Whale

"I spared no expenses."

– John Hammond, Jurassic Park

Whales are one of the most majestic mammals on planet Earth. Despite their watery habitat, they require to breathe at the surface and does not possess brills. They count as one of the largest animals to ever exist, and have gone to become a very endangered species. But we could only wish this here article was about them.

Whales, also known as Money-hoes, Consoomers, Addicts, Extra-spenders, "Superfans", EA's moneypit, the FOMO crowd, "Our dear and very faithful fanbase", are a fringe of consummers and, unfortunately, tabletop players who possess too much money for their own good. Although they vary in many ways, Whales are easily identifiable by their habit of buying shit that they shouldn't buy, but still do because, as they usually try to justify themselves;

• They can.
• It's their well hard-earned money. (no)
• And they can stop doing this at any time.

In reality, they lose tons of money and are the victims of dangerous business practices and offers that more often than not border on what could considered scams. Companies like EA, Activision-Blizzard or Games Workshop profit off of those Whales when it comes to their shaddiest practices. You name them; microtransactions, cosmetics, shit-deals, scams, lootboxes... This has an effect of making what practically everyone agrees sucks ass and complains about to work (read; bad games and bad offers), because Whales don't care about they spend their money. This has a tendency of making a lot of peeps really mad, since they can't really stop them from spending like maniacs.

Why are whales like this?

Most Whales are descendants from people who suffer from shopping sprees. And they themselves have a certain mentality that pushes them to act this way. For one thing; most whales live in economically comfortable social spaces, or have always lived in conditions where they were permitted to obtain anything that they wished to have. That, or they had recieve a form of trauma from a life from which they were refused a lot of things. This turned into an obsession with possessing things for the sake of possessing them, or be the talk of the town for a while.

Another common factor for this is the infamous Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO. This made a lot of companies' money, because people with this kind of syndrome hate a timer being set on an item they wish to have. So to bait them into buying quick and fast, they say put a time-limit on a set of items (which in most cases, they could sell at any time), and say; "Oh, there's a timer on that product! Better buy it now or else it's gone! Well, it could possibly come back, but who knows? Maybe it won't!".

This makes the Whale goes absolutely insane. But since they have the money and it works, companies get away with shitty practices that ruining all kinds of gaming. Something /tg/ and /v/ can both agree on. If you need any proof of this, just look at all the bullshit that GW pulled and worked, or the entirety of EA's career.

Famous whale-bait

Bundles:

Battlepasses:

Lootboxes (Random Packaging IRL):