Built around 'whales' (heavy spenders)

What you're actually buying

Status, power, and the chance of rare things: the top spenders buy the most expensive bundles, and the whole shop is shaped around them. The free majority provides an audience for them.

How it works

In free-to-play, revenue concentrates in a small, heavy-spending minority, the 'whales', so economies are tuned for them rather than for average players. The question changed from 'is this worth £40 to most players?' to 'how do we retain millions and convert a few whales?'. That shaped the item shop, the pricing (hundreds of dollars for a bundle), and the way free players are kept around to give the whales someone to play against. VIP or loyalty levels that unlock perks as you spend are a common variant.

When it's fine

Never a selling point. The mild case is a game where the biggest spenders buy only cosmetics.

Where it came from

Korea's free-to-play flip (QuizQuiz 1999, MapleStory 2003) made 'convert the whale' the central question; Dungeon Fighter Online and CrossFire scaled it into multi-billion-dollar industries. Mobile free-to-play (October 2009) turned it into a design principle, with economies tuned for whales rather than average players. Coin Master reportedly lets a sliver of heavy spenders drive most of its billions, and gacha games fund themselves from a small minority of high spenders. Fate/Grand Order's $70,000 player is the extreme case. A 2017 study of 776 million Apple purchases found the top 1% of spenders generated 59% of all spending.

Historical prices and revenues are in US dollars at the time unless marked A$.