I spend an average £15 a week on this. Sometimes it's for dilithium for the event pack, sometimes a special offer, sometimes a DYC. If I get a pricey special offer one time, I don't get anything for two or three weeks to make up. I wouldn't consider that being a whale. £15 is less than what someone would spend in one night down the pub
Bring me to this pub £15 is it enough to make bad decisions like why did I bring Q to my local?
I spend an average £15 a week on this. Sometimes it's for dilithium for the event pack, sometimes a special offer, sometimes a DYC. If I get a pricey special offer one time, I don't get anything for two or three weeks to make up. I wouldn't consider that being a whale. £15 is less than what someone would spend in one night down the pub
I'm finding this a very comfortable definition rather than the other total amount ones.
Essentially if you started playing the game when it was released and spent $10 USD a week, you'd be a VIP14, and by some definitions from other posters that's a whale.
I'm in the same boat as you except I keep a monthly budget that I only occasionally need to adjust.
I'm VIP 14 twice over but that's since Day One... not counting a seven or eight month break. I don't consider myself a whale. Sometimes I'll buy the 2/5 or 1/5 event offer but that's once in a blue moon.
I spend an average £15 a week on this. Sometimes it's for dilithium for the event pack, sometimes a special offer, sometimes a DYC. If I get a pricey special offer one time, I don't get anything for two or three weeks to make up. I wouldn't consider that being a whale. £15 is less than what someone would spend in one night down the pub
I'm finding this a very comfortable definition rather than the other total amount ones.
Essentially if you started playing the game when it was released and spent $10 USD a week, you'd be a VIP14, and by some definitions from other posters that's a whale.
I'm in the same boat as you except I keep a monthly budget that I only occasionally need to adjust.
Except 15 GBP is 20 USD. And if you'd been spending that every week for 2 years that's now $2k. Hard to not call $2k on a mobile game a whale.
I feel like I'd have to put the line at $10/month. So $120/year. That's roughly the cost of 2 console/pc games over the year spent on STT. That feels reasonable to me. When you're spending a console game's cost every month I think that starts to be whale territory.
Or maybe we need a dwarf whale category. Under $10/month, not a whale. $10-$50/month, dwarf whale. Over $50/month, whale.
I do not think of myself as a whale at VIP 12 after one year of playing. Like many others, I buy the monthly card and the occasional offer. For 2017, that averaged almost $25/month, which I categorize as “entertainment”. That is one less new hardcover book per month for my bookshelves, which fits my observed reading activity decline last year (I am a semi-retired bookseller).
I think I am still a guppy, but if & when I grow up, I want to be a swordfish. I already have Musketeer La Forge for my avatar! 🤺
"In the short run, the game defines the players. But in the long run, it's us players who define the game." — Nicky Case, The Evolution of Trust
I feel like anyone who is more than a monthly card player is a whale. VIP14 is definitely a whale.
That said... there are whales and then there are WHALES. SilverRose, for instance, has every card and at one point mentioned they have over 2 million VIP points. I'm not judging anyone for the amount of money they may or may not spend on this game, but I don't think it takes that much to be considered a whale in this game.
But that's just me.
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I think we're all using different definitions of whale depending on our own income and spending habits. To someone on low income or who is frugal, anyone who's not F2P could be thought of as a whale. For me, a whale is someone who throws lots of money at the game, like £50 every week or more. Basically someone whose income is at a level where it doesn't matter to them how much they spend here, they're still doing fine. Other people's mileage may vary I guess.
I look at it compared to the cost of other forms of entertainment. I wouldn't consider someone who buys a round of beers at the pub or has a night out at the pictures someone who's rolling in money. But I suppose if you're living on the breadline and struggle to even buy food/make rent, you might consider them such.
Level 99. Latest Immortal (957): Chancellor Gowron - October 2023.
Agreed... a lot of denial. But admitting you are a whale is the first step
It is really interesting how people rationalize their spending behavior by comparing it to other spendings.
I think spending $1000 or a multitude of that on a game you do not own nor ever will and that the moment the plug is pulled from this game you lose everything you put in it equals whaleness.
Which doesn't mean that it has no value it just means that we spend a lot of moneey on something very fleeting.
Being a whale in a mobile game has two definitions:
1) What you personally think qualifies as a whale What everyone else personally thinks qualifies as a whale.
It's a very personal label, and some people have real problems with it. Others just don't care. You can look with a blanket statement about how much I've spent on the game as a whole in two years time. That would be one way to discuss my spend or my "whaleness".
But, what if you looked at one hyper specific piece? Like our favorite, Muskateer La Forge? You could look at what I (or others) spent just on that one portal pack alone.
The final example is event spending - how much did I spend to win, or as it's called, whale an event?
Example 1 is usually met with indifference. People are happy that the game has high-level contributors, and hope for my personal sake that I didn't just spend the electric bill money to try and buy Mariachi Q. Otherwise, they don't lose sleep over it, they move on, the world continues to rotate upon it's axis.
Example B only comes up when something is topical, like Muskateer La Forge. It becomes more of a meme as time goes on, and players far and wide will use it as an example to DB citing that something is fixed or isn't broken - by saying "just like you said MLF was in packs?" Again, no one harps on the spend amount or calls you a whale, they move on with their day.
The final example is where the term becomes derogatory to most users. You can spend $5 or $5000 over the lifetime of a game, no one cares. But when I, Johnny Q. Player, am pouring my time, heart and soul into an event and am about to realize my dream of placing 3rd in an event - there's only a few hours left!
.....and then Frank shows up, spends $400, speeds up a bunch of shuttles and steals the placement out from under me....
...and I say "Whales just throw money at the game - P2W **tsk tsk** - he whaled the event and didn't really work as hard as I did!"
That's where whale gets the negative connotation. The outside user doesn't care until it affects them.
I think we're all using different definitions of whale depending on our own income and spending habits. To someone on low income or who is frugal, anyone who's not F2P could be thought of as a whale. For me, a whale is someone who throws lots of money at the game, like £50 every week or more. Basically someone whose income is at a level where it doesn't matter to them how much they spend here, they're still doing fine. Other people's mileage may vary I guess.
I look at it compared to the cost of other forms of entertainment. I wouldn't consider someone who buys a round of beers at the pub or has a night out at the pictures someone who's rolling in money. But I suppose if you're living on the breadline and struggle to even buy food/make rent, you might consider them such.
Agreed... a lot of denial. But admitting you are a whale is the first step
It is really interesting how people rationalize their spending behavior by comparing it to other spendings.
I think spending $1000 or a multitude of that on a game you do not own nor ever will and that the moment the plug is pulled from this game you lose everything you put in it equals whaleness.
Which doesn't mean that it has no value it just means that we spend a lot of moneey on something very fleeting.
If I pay $10 a week to go see a movie, am I a cinema whale if I do it over 2-3 years knowing that I do not own that movie?
I think spending $1000 or a multitude of that on a game you do not own nor ever will and that the moment the plug is pulled from this game you lose everything you put in it equals whaleness.
Which doesn't mean that it has no value it just means that we spend a lot of moneey on something very fleeting.
This means almost everyone is a whale because people spend money on other things that are just as fleeting. Alcohol, iTunes music, cinema tickets, live sports. You don't own anything at the end of those and never will either.
Level 99. Latest Immortal (957): Chancellor Gowron - October 2023.
Nothing wrong with whales, they help support the game we all love. I buy the monthly card with an occasional extra $5 or $10. I am VIP 8 and consider myself a sea lion.
I hit VIP14 last week. I've never thought of myself as a whale, or even as a significant spender, but being told that how much I must have spent over two years does put it into perspective. I suppose you don't notice how much it is when it's all relatively small transactions which from DB's perspective is exactly how it should be.
When the new voyage exclusive ones were debuted, the shine wore off my pokemon collecting. I'm now missing 4 golds (L'Rell, Satan's Robot, Daniels, and Ripper). I also need at least one star on 3 purples and 32 golds, but I know the pools are so diluted that my odds of getting any draws are pretty slim. So, like Frank, I'm sitting on a pile of premium pulls hoping for the day that RNGesus smiles upon me (praise be to him) -- or the day that DB rescales things to mitigate dollar waste.
I think spending $1000 or a multitude of that on a game you do not own nor ever will and that the moment the plug is pulled from this game you lose everything you put in it equals whaleness.
Which doesn't mean that it has no value it just means that we spend a lot of moneey on something very fleeting.
This means almost everyone is a whale because people spend money on other things that are just as fleeting. Alcohol, iTunes music, cinema tickets, live sports. You don't own anything at the end of those and never will either.
Clearly you did not actually read what I said....
There is no such thing as "whales" when it comes to alcohol, music etc... because it has a specific reference to either gambling or gaming.
I also say that it is not without value.
But take for instance music... when you spend a 1000 dollars on music you own it and you can have it forever. This game you will lose everything the moment the plug is pulled...
Of course consumables like drinks and food are not comparable to games or music...
A game company will definitely think of you as a whale when you spend $1000 (and yes I have worked for a gaming company)
I reached VIP14 the slow way. Monthly cards, the occasional pile of dilithium (especially around my birthday or Christmas), and the occasional special offer. I don’t consider myself a whale but I do recognize how much you have to spend to get to this level...on a per hour or per day basis, though, I don’t think it’s ridiculous. It’s cheaper for me than going to a movie theater every week. People spend more on coffee in a year than I do on STT and probably spend less time enjoying it than I do this.
That being said, people who regularly place in the top 100 or maybe 500 in events, who clearly have pantsloads upon pantsloads of chronitons from dilithium purchases and special offers, who can immortalize a brand-new legendary character in a couple of days, who can afford to find out how long a voyage can go before you run out of dilemmas to trigger...these people could properly be called whales. I may be jealous when I see their fully-leveled premium 5* ships chock full of crew I've never even seen personally, having ten times as many VP as my entire fleet, but I’m not mad at them. They subsidize the game for the rest of us so we don’t have to pay a monthly fee just for access to the game and for that I am appreciative.
I did read what you wrote, and responded to the substance of it. You equated spending $1000 on something where you don't own anything at the end of it with being a whale.
There is no such thing as "whales" when it comes to alcohol, music etc... because it has a specific reference to either gambling or gaming.
Not strictly correct. A whale is simply someone who regularly spends a lot of money usually on an entertainment service, but not restricted to computer games and gambling. I've seen it used in areas other than those two. It's also a word that's sometimes pejoratively used to say someone is excessively extravagant/wasteful with their money on one thing. I'm now understanding how we've gotten at crossed wires. If you've only ever come across the term in a gaming context, then I can see how you'd be confused by my response referring to things outside of gaming. I was speaking about the concept of whales in general, not just gaming whales.
But take for instance music... when you spend a 1000 dollars on music you own it and you can have it forever.
On physical media, yes. With iTunes though you just buy a licence to listen to the music. You don't own it and you can't pass it on to anyone else. And there's concerts where your ticket price entitles you to listen to the music while at the venue. You don't own anything afterwards - you're not allowed to make your own recordings while there for instance.
Same with cinema tickets or sports match tickets. You go and watch the film or match, but don't own the film or the match afterwards. If you're a weekly cinema goer or a season ticket holder for your local team, you can easily spend upwards of hundreds per year and not own anything at the end of that year. That's the concept I was getting at. Again I didn't realise you were just talking about gaming, I thought you were making a generalised statement.
Level 99. Latest Immortal (957): Chancellor Gowron - October 2023.
Sometimes y’all get way too into breaking down every tiny little detail. I used this in a different thread. If I say the sky is blue, someone is going to come along and say that all colors are in the sky, blue is just the one that is visible. Or it depends if it’s cloudy or raining or blah blah blah. Dude....the sky is blue.
I think spending $1000 or a multitude of that on a game you do not own nor ever will and that the moment the plug is pulled from this game you lose everything you put in it equals whaleness.
Which doesn't mean that it has no value it just means that we spend a lot of moneey on something very fleeting.
This means almost everyone is a whale because people spend money on other things that are just as fleeting. Alcohol, iTunes music, cinema tickets, live sports. You don't own anything at the end of those and never will either.
Clearly you did not actually read what I said....
There is no such thing as "whales" when it comes to alcohol, music etc... because it has a specific reference to either gambling or gaming.
I also say that it is not without value.
But take for instance music... when you spend a 1000 dollars on music you own it and you can have it forever. This game you will lose everything the moment the plug is pulled...
Of course consumables like drinks and food are not comparable to games or music...
A game company will definitely think of you as a whale when you spend $1000 (and yes I have worked for a gaming company)
Actually, read your TOS. if iTunes goes away, so does your legal right to that music. Same for Amazon. So sounds very similar to what you are referring to as the difference between real and virtual goods.
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Bring me to this pub £15 is it enough to make bad decisions like why did I bring Q to my local?
I'm finding this a very comfortable definition rather than the other total amount ones.
Essentially if you started playing the game when it was released and spent $10 USD a week, you'd be a VIP14, and by some definitions from other posters that's a whale.
I'm in the same boat as you except I keep a monthly budget that I only occasionally need to adjust.
Except 15 GBP is 20 USD. And if you'd been spending that every week for 2 years that's now $2k. Hard to not call $2k on a mobile game a whale.
I feel like I'd have to put the line at $10/month. So $120/year. That's roughly the cost of 2 console/pc games over the year spent on STT. That feels reasonable to me. When you're spending a console game's cost every month I think that starts to be whale territory.
Or maybe we need a dwarf whale category. Under $10/month, not a whale. $10-$50/month, dwarf whale. Over $50/month, whale.
I think I am still a guppy, but if & when I grow up, I want to be a swordfish. I already have Musketeer La Forge for my avatar! 🤺
That said... there are whales and then there are WHALES. SilverRose, for instance, has every card and at one point mentioned they have over 2 million VIP points. I'm not judging anyone for the amount of money they may or may not spend on this game, but I don't think it takes that much to be considered a whale in this game.
But that's just me.
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So long and thanks for all the fish.
She hasn't gotten that shiny new L'Rell yet.
I say embrace your inner whale 🐳
Own that whale 💩 !!!
I stand corrected.
PM for details.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
I look at it compared to the cost of other forms of entertainment. I wouldn't consider someone who buys a round of beers at the pub or has a night out at the pictures someone who's rolling in money. But I suppose if you're living on the breadline and struggle to even buy food/make rent, you might consider them such.
Agreed... a lot of denial. But admitting you are a whale is the first step
It is really interesting how people rationalize their spending behavior by comparing it to other spendings.
I think spending $1000 or a multitude of that on a game you do not own nor ever will and that the moment the plug is pulled from this game you lose everything you put in it equals whaleness.
Which doesn't mean that it has no value it just means that we spend a lot of moneey on something very fleeting.
1) What you personally think qualifies as a whale
It's a very personal label, and some people have real problems with it. Others just don't care. You can look with a blanket statement about how much I've spent on the game as a whole in two years time. That would be one way to discuss my spend or my "whaleness".
But, what if you looked at one hyper specific piece? Like our favorite, Muskateer La Forge? You could look at what I (or others) spent just on that one portal pack alone.
The final example is event spending - how much did I spend to win, or as it's called, whale an event?
Example 1 is usually met with indifference. People are happy that the game has high-level contributors, and hope for my personal sake that I didn't just spend the electric bill money to try and buy Mariachi Q. Otherwise, they don't lose sleep over it, they move on, the world continues to rotate upon it's axis.
Example B only comes up when something is topical, like Muskateer La Forge. It becomes more of a meme as time goes on, and players far and wide will use it as an example to DB citing that something is fixed or isn't broken - by saying "just like you said MLF was in packs?" Again, no one harps on the spend amount or calls you a whale, they move on with their day.
The final example is where the term becomes derogatory to most users. You can spend $5 or $5000 over the lifetime of a game, no one cares. But when I, Johnny Q. Player, am pouring my time, heart and soul into an event and am about to realize my dream of placing 3rd in an event - there's only a few hours left!
.....and then Frank shows up, spends $400, speeds up a bunch of shuttles and steals the placement out from under me....
...and I say "Whales just throw money at the game - P2W **tsk tsk** - he whaled the event and didn't really work as hard as I did!"
That's where whale gets the negative connotation. The outside user doesn't care until it affects them.
If I pay $10 a week to go see a movie, am I a cinema whale if I do it over 2-3 years knowing that I do not own that movie?
This means almost everyone is a whale because people spend money on other things that are just as fleeting. Alcohol, iTunes music, cinema tickets, live sports. You don't own anything at the end of those and never will either.
Well, I used to have every card. I don't anymore.
When the new voyage exclusive ones were debuted, the shine wore off my pokemon collecting. I'm now missing 4 golds (L'Rell, Satan's Robot, Daniels, and Ripper). I also need at least one star on 3 purples and 32 golds, but I know the pools are so diluted that my odds of getting any draws are pretty slim. So, like Frank, I'm sitting on a pile of premium pulls hoping for the day that RNGesus smiles upon me (praise be to him) -- or the day that DB rescales things to mitigate dollar waste.
Proud Former Officer of The Gluten Empire
Retired 12-14-20. So long, and thanks for all the cat pics!
Clearly you did not actually read what I said....
There is no such thing as "whales" when it comes to alcohol, music etc... because it has a specific reference to either gambling or gaming.
I also say that it is not without value.
But take for instance music... when you spend a 1000 dollars on music you own it and you can have it forever. This game you will lose everything the moment the plug is pulled...
Of course consumables like drinks and food are not comparable to games or music...
A game company will definitely think of you as a whale when you spend $1000 (and yes I have worked for a gaming company)
That being said, people who regularly place in the top 100 or maybe 500 in events, who clearly have pantsloads upon pantsloads of chronitons from dilithium purchases and special offers, who can immortalize a brand-new legendary character in a couple of days, who can afford to find out how long a voyage can go before you run out of dilemmas to trigger...these people could properly be called whales. I may be jealous when I see their fully-leveled premium 5* ships chock full of crew I've never even seen personally, having ten times as many VP as my entire fleet, but I’m not mad at them. They subsidize the game for the rest of us so we don’t have to pay a monthly fee just for access to the game and for that I am appreciative.
I did read what you wrote, and responded to the substance of it. You equated spending $1000 on something where you don't own anything at the end of it with being a whale.
Not strictly correct. A whale is simply someone who regularly spends a lot of money usually on an entertainment service, but not restricted to computer games and gambling. I've seen it used in areas other than those two. It's also a word that's sometimes pejoratively used to say someone is excessively extravagant/wasteful with their money on one thing. I'm now understanding how we've gotten at crossed wires. If you've only ever come across the term in a gaming context, then I can see how you'd be confused by my response referring to things outside of gaming. I was speaking about the concept of whales in general, not just gaming whales.
On physical media, yes. With iTunes though you just buy a licence to listen to the music. You don't own it and you can't pass it on to anyone else. And there's concerts where your ticket price entitles you to listen to the music while at the venue. You don't own anything afterwards - you're not allowed to make your own recordings while there for instance.
Same with cinema tickets or sports match tickets. You go and watch the film or match, but don't own the film or the match afterwards. If you're a weekly cinema goer or a season ticket holder for your local team, you can easily spend upwards of hundreds per year and not own anything at the end of that year. That's the concept I was getting at. Again I didn't realise you were just talking about gaming, I thought you were making a generalised statement.
Actually, read your TOS. if iTunes goes away, so does your legal right to that music. Same for Amazon. So sounds very similar to what you are referring to as the difference between real and virtual goods.
Yeah... and all the leaves are brown...
Did you go for a walk as well?
If you can see any leaves though, you're living in a warmer climate than I am.