund continued development and maintenance of a game, but a publisher will always want to pursue the one with the least risk. I don't actually mind microtransactions. What I DO mind is the level of abusive psychological tricks that are implemented to coerce people into purchasing them. But I mean, that's marketing and advertising for you. It's a tool, and unfortunately the most assured and profitable ways to use the tools in question tend to be the least ethical.

In Stronghold Kingdoms, a like clan-like (past) Browser Game, people are spending thousands every month. Whenever a new world starts or gets reset, you can see these players going day 1 to endgame. And they are not even the upper echelon. We had a player in an allied clan that (what I heard from his mates) already spend around a million if not more on the game. It was probably not that high of an amount, but he was a rich kid from a very rich family, so it is possible.

I'm waiting for the day when Josh thinks the camera cut off, but film is still rolling and the camera pulls back or the shelves roll/split apart and reveals Josh's room is actually a fake bedroom set located in a soundstage/film studio... Gotta feed the Taquito Bantito conspiracy by taking it to the next level. ...someone with some cgi experience needs to make this happen ;P

@vedritmathias9193

3 жыл бұрын

I'll do you one better: IT'S ALL FAKE! Josh is just another one of those vtubers. It's a generated avatar. It's all done to *look* photorealistic.

@matteoar

3 жыл бұрын

if he ever becomes big enough Zach King can definitely do that.

@cyrielroelofs

3 жыл бұрын

We all live in a simulation

@Jackques

3 жыл бұрын

Loll.. how many times do we need to see this comment? IT'S.. NOT.. FAKE..

@r3gret2079

3 жыл бұрын

I absolutely love the fact that that taquito stupito is now a meme for this channel.

Making games with the intention to "catch whales" is one of the reasons the majority of games that do this end up dying eventually. They lose the player base and whales aren't really made of money, contrary to what companies like to believe.

@cattysplat

3 жыл бұрын

Pretty much all mobile games are just flash in the pan money pits. The objective is to suck as much cash out of players as fast as possible before it collapses in on itself and they have to pull the plug. It still makes millions regardless, they just setup 10 more games like it to keep the fishing nets wider.

This is the first time I notice Josh's Battlestar Galactica DVD collection. My appreciation for this man couldn't be higher.

@kennykiller

Жыл бұрын

He should set it up so every so often that box with taquito bandito is still wrong photoshops in

In the Duel Links forums and reddit subs, dropping _some_ cash on packs that isn't at whaling levels is considered being a "dolphin" -- that is, a much, much smaller whale.

I prefer when games have asthetic only cash shops. If people want to pay hundreds to complete a rare outfit or get a rare dance that's on them. They can still look rich and be elite but at least it doesn't affect the free players enjoyment. PSO2 has this and I feel it works out. Cash shop items can help you level up faster and try again for drops using quest triggers but it doesn't directly give you better items and gear.

@Chichaetomate

3 жыл бұрын

there is also a premium service that gives extra drop meseta and exp and while the advantage is not much it is still there oh you can also buy extra storage character storage and banks too

@rex_melynas

3 жыл бұрын

As PSO2 doesn't have PVP I don't really care, paying won't give you any advantage against other players, and worst case they are helping free players in clearing hard quests

@DousedFlame

3 жыл бұрын

@@Chichaetomate Oops forgot about all that! Yeah all that makes me game more comfortable. Maybe pso2 is pay for convenience ? I'm a prem player and I can't go back to f2p with my current schedule. The comfort of having more items and slightly better luck is nice. Still wouldn't call it p2w but there Def is a benefit to paying.

@Andrew-zq3ip

3 жыл бұрын

Guild Wars 2 is mostly like that. There are some boosts you can buy that increase your xp or magic find slightly but these effects hardly translate into more power in reality. My characters are as strong as it is possible to become and I never use them. Lots of us are in that position actually. That's something I like about the game. There is a hard cap on player power that isn't too hard to reach and the bar doesn't move with every new expansion. Numerically, everyone ends up on the same level and it comes down to personal skill to be good or bad.

@ChibiNyan

3 жыл бұрын

I prefer the total opposite way myself. I don't give a damn if some player wants to climb super high on a leaderboard with a credit card, that's on them. Some people beat me in pvp because of the cash shop ? And ? There and billions reasons for someone else to beat me : lag, character balance, time spend playing, time focusing on pvp gameplay instead of pve, if he has a pvp build or not, if he has pvp gear or not, etc. The game is already so much imbalanced because of multiple reasons, adding money to it doesn't matter to me. However, I don't want to play a potato-looking character unless I go to the cash shop. I like nice outifts, and I like to change them based on my mood. That's why I avoid all games with a big cosmetic shop, because I know I won't get what I want unless I pay hundreds if not thousands. I don't mind paying a bit here and there to support them, but not for every outfit. Sadly, almost all MMO nowadays put most of their cosmetics behind a paywall, so a lot of friends and I had no choice but to leave the MMO scene because of that.

_"A fool and his money are quickly parted"_

@LikaLaruku

3 жыл бұрын

The definition of a Trust Fund Teen.

@ElBandito

3 жыл бұрын

Having fun in life > excessive money. I do wish they were better spent on more altruistic things.

@unixtreme

3 жыл бұрын

@no or maybe yes it's also a matter of perspective, for us 1000 usd is a lot of money, but for some of these people it's literally a fraction of their daily income.

@----.__

3 жыл бұрын

@@unixtreme Exactly. Most of us have no idea what it's like to live that life. To those people they keep $100,000 in cash in their sock drawer "in case of emergency", like they get a flat tyre on their million dollar Bugatti!

Just found this channel and am binge watching everything I can. After you and you alone mentioned games like Neverwinter, and Kingdom Under Fire among other obscure but super awesome MMOs, I am a fan for life. If you haven’t done Age of Conan; Unchained, I truly recommend it. It’s an MMO that had endless potential that it never lived up to, but also one I consistently return to because of it’s reliable playability. Thank you for playing the bad MMOs so that we don’t have to. I seriously wish I had seen these before downloading any one of the endless Angels games.

I love the video. You should make a series where you go into a mmo and try to find a whale and try to interview them

I hate everything about this. Most of these people have a gambling addiction and use games to get away from gambling. The fact, that this is a marketing stratagie is just disgusting.

@Jordan-Ramses

3 жыл бұрын

But it's not actually gambling that they are addicted to. They're addicted to the flashing lights and the sounds. What they are addicted to is slot machines or loot boxes. It actually has nothing to do with gambling.

@frozenpopcorn3838

3 жыл бұрын

@@Jordan-Ramses they are addicted to the possibility of winning which is just gambling

@jordanviannadasilva8981

3 жыл бұрын

@@frozenpopcorn3838they aren't addicted to the possibility, they are addicted to winning, the possibility of wining can be some sort of anticipation on gratification, is not winning that grants pleasure, but the battle for victory that grants pleasure, for that kind of person the strategy would be bee a Free to play player, he will fight hard to win against the Pay to win player. a whale is someone who finds pleasure in the victory in itself he doesn't want to struggle, he wants to beat everyone he came across, and is willing to pay to guarantee that no one else is stronger that him.

@MissPopuri

3 жыл бұрын

It has to do with power. Men and women both succumb to their need to dominate. The Tywin Lannister quote that goes something like “you think a crown gives you power” works very well here.

@maskettaman1488

3 жыл бұрын

What's disgusting about providing someone people enjoy enough to spend money on?

That ending. I didn't even know I wanted "what's in the mug" to be a thing, but I love it.

@xyrus345

3 жыл бұрын

At least it didn't end like Seven.

One thing I'd like to see discussed is the difference between "Buying Power" and "Buying Prestige." A few games do this. Games where throwing infinite money at the problem can give you an EDGE, such as more opportunities, less wait time, etc., but it won't actually win the game for you (unless you go through illicit channels but that's neither here nor there) you need to actually be good at the game to be successful. HOWEVER, these games often have collections or achievements that a normal player can't achieve without spending. This is where I think a lot of gacha games come in. Let's take Genshin Impact for example. Genshin Impact has no PVP (Windtrace doesn't really count and you can't pay to win it anyway). There's no real objective *advantage* to having every 5 star in the game. One of the absolute best compositions for doing basically everything in the game involves 3 (mostly) free units, or at least ones you would eventually get just by playing (Xiangling, Bennett, and Xingqiu. Xiangling is absolutely 100% free for everyone and the other two are on basically every banner. Diona counts as well i guess.) and running the gacha whenever. The 4th unit is often a 5 star, and the "best" is often a rare one...but with Genshin's pity system and some foresight a f2p player can get that. So *power* isn't really what the whales are after. There's not really a distinct advantage to having every single unit, and a few of the 5 stars like Qiqi and Yoimiya are of questionable worth for doing the game's only endgame content. If anything having *more* units increases the amount of work you have to do. Pretty much every gacha game I've played has this issue. No, the big flex here is the PRESTIGE. And it comes in a few flavors: 1) Getting all the units. 2) Getting all the units and maxing them. 3) Getting rare items/promotions 4) Getting things with less effort 5) Getting things with maximum effort. If you accomplish these things, you can flex on the entire community. And well-made gacha/MMO games realize this. This is why, going back to Genshin, they offered the Ningguang and Barbara skins for free and then charged money for them. Free players can flex by being there and doing the quest for it within the time allotted, while money guys don't have to worry about it since they can just buy it later. A little bit of FOMO for the freebies. The free players have the prestige of having something rare/expensive for free, and the whales have something to plop down money on. I just wish more games would embrace this idea. FFXIV certainly did, with having seasonal event items offered for sale on the cash shop a year after it came out. "Pay for Prestige" is, basically, who the premium cosmetic items and titles are aimed towards. And it's a much less predatory method of sale...though as you can tell from my example provided...it's still well within the realm of predatory.

@DarthRadical

2 жыл бұрын

I mean - it depends how broadly you define "predatory". Is it predatory for a Snickers bar to be so delicious and unhealthy? Maybe the gacha/gambling element is, but freemium games have to sell something.

A few years ago, when I was in high school, I would very much have been considered a whale. I mainly played a little browser petsite focused on dragons, and I’d just gotten my first job. I was bringing in maybe $500 a paycheck during the summer, half that during the school year, but since I had no living expenses besides whatever fast food I wanted on occasion for lunch… I spent every penny on that game. Learned I very much have a tendency towards gambling addiction, aha. The game I played didn’t really have pvp, it was mostly just collecting dragons and making them look pretty with genes and apparel and the like. The most expensive dragons were ones with no lineage/parents, because getting them involved hatching an abandoned egg and the resulting dragon was always random in color and usually very ugly. Getting a pretty one and giving it good genes and apparel was a status symbol. I didn’t really have anything worth status irl, and $500 a month was the most money I’d ever seen in my life, so being well-off in game and having a lair page full of pretty and valuable dragons made me feel a sense of accomplishment and power that I’d never had before. I played the game during class instead of doing schoolwork, and would steal my phone back while grounded so I could check on the game during break at work. Only thing I’ll say is that it was an important part of self discovery. I’m glad I discovered I have a problem with gambling and obsessing over certain games while I was still in the relative safety of my mom’s house, versus now where I’m on my own and that sort of thing absolutely would’ve driven me to homelessness. I make a lot more than I did back then, but I limit my spending on unnecessary purchases per paycheck to much, much less than $500. I think attracting whales, while it is good for the health of a game, has to be done right. Lootboxes and rng mechanics are predatory bullshit, because a lot of the people who get sucked into that nonsense really don’t have that money to spend, but god, gambling is a funny itch to scratch. If you can attract whales without relying on tricking people (with a game that’s free to play but pay to win) or luring in vulnerable addicts, I have no problem with it in principle.

Had a whale join our Corp in EVE years ago, bought a skilled char, bought stupid big ships that he couldn't even reach and,.. lost everything constantly because he never learned the game

@Unguided

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah, EVE is Pay to Lose. Destroying thousands of dollars worth of other players' ships with a fleet of cheap ones is a big draw for some players.

@michaelpettersson4919

3 жыл бұрын

Ouch. Well buying pre leveled characters will do that in any game. The same will leveling up services, stand there not knowing how to play.

When a game is free to play its not exactly free to enjoy. If it's not something to enjoy then you're better off seeking greener pastures.

@eugenebotsman

3 жыл бұрын

I think you nailed it man.

@alw2839

3 жыл бұрын

@N-word Jim What kind of game in granblu?

@alw2839

3 жыл бұрын

@Mr D J Appreciate it, might check it out doubt my potato phone can thought.

@demonvictim

3 жыл бұрын

Part of the reason why poor whales get so sucked in is because they can't see their money fading away. Look at the Google pay interface or Apple pay and it no different taking 2 dollars out or 500. Imagine having to dig out your wallet and look for 500 dollars. That ease promotes reckless habits

This makes me feel so much better about spending a total of like 60$ in my life on micro transactions lmao

I heard it described once, that as a free player in a free to play, pay to win game... you aren't the consumer. You're the product that the game developer is marketing to the whale. Whether you're food for them in pvp arenas or someone to be better than in a pve environment (leaderboards spring to mind).

I used to work on smurfs village and before they took our access to the statistics away (which i programmed) whe had a bunch of old people spending up to 500€ per month on this tiny mobile game. and it was the worst and buggiest mess i have ever worked on. we charged 110€ for a gargamel while the entire app crumbled in your hands. it took me and 1 artist a days work split between us to add a new item that wed sell for 60€ a pop. Quit after 8 months and started work at a way better game studio afterwards.

@namenloss730

2 жыл бұрын

I'm so glad I used to cheat at that game and go around the paywall for items XD

I've played a whale MMO on phone. One day, 4 years after the game was launched we realized the best player had spent more than 50k dollars. We asked him how much he spent ... He answered "around 300k dollars" He played and stayed on top for 5 more years

@ab-wz2ny

2 жыл бұрын

you made his year when you asked him that tho, cuz you noticed

@dustysmoke4996

2 жыл бұрын

That's pretty hilarious, since video gaming, online or otherwise, is purely mental mastur**tion. Wonder if spending 300k for it made it feel all that much better? lol Great investments of all time...

@DJCannon5

2 жыл бұрын

I seen whales lose that much in one night and when asked why they said "busy with work" got cleaned out by hundreds of players, I never MMO games like that after that and still wonder what he does for work, we know some of the players were oil tycoons.

@SoulDevoured

2 жыл бұрын

@@dustysmoke4996 tbf buying anything is just transferring your wealth to another. And 99% of our transactions have no gain to us other than to make us feel good for a time. Buy a new phone when you could repair your old one. Buy coffee or lunch when you could make it at home. Buy cheeseburgers every day. Buy the latest doodad on etsy or Amazon. Late stage capitalism baby. And alot of it is intentionally shaped to get you to spend for that initial dopamine boost. Less benign things like alcohol and even pet adoption/purchase are marketed to appeal to how good you'll feel immediately after purchase. Not the potential ramifications it will have on your life. Consumer based environmentalism is perhaps the most insidious example. Buy a thing. Feel good. That's what the developed world thrives on. Cuz you're working till you die so you might as well... Cuz you already have your needs met or they are out of reach. Or at least it feels that way. There's a reason the extreme majority of people who are still long term smokers are either poor or suffer from mental illness. What they need is so far out of reach that they cope with a mood boost that can be affordably purchased. Or stolen or bummed or found with sheer dumb luck. Don't hate the player man. Hate the game.

@Loserstakethebait

2 жыл бұрын

@@dustysmoke4996 People buy steaks that cost 300+ dollar an ounce dude. That provides far less enjoyment then something that last for years in a video game. Is buying a Lamborghini realistically that much better than driving a 60,000 sports car? No. The differences are minimal. They buy them because of the status it has, not the entertainment it provides. Most people who own sports cars don't even go over the speed limit in them. How is that any better than spending money on a video game? People have expendable wealth so they spend it on what they enjoy. Whales enjoy video games and those whales make it possible for F2P players to also enjoy the game. Look at Genshin Impact. Some streamers spend tens of thousands in that game and there isn't even pvp or any form of competition. It isn't about bragging, because F2P players can actually get faster clear times than* some whales using sheer skill and creative builds. Not too often, but it happens. There isn't any downside to clearing 20sec slower though either. The rewards are the same regardless. The max reward tiers are set at an easily achievable range. Some free players solo bosses with one health on units that whales say are weak. No amount of money lets you replicate that. However, the F2P community and the whales get along great and respect eachother. As the F2P players get massive updates and tons of content because the whales pay as much as they do. It's a win win situations in some games.

When there's a new frame release in warframe, you could easily notice which players were the whales. You'd hop in a mission and casually see a high ranking player with the new frame. I'd go farm that frame like crazy (being high ranking myself now is far more easier) and then sell on the market the parts or the whole set for whatever price. It was easy platinum for 30/45min of mindless grind.

It's why I prefer games that are subscription based. They are more fair to all players and fund the devs.

As someone who almost never pays money in a F2P game, it baffles me how people can get any sort of satisfaction from beating someone with bought power. The reason I feel good for winning at something is because I made it happen by honing my skills and/or grinding my arse off. If I just purchased myself an advantage, victory would feel hollow to me. In a fight, I'd rather be the underdog than the champion.

@NegotiatorGladiarius

3 жыл бұрын

Speaking as a whale, in fact as the great white whale of a couple of games. The kind who, like Josh said, would consider someone spending a couple hundred quid in a game "cute". I've spent more than that just buying Christmas gifts from the currency shop for a couple of guildmates last Christmas. And what I'll tell you is: it's not always about beating anyone up or in fact about power. In fact, I avoid PvP completely if at all possible in a game. Probably the most I've spent on is cosmetics and the like. Including stuff like wanting a specific ship from a specific movie in WOWS or Star Trek Online. As in, in WOWS, I already had the Graf Spee, but I wanted the /High School Fleet/ Graf Spee, so out comes the credit card when that becomes available. It's not a more powerful ship or anything. It just has a unique paint job and it says HSF in the name, for all to see. I opened essentially lootboxes in STO just to have a Dominion carrier and Jem'Hadar bridge officers, because I was into Deep Space Nine. I dropped a couple of hundred when they launched the Romulans just because it included some unique ships from past series and movies, that were not available otherwise. At least none of the stuff in STO was ever actually used against another player. The point, I suppose, was more like flaunting my wealth conspicuously, for all peasants to see, rather than beating up the peasants. In fact, you may want to look up "Veblen Goods". It's the (usually RL stuff) that is desirable not because it's in some way better than other stuff (which it might be, but it's coincidental, rather than what makes it a Veblen good) but because it's expensive and most people can't justify buying it. In game, it would be the mount from the deluxe edition from Blizzard's Burning Crusade classic: has no advantage over a regular horse, and in fact it has the DISadvantage of being too big for many doors and places, you can't get it without spending 75 dollars, and it's too ugly for most players to even want it even if it were free. THAT is the kind of stuff that lets you really flaunt your wealth in front of the peasants. And yes, I bought it.

@Healthpotion

3 жыл бұрын

@@NegotiatorGladiarius That's also why the "it's just cosmetic" argument is so flawed. Elevating yourself above others doesn't necessarily need raw power. Just looking different, having exclusive titles or mounts or anything really will attract whales. The veblen goods argument is a really good one. Things being expensive for the sake of being expensive. You're not showing off any items at this point, you're just showing other people your ability to afford something. I'm always reminded of the mystery box from dragon age inquisition when thinking of this. A box, whose only value IS it's value. The merchant goes to great lengths to explain to you that his business does not run on sales, but on the illusion of wealth and competition between potential buyers. Of course you can buy the box and it has some mounts in it because we wouldn't want players to actually learn something, so we have a reward anyway, but the thought counts.

@NegotiatorGladiarius

3 жыл бұрын

@@Healthpotion Yes, that box as described in DA:Inquisition IS the very definition of a Veblen good. It's desirable just because it's expensive, nothing else required. IRL most people would do SOME rationalization (by way of cognitive dissonance, if nothing else) as to why that box was totally worth the money, so much better than any other box on the market, and generally some kind of smart purchase, but at the end of the day they still bought it just because it's expensive and everyone else knows it's expensive. Me, I just don't feel a need to lie to myself about it. Hell, yeah, I bought the ugliest mount in the game, just because it's expensive.

@NegotiatorGladiarius

3 жыл бұрын

@@Healthpotion That said, also, yes, people try to elevate themselves above others through looks every day. IRL too, not just in games. And some of them are Veblen goods at that. If you've ever wondered what does a Chanel handbag have, that makes it worth 7000$ (not hyperbole, btw: they can actually cost even more than 7k), well, it's simply the Chanel logo. It's expensive and everyone knows it's expensive. You wear one to show off that you can afford one. That said, I'm not sure what you mean by 'the "it's just cosmetic" argument is so flawed'''. How is it flawed? What that argiment means is just that it won't actually give anyone an actual combat numbers advantage advantage over you. It was never supposed to mean that it's not whale bait. Just that it's not the kind of bait that's to your disadvantage in any meaningful way. The guy won't PK you easier, won't steal your raid slot with that equipment, won't even level up any faster than you do, etc. And honestly, I feel quite unapologetic about it. If we were in, say, Japan, looking different from anyone else would be considered bad. But in the individualistic western culture it's a normal, everyday fact of life. Again, even IRL. And if anyone is feeling oppressed just because someone has the same sword in green (to use the expression in the video, but dyes actually are some of the most bought items)... well, they can cry me a river.

@Healthpotion

3 жыл бұрын

​@@NegotiatorGladiarius What I mean about the cosmetics argument being flawed is, that it's often used to excuse integrations of cash shops or exorbitant prices in games. Yes, it leaves the gameplay more intact and fair between whales and free players compared to buying power, but it doesn't alleviate the problem of preying on whale spenders. Now, if you're a whale who has the disposable income to afford these kinds of purchases, it's not really a problem. In fact it does help in providing these people with a way to express themselves without diminishing the experience for less fortunate players. However, it does nothing to improve the lives of the unfortunate people with addictions who do not have the means to spend those sums, but are compelled to anyway, thus severely hurting their lives. It's a convenient cover up that masks the goal of cash shops to the free player base. Now the real problem is that it's lauded by some as a good solution to monetization, when it's really just a slight mitigation traded for making the intent more opaque.

As the guy who recorded that SC clip, seeing it as Hayes' primary example of shitty SC physics is glorious.

@Andreas_Mann

2 жыл бұрын

So where is that clip?

@rolfs2165

2 жыл бұрын

@@Andreas_Mann 14:25

@WoWhistorian

2 жыл бұрын

​@@rolfs2165 I think they meant where did the person originally upload/stream it lol.

@vizthex

2 жыл бұрын

i don't see any videos on your channel lol

That mug joke; he got me again. The same thing he did with the Space Marine mug.

I love these kind of videos you make. Make more of them please

The moral of the story is.... Invent a mobile pay to win game immediately.

@El-Burrito

3 жыл бұрын

My thoughts exactly

@ctdaniels7049

3 жыл бұрын

Don't be That Guy.

@Silversmith70

3 жыл бұрын

@@ctdaniels7049 Can you code? Lets do this!

@prestonrussell1452

3 жыл бұрын

@@Silversmith70 Can you art? Let's do this!

@Silversmith70

3 жыл бұрын

@@prestonrussell1452 No but I can money lol.

Hey Josh, about the Black Desert Online whale at 9:00 in your video. The saga didn't end at $160,000. He (EstimateWz) had spend close to $250,000 and after he stopped spending money on the cash shop, he got permanently banned. After the ban he bought a new account and went back at it, but this time paying a third world gold farmer at third world wages to grind the lost wealth back. Considering a gold farmer can get you the equivalent in game currency (silvers) of $35/hour (premium item to ingame silver exchange rate is $10 USD --> 100m silvers, paying a third world gold farmer $5/h is like an 83% discount. And is very popular with people desperate to be at the top in gear and items.

I like how the description of a whale in the beginning is also, word-for-word, your common Adventurer in most TTRPGs. Comes in, drops an ungodly amount of gold and even just ignores worrying about dealing with change in favor of paying with whole gold coinage. Leaves. The towns economy is now in shambles.

@halkiierid4084

Жыл бұрын

Are you aware of Mansa Musa? He was a medieval king who actually did that in real life while on pilgrimage.

Thought Whales was going to refer to the ultra rare mobs (time lost drake, etc.) aka "whale hunting," but this makes sense also :)

I'm friends with a whale in a game and I've always felt so awkward asking about what it's like to spend that much, but I'm so fascinated by it

@jooot_6850

3 жыл бұрын

please bully them out of their whale habits

@frequencyoftruth2303

3 жыл бұрын

@@jooot_6850 Why is bulluing them the way to do it? I promise you people never listen to that shit you need to learn to talk to people if you want them to see some reflection of their issues. Holding the mirror is hard enough alone.

Note: A whale is not a rich individual. Whales in gaming are very poor money managers who often fork out a large percentage of their wage to purchase microtransactions. Think gambling...

@Mawww_MMD

3 жыл бұрын

there's a lot of bad decision but the whale of whales are the rich person who can buy cashop money like if it was a tip for a waitress. i've encountered one, one time and it was scary. i know friends with addiction who spend too many too. in the end gaming industry don't care if the whale can afford or not their spending. as long as money flow in they're happy.

@SadeN_0

3 жыл бұрын

A whale isn't by definition rich or poor. It could be that they make or have so much money that dropping tens of thousands on a game means absolutely nothing, or it could be that they're losing their house by spending money they really shouldn't. The game devs probably tell themselves everyone is from the first category so that they can sleep at night, but in truth it's always going to be a mix of all stripes, given a popular enough game.

@LiliumCruorem

3 жыл бұрын

I used to play albion online. No loot boxes. But you could straightup buy yourself to being a billionaire and you could buy XP with silver. So i did that amd every time I died and lost everything I would just buy back everything and get back out their immediately. Eventually had to quit. I don’t spend as much on games anymore. But I was no lifing that game so the money wasn’t an issue. I wasn’t going out with friends, out to eat, to the movies, I quit buying weed so I could buy more gold and skins lol. All and all some people definitely have a problem. But if you make 3-5k a month and you enjoy gaming as a sole hobby you can reasonably spend 1/6th of your income on that hobby. I think in the course of like 480 hours of game time I probably spent 2-3 grand maybe. But that’s less than I used to spend a month on lame ass bitches and weed so I dunno man. It’s all about the lifestyle you are living/wanna live. I quit albion cause it’s a pvp game and I played nature staff and it got the nerf and I realized I wasn’t good at the game, I was just abusing a really op build at the time and I started to lose more and more and I could see that going a bad way money wise. So yeah. Now I just play warframe. I quite a bit of money there too. But that’s because I’m a dumb bitch who can be tricked easily into buying a virtual cloak for my baby boy genocide robot child.

@richcast66

3 жыл бұрын

Yep. Last year when I got my new job, I was forced to do a lot of overtime for many months. I was making a lot of money that I didn't need, as I am living in a house where the bills are split 4 ways. I could've easily started whaling, but what incentive is there other than to flex, when the free to plays were able to beat endgame content same as the payers. Albeit they struggled at times.

@maximusjoseppi5904

2 жыл бұрын

That's not true at all. This is completely made up 🤣

There are no words how satisfied I was when I saw that the video began with footage from Neverwinter Online....This game has been my entry into the world of MMORPG and my first love when we are speaking about games in the mentioned genre. It meant a lot to me, used to play it even when I had no job for 8h/day ( Thank God for my friends who saved me from this addiction). It is unfortunately the perfect example when talking about whales. A great game, whit lot of potential which was ruined by the whales and lack of interest from Cryptic to the multitude of player improvement requests.....Remember entering a PVP game and hitting a wizard for a half of minute without no action against me until....one shot....just because he bought an ovp item with 10 000 000 AD. Of course when we are talking about Neverwinter Online it is explainable through the major frick up from Cryptic in 2008 when a lot of players took advantage of a bug which allowed them to gain insane amount of AD for almost nothing. That fricked up the market, of course and everything went spiraling down afterwards.... I have decided to try again the game in 2020 just out of curiosity....My plan was to invest about 100$/monthly from january until september to buy in the end chests and open them or just see what/how much I can gear up a char ( a single char mind you) with the amount of zen gathered. I quit after 2 months and a discussion with a whale where he was openly bragging how he fricked up the market just for fun and an upgrade which had to come and rendered a build of 3 years useless. No, Cryptic! I will no longer accept investing valuable time in a game dominated by whales and where a painstakingly made build is destroyed by an update.

The introduction was a great representation of the Whale, well done!

I was genuinely expecting an announcement that the mug reveal was going to be reserved for higher-level Patreon supporters...

@CoxTH

3 жыл бұрын

I was quite pleased with the reveal of the clik-claks though

@mattpinap

3 жыл бұрын

No but you should still consider becoming a patreon. Josh makes some of the best content out there for MMO lovers

@WilliamLucian

3 жыл бұрын

@@mattpinap I can’t bring myself to give money monthly for just doing it “out of the kindness of my heart” no I need something in return. By something I don’t mean more videos. I can just watch what he has for free.

@Shauma_llama

3 жыл бұрын

Should have been that way.

@FoxyFernAnimation

3 жыл бұрын

@@WilliamLucian Well, he wouldn't be able to make all this free content for you to watch if it wasn't for the people that are funding him so you can thank them! Meta meta meta

just came from a Genshin Impact discord server (someone had sent the vid there) and when you had mentioned Genshin i was like: 'called it'

This style of pay2win has so many forms! I’m guilty of having fallen into these traps years ago with Minecraft servers. Especially big economy survival servers that had several perks to buy, special currencies, and ranks that came with abilities and tools that made significantly better than others. Some ranks even came with god mode. As a kid, I spent any and all money I earned from chores, birthdays, holidays…you name it, on staying ahead. Was a vicious cycle to break but happy I at least learned from the experience.

Ok here's my take. I enjoyed being fairly rich in some MMOs I played as I could afford to give something of value to the new players. Some gold, relatively endgame potions which newbs couldn't get, relatively good gear which at that point had been powercrept to fractions of pennies. The point I'm trying to make is sometimes (admittedly a minority) it was about being the generous and magnanimous king, and yes, it made me feel like a king. Spiel over, you're all free to rag on me if you feel like it, because you're all 100% right.

@danielthundersteel7146

2 жыл бұрын

defenitely have met that type of whale and I believe it is not rare. especially in games with communities like guilds I see how whaling to help others and to be viewed as some sort of generous king can be satisfying. the video mentioned that, too. whaling to be better than others and whaling to be a generous king arent exclusive from each other, either. I guess a lot of whales are generous to their guilds and get satisfaction from that, while beating enemy guilds. The problem aren't the whales directly. Instead, the problem is that a game sometimes will me so much optimized for catching whales that it just isn't fun for normal players anymore.

@professeurgideere5856

2 жыл бұрын

Wouldn't judge you on that, helping the guild/team is a strong motivation, even if it is to feel good about yourself.

@Fyre0

2 жыл бұрын

I wasn't a whale but i did build a decent little fortune in EVE Online a few years back. I would never hesitate to splash some seed money or gear on new/newish players. It was a sign that I had "made it" in-game. And then I quit and that small fortune is now sitting somewhere in nullsec space, don't even know if my alliance still owns that space lmao

@kaltaron1284

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fyre0 Just wondering what you consider a little fortune in EvE Online. The definition can wary wildly. I never considered myself rich but I only had a few billions. To a new player that would still be impressive I guess.

@Fyre0

2 жыл бұрын

I ended the game with between 20-30 bil liquid ISK in my wallet, with who knows how much in actual ships and assets lying around in a handful of hangars. PI was my game and like 2 months before I quit, my alliance moved regions and I sponsored the expenses for Customs Offices in the new systems in the constellations we moved into (buying the raw materials from a market and paying to ship them into deep null so our indy guys could crank them out and anchor them). I don't remember how many billions went into that, but that did make a dent in my wallet. Ironically, I never used them lol.

I always love seeing the typical eve whale: big fuck off ship fitted with a fleet straight of the web and questionable ammo choice. They often get torn apart by a swarm of smaller ships after getting ewared to death.

@ericb3157

3 жыл бұрын

"ewared"? oh, "electronic warfare", jamming their systems. reminds me of this amusing video of an ambush gone badly wrong: kzread.info/dash/bejne/qKN4ubdultC8gJM.html

@cattysplat

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah I really don't understand this kind of "pay to win" whaling in traditional MMOs, even though it's always been there. The whale's lack of skill and knowledge of the game's mechanics along with their limited understanding of the extreme value of what they bought alongside having no ingame social profile always stands out to any veteran player, who can immediate identify them as being an ingenuine player who didn't earn their ingame possessions. A nobody wearing a crown does not make a king.

@TheSpicyLeg

3 жыл бұрын

@@cattysplat I am sure that happens, but I would presume anyone spending so much money would be utilizing their purchases. I mean, they don’t log in, spend 5000 dollars, and log out. They would want to get something out of their purchase, which means playing the game. Now, will a whale with a low skill ceiling beat a non-whale with a high skill ceiling? Not every time, depends on the advantages the whale gains by spending and the mechanics of the game. Reminds me of being a kid. My brother would insist we played Goldeneye with the golden gun, and he would run straight for it. Yet killing in one shot only matters if you hit, which he was terrible at doing. So he would still die, and throw a tantrum.

@adianto1122

3 жыл бұрын

o7

I have strangely more fun when I know that there are whales to hunt as a F2P player. Knowing on how far I can push the F2P and on how much I can achieve without spending any money. Warframe or Genshin are good examples

@andrewsmithphoto

3 жыл бұрын

Genshin Impact does not have a major player vs. player element. I think that is a big factor most people are getting upset about.

@deusvaulter4198

3 жыл бұрын

@@andrewsmithphoto Like they say "You played yourself" in terms of GI whales.

@Bombay.Badboy

3 жыл бұрын

try albion online, people can pay for the best gear but get absolutely destroyed by people playing better. heck even outnumbered by swipers you can beat and it is glorious. they fund the game and we get rich

@xanasago

3 жыл бұрын

Warframe is fine because you can grind all day, buy currency and by everything else. But I hope you realize that GI is about luck and timegates if you don't spend a penny. There is only so much you can do yourself.

@Triffyrose

3 жыл бұрын

The good thing about Warframe is, you can get those premium currencies (which is Platinum) by simply grinding a bit on events or relics, and trade the precious items for it. Not to mention there's no gacha or lootbox system (if I remember correctly), so you can buy what you wanted immediately. And this is from someone who spent 1.3k hours in Warframe (also purely F2P).

"80% of the radio station will only play 20% of the music available." 80% of the radio stations play less 0.01% of the music available.

I remember when somebody joined my friend's world in Genshin Impact we looked at his character display and his these characters only at display worth 4500-5000 usd at average (at average because of lootboxes it could be more or less depending on his luck).

10:05 "The whales need the free players to whale over. The free players are the measuring mark - the yard stick - that the whales can then beat, and can then rise above. The free-to-play players are the masses that the whales come along and crush. The free players are the unprepared army that the overpowered whale then crushes under their gold plated boot." And just like that, Josh Strife Hayes accidentally summarises 10,000 years of human history. The Pareto principle strikes again XD

@optimizedlaziness6183

2 жыл бұрын

I'm not sure Josh is absolutely right in this particular context. I played extensively afk arena so most of my experience will come from this. But what I noted is that most whales don't really care about f2p/dolphins. Since the gap is so big, there isn't really any sense of achievement coming from it. Instead, it turns into pvp competitions between whales and krakens and there has been an actual subcategory of f2p players who challenged themselves to read small whale territory and have been partly motivated by the whales. I'm not saying whaling is positive all the time for everyone because it's clearly not. I'm saying Josh's opinion here fails to acknowledge the 2 sides of the coin.

@ryans1632

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, that was scarily accurate. Just about covers any peasant/nobility scenario throughout history, up to and including politics.

@shiningarmour6805

2 жыл бұрын

It's funny because Tibia is a game with only whales left as the player base. And that's exactly why it's slowly dying, there's nobody to lord over their level 300-1000 characters against. That's dangerous, because whales are not immortal humans. With their lifestyles, they can only afford maybe 10 years of that lifestyle before real life sinks in and makes them homeless or something else happens. With that in mind, Tibia won't change course. Even if the company is evil, they're being _stupid_ evil if they're not finding ways to replace lost whales.

@ejalicando7276

2 жыл бұрын

Pride and Greed, what a wonderful combination.

@optimizedlaziness6183

2 жыл бұрын

@@ejalicando7276 pride and greed on one side, hatred and envy on the other

As someone who was a small time whale once I can tell that people are 100% right when they compare it to a gambling addiction. I once played a game that allowed for massive cash advantages, including characters that were only unlocked if you bought past a certain ammount of in game currency, and I made it into the top 10 or 20 of the game. I loved the feeling of being in the top, I didn't had my own guild but I almost felt like the leader because I think I was stronger than my team's leader LOL. And I say that it doesn't even matter if the game has Gacha or Lootboxes because even if it doesn't, the game will try to hook you up in some other way. BTW, I say I was a small time whale because through the course of about an year I only invested what at the time was about 300-500 dollars into the game and that's really nothing compared to major MMORPGs, but I really wish I hadn't spent that much money on that game, it's not like I need the money now, but it just feels so stupid after you stop playing it.

@----.__

3 жыл бұрын

Yes and no mate. Don't beat yourself up. I've spent that much money going out on the town for a single night buying certain herbs and spices if you catch my drift. Sometimes I feel the same way you do, I regret spending the money, but then I remember the good times and the fun we had and no amount of money in your pocket will ever replace those good memories. Don't ever look back in anger, learn from it, but know it's part of who you are. I know most of my colleagues now would pay more than that just for some of the memories I've got :) Those were some very wild times with some very wild women.

@defaulted9485

3 жыл бұрын

There are worse things with less return than microtransaction spending. Rejoice, that it only took you some hundred bucks to learn the lesson, and you keep your dignity. Also, you're not a whale, you're a large dolphin. Generally whales starts at $1000.

"You don't have to spend less, you have to earn more" actually a good motivation

@hybby

2 жыл бұрын

Agreed!

@DarthRadical

2 жыл бұрын

It's basically the financial version of "the best defense is a good offense". Though of course, both are good.

As someone who worked in QA for Machine Zone I can confirm that sometimes the numbers are reaching horrible amounts oof

Whales on BDO are crazy. I remember playing on the SEA server and there was a CEO of some huge company (apparently, and honestly I believe it) which dropped like hundreds of thousands on the game and it had only been live for about a month or so in that region.

You're right. The Pareto Principle is basically like fractals; it's everywhere if you know what to look for. However, to get back to your final question, catering to whales is not the best strategy. However, it is the EASIEST strategy. Everything else takes more work, more creativity, and more resources. Those approaches work better for long term sustainability and can EVENTUALLY lead to more profit, but they have longer time horizons and carry more risk. Quick, cheap, good. Choose any two. When it comes to whales, game companies chose what's quick and cheap while sacrificing what's "good". They player base is only important when the game starts up. After all, if there's no krill in the ocean then the whales won't show up to eat. However, it's worse than simply catering to whales. The tactics used prey upon people's egos, insecurities, and their misery. In real life you may be a nobody dishwasher, but come into our game, drop the cash, and you can become a god! That level of escapism can become as addicting as any drug, and just as personally destructive. These games rely on whales to pay the bills, but catering to those whales eventually leads to the destruction of the player base. Rather ironic.

I use to pride myself on being exclusively F2P. I would consider it splurging to buy even $1 offers, and usually ignore shops altogether. I still go large amounts of time without spending, but I probably spend about $10-20 per month on my games (usually purchasing single large offers for specific content I don't want to mess with).

even in well funded games, with a ban on pay2play - the dynamics still creep in via black markets. 1 crazy example from the prime years of everquest (fennin ro server)- the black market for high end boss loot was such that the top tier raiding guilds effectively formed a monopoly on the content so they could farm the items and sell them to the highest bidder. paid server admins were even caught getting in on the action/taking a cut to look the other way. it radically effected the high end raiding scene of the game, since there were no instances. i don't have a solution - just kind of nuts how much money distorts every game.

80% of my teammates in League of Legends will cause my 20% winrate.

@xXCrashTXx-1

3 жыл бұрын

we're all bad 😂

@sclash2000

3 жыл бұрын

Maybe the rest 20% of the team contribute to your 80% losses?😉

Josh, are 20% of your patreons generating 80% of the patreon money? Just curious :-)

@xyrus345

3 жыл бұрын

That would be the "Patreon Principle". ;)

@cattysplat

3 жыл бұрын

I mean patrons have tiers for a reason, got fish for whales somehow.

@sebawuba8533

3 жыл бұрын

@@cattysplat I'm pretty sure that actually doesn't apply here

@Cenzurat

3 жыл бұрын

@@sebawuba8533 might actually apply just as whale.

@sebawuba8533

3 жыл бұрын

@@Cenzurat You can't whale on patreon, it's a monthly subscription service so there's instantly a cap on how much you can get. No advantage if you go beyond that

I think a game like vindictus has an interesting economy and trap system. The easiest way to have fun is to know the boss's skillset (which requires time), and have gear that can contribute meaningful damage (which requires even more time or buying gold). People who spend loads of money on the game will flood the market with mats that ftplayers can buy with in game gold. It's a system that supports all types. Pure farmers (who provide a player base). Pure whalers (who just buy everything) and hybrids who will buy upgrades with either gold or money when they're so inclined, but either way, unless you spend lots of time practicing bosses, ur gonna suck. So the only thing vindictus really needs to do is release more bosses which is content for everyone.