EA: not only a whale can be a valuable user

It is not necessary to fixate only on players paying large sums, – says Erica May, Director of Global mobile engagement and acquisition of Electronic Arts.

Erica May
“Often people think only about cohorts and incomes, but on the other side of the screen is the player.

And it’s very important to understand how he plays,” Erica told VentureBeat.

“It is clear that ROAS [Return On Ad Spend – return on investment in advertising, calculated by dividing the profit from advertising by advertising costs] is an important metric for us. Therefore, we always keep our finger on the pulse, we want to be sure that we can achieve the ROAS indicators we need by the end of the financial year. It’s a payback issue,” Mei continues. – “But I think that other segments of players are also very, very valuable. And few people think about them.”

In one of EA’s main recent mobile hits, Galaxy of Heroes, guilds have become one of the most important tools for detecting such valuable users. “If I can isolate a player who invites many other users to his guild or other users to the game, perhaps this player is not a whale as such, but he adds value to the game. Therefore, if I can buy more similar users or attract them to the game, it will add another value to the project, a value that is often overlooked,” Mei continues.

“Therefore, a very valuable player is not only a whale. There are other profiles. But people still keep talking about whale hunting,” Mei is outraged.

At the same time, since there are other important users for the game, it is important to think about them as well. And other profiles, as a rule, may have completely different interests and motivations in the game.

“The question is not how to attract the most paying players, but to reach these other segments, to understand how you can interact with them and work to attract more of their attention to the project and, of course, better monetize them,” concludes May.

A source: Venturebeat.com

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