> "But Zynga’s big spenders really live up to their reputations. Customers in the top 20 percent spent an average of $571 in 2016, and customers in the top 1 percent spent more than $4,000 each! (This means, at Zynga, WI80=30x and WI99=49x.)"
I don't play Farmville and maybe I just don't get it, but I can't imagine normal people spending that kind of money on an online game (even if they are rich), unless there's some kind of addiction involved.
If someone told me that the top 1% of slot machine players (by amount spent) spent an average of $4,000 each per year, I wouldn't say "boy, they must be loaded to be able to afford that kind of cash", I would say "I think they have a gambling problem and many of them are probably spending money they can't afford."
Zynga isn't necessarily responsible for their users financial decisions, but it's kind of a different situation if they're catering to the elite vs exploiting psychology to extract money from people who make make poor financial decisions. I don't know anything about Zynga's practices and don't have an opinion one way or another, but I found the dollar amounts kind of surprising and potentially alarming.
It's not hard to imagine spending that kind of money. Lots of people spend comparable amounts on alcohol, sporting events, concerts, tools, car mods, computers, collectables, board games, clothes, jewelry, gambling, whatever.
> exploiting psychology to extract money from people who make make poor financial decisions.
I've no love for Zynga and their shitty practices, but you could make the same criticism of people who have children. People will spend whatever they've got to be happy. $4000 per year is not an alarming amount unless you're ruining lives to pay it.
> "But Zynga’s big spenders really live up to their reputations. Customers in the top 20 percent spent an average of $571 in 2016, and customers in the top 1 percent spent more than $4,000 each! (This means, at Zynga, WI80=30x and WI99=49x.)"
I don't play Farmville and maybe I just don't get it, but I can't imagine normal people spending that kind of money on an online game (even if they are rich), unless there's some kind of addiction involved.
If someone told me that the top 1% of slot machine players (by amount spent) spent an average of $4,000 each per year, I wouldn't say "boy, they must be loaded to be able to afford that kind of cash", I would say "I think they have a gambling problem and many of them are probably spending money they can't afford."
Zynga isn't necessarily responsible for their users financial decisions, but it's kind of a different situation if they're catering to the elite vs exploiting psychology to extract money from people who make make poor financial decisions. I don't know anything about Zynga's practices and don't have an opinion one way or another, but I found the dollar amounts kind of surprising and potentially alarming.