Fire Alarm Companies

New data outlines just how lucrative high-spending mobile social gamers are

The phenomenon of high temperature-spending players - or whales in industry jargon - is also known for providers of social games on Facebook. Only 1% of the people, Zynga \ s revenue play, such as are 's games are between 25% and 50% of the company \ thoughts ".

Now data from mobile analytics company Flurry published shows that whales are an important source of revenue for freemium games on IOS and Android. The company analyzes in-app purchases by 3.5 million mobile gamers and found that the average transaction value was $ 14th

If that sounds a little on the high side - the lowest IAP option on IOS is 69p - it 's worth digging down into the statistics released by Flurry, shows the distribution of transactions and sales, how much influence Wal-players Which.

According to Flurry, in-app purchases for less than $10 account for 71% of transactions within the freemium games covered by its research, but just 31% of the revenues. In-app purchases between $10 and $20 account for 16% of transactions and 18% of revenues, meanwhile.

And the whales? In-app purchases of more than $ 20 make only 13% of transactions, but 51% of sales. In fact, 5% of all in-app purchases in the games analyzed for more than $ 50, which has as Flurry 's general manager of games Jeferson Valadares out "in the retail amount of rivals for top-panel and PC Games pays ".

He goes on to suggest, IOS and Android developers working on games Freemium should pay more attention to these high rollers. "You 'meta-game" should be about whaling. "

Popular iOS game Pocket Frogs ensures that conclusion. Its developers NimbleBit in September 2010 showed that whales were their greatest source of revenue for Pocket Frogs.

The game offered three levels of in-app purchase: $ 0.99, $ 4.99 and $ 29.99. The 99-cent option for approximately half the in-game transactions, but only 9% of sales, while the animal was $ 4.99 a share from 42% in both transactions and sales.

The whales splashing out $ 29.99 each made an in-app purchasing only 8% of transactions, but 49% of sales. NimbleBit fed the whales and prospered, in other words.

This data is very important for the mobile games industry, especially on IOS, where soaring freemium games in the App Store charts.

As of this writing, 11 of the 20 top-grossing iPhone games in the App Store UK Freemium title. Free-to-play games Zoo Tap, Tiny Tower (NimbleBit other titles), Tap Pet Hotel, Happy Park, Texas Holdem poker and Smurfs 'Village have earned more money than any Angry Birds. In the U.S., the trend is even more advanced: 15 of the 20 top-grossing iPhone games are freemium.

Back to Flurry, who has previously claimed that in June 2011, 65% of revenues from the 100 top-grossing games in the U.S. App Store Freemium titles were compared to 38% in January 2011. It also suggests in her new blog entry that only "about 3% of consumers 'money within freemium games on the phone.

Games industry consultant Nicholas Lovell of Games Brief wrote an insightful blog post about whales in August 2010, suggesting that previous limitations of physical distribution have encouraged content businesses to treat all consumers equally, with single fixed price points.

"This is a rubbish idea. Consumers are all different. Some are heavy spenders; some are freeloaders. Some are grazers and some are avid consumers," he wrote, suggesting that the future of all media – not just games – depends on understanding and harnessing these dynamics."

"It means throwing out the model of selling a single fixed-price of content... It means catering to the 10% of your audience who want to and enjoy spending money with you and allowing them to spend $10, $50, S500 or more. It means allowing 90% of users to experience your content for free for ever."

Flurry and NimbleBit 's data, as well as a cursory glance at the App Store charts show that can be a lucrative business in this leap into the unknown. Although - and this is the most important thing of all - only \ if it 's good with games that are ready for a.) really well, and b.) draw the model.