The sliver of players responsible for half of all the in-game revenue accumulated for “freemium” mobile games is shockingly small, new research from mobile analytics firm Swrve has found. The report found just 0.15 per cent of total players account for 50 per cent of monthly mobile revenue from in-game purchases, and that a vast bulk of players deliver no revenue whatsoever to developers.

“ The report highlights the importance to developers of so-called “whales” to the freemium model.

Swrve found the vast majority of players surveyed make no purchases; only 1.5 per cent of players active in January 2014 made an in-app purchase that month. With 50 per cent of revenue collected from just the top 10 per cent of those that actually make purchases, this group represents a tiny 0.15 per cent of total players.The report highlights the importance to developers of so-called “whales” to the freemium model, with developers relying heavily on a tiny fraction of big-spenders in their freemium games to generate meaningful revenue.The average value of an in-app purchase was $5.94 but, while purchases between $1 and $5 represented a majority (67 per cent), they actually contributed only 27 per cent of total revenue. Nine per cent of revenue was scooped from purchases of over $50.The Swrve report was restricted to freemium games and gathered data on over 10 million players of freemium games during January 2014.

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