Quit Ruining The General Discussions

[RiyahArp]

Then, why can't people just say high spenders or people with more of a disposable income? .

Whales is game dev jargon for that. It dates back to 2011, from this site, although I think the term was used in casinos earlier:

http://www.gamesbrief.com/2011/11/wh...-to-play-game/

The term kind of works a bit better because it illustrates the impact of those players as "size" and games generally fish for players to obtain and retain. It showed a truth visually that not all players in a F2P game are equal. It's not derogatory in itself, any more than calling someone who barely shops a minnow is.

A lot of the bad blood for whales comes from players experience where high spenders get serious power boosts or benefit that other players can't match. Like Whales, those players are huge fish in the sea of your game and dominate it. F2P games in general tend to suffer tremendously in endgame because of it; the game dev and critic Ramin Shokirizade had a great analogy describing whale endgame as a high stakes poker game, where players ante up and keep "bidding" by spending money to win the server till they have to fold, and the losers often move to the next game.

Its jargon that I don't think is meant derogatorily orginally, as devs really chase whales. It kind of evolved that way, but whale captures f2p spenders pretty accurately as a concept.

A single LARGE megathread revolving around the topic that's up for discussion is a far more organized way of going about it. Honestly, this side of the community could stand to take notes from the Japan community when it comes to topic discussions. More focus on megathreads instead of a bunch of smallers ones that clutter the first page.

No, it's not better. Overwatch official forums often have megathreads, and they get just as ignored too. If people were honest, they'd say megathreads are better precisely because they are easily ignorable for people who don't want to see stuff.