I’m an optimization engineer (or control engineer, if you want).
I designed optimization procedures and algorithms in every aspect of a few games, from revenue to quality to customer care.
Which basically means that if I didn’t have direct access to data I was at least working with those who had.
I started some 30 years ago when [mainly] coding and optimization weren’t much more than a hobby nobody really deemed profitable and, as a matter of fact, a ground were you could explore the boundaries of what appeared to be futuristic approaches in university departments and definitely opted out when the addiction¹ model affirmed itself.
So around five years ago, more or less, when gacha was not something really present in the western market although I was familiar with it because of my experiences in Japan.
I want to point out that I do not support or condone in any way the current approach - the reason I quit, despite it had turned [very] profitable.
¹ I call this the addiction model rather than the gacha/lootbox model because I’ve seen horrific forms of addiction to gaming well before I was aware gachapon existed.
At the time I wasn’t even aware it was actual addiction.
Spending depth is a definition.
It in no way implies how much you or anyone else has spent to get to a given state, it is a measure of how much you should spend to get to a given state
- by chain buying
- without playing
- somewhat instantly
It is a design parameter.
It defines a ceiling to your IAP and it can be used later on to predict figures when you design a booster pack/expansion (if you know you monetize the x% of your spending depth and have a target for a new expansion you can calculate the spending depth the expansion has to have in order to render your target feasible
target=expansion_depth*x%)
This is very simplified, just to give an idea of what SD is.
Obviously good players and long time players will get to a certain state with a fraction of SD.
This is what I call the optimizator phallacy.
It’s none of a devs business to know who players are² and how they make their money.
Just like an ISO (input state output) realization of a system is not particularly relevant if you are only interested in IO behaviour.
Or like a drug dealer doesn’t care much how you make the money for the next dose (and yeah, drugs can cost quite a bit).
The only things that matter are the numbers.
Those numbers, as far as I can tell based on my experiences and contacts, are reasonable.
Are they correct in E&P?
I don’t know and realistically can’t know 
Best practice, in absence of direct metrics, is to use “consolidated” metrics.
But it wouldn’t really make a great difference if the 50% break was at 5% or 20%.
The information we would get would be same: much like in Faroe Islands’ tradition, whale hunt = necessary.
² obviously in a “social” game devs do have interests in knowing their players’ base but for other monetisation policies, namely maximizing their ads revenue.
Let’s be honest: whales are not strictly necessary in any game.
Gaming industry has done great well before gachas.
But the gacha dynamic has brought insane amount of money.
So much money that even very solid companies like Blizzard have opted in.
If gacha (on top of other forms of revenue) brings in so much [extra] money you have to wonder who buys gacha.
Honestly it’s possible that E&P could live some decades without a single in app purchase.
What you seem to forget is that whales aren’t the only limited resource here.
Players are too.
A gamer who happily plays without spending money is not that good for profit maximisation.
You want to squeeze all you can from that player and, if and when he leaves, you want him in the exact same trap in a new game, possibly yours.
Him not spending much or not spending at all in your game is not much better than him spending in another game.
Especially if you are a company that buys successful games and squeezes them.
Let players go wherever they want as long as you can buy their new houses, get the maximum out of them as quickly as you can, rinse and repeat.
Please note that I’m not denying that impression and clicks could suffice to make the game profitable.
And that it can be even more profitable when you factor in a-certain-amount spenders.
But that is the difference between profiting and maximizing profit: sustainable fishing can be profitable, but overfishing is more profitable.
And we all know how much fish reserves depletion is stopping fishing companies from their behaviour, right?
This is false.
And that’s why the 50% break is so important.
Given your players base, it tells you where smaller fish are less relevant.
25% contribute for 50% IAP: ok, let’s make them happy.
Because
- that’s where my money comes from mostly
- it’s easier to make a small fraction happy than a cohort
It’s sad (at least for me) but it is what it is
You spend less time/money to make more money: your cost function will jubilate.
I see your point of view, but I’ve seen VWYW (vote with your wallet) work.
In my country furs (hello OP 
) used to be huge status symbols for women.
Now literally noone wears them any more.
We have [had] Cirque du Soleil because people stopped going to circuses featuring animals.
While it’s not easy, it can be done.
The real problem here is the tiny fraction of players represented by this forum.
I don’t think asking to think about what you are really buying is jumping at someone else’s throat.
I’m not telling you not to spend, nor saying it’s your fault or someone else’s.
I’m just inviting you to consider if what you are buying is actually what you want and the direction it drives the product to.
If you did and you are ok with that we are cool.
If you did and you are not ok with that… I find it somewhat cumbersome, but I’m certainly not hurting you in any way.
Calling for guilt is different from highlighting responsabilieties or a simple cause-effect link.
TBH denying that A causes B is not a great idea if A actually causes B, no matter how you try to do that.
It’s possible.
But in the history of capitalism this has never stopped anyone from depleting a resource.
It’s not about preventing a river from going dry, but being those who get most water by the time it gets dry
Again, I want to point out that I’m simply talking with you and other forums users, I’m not shaming you nor picking on you
Edit: and sorry for the wall of text 
Read the nice guy’s comments right from the beginning… just on this thread… people aren’t mentioning him for outside the game life, but for comments in this thread / forum… 
