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Does Nintendo Track MAU/Sales Data of their users? Am I considered a whale by them?

iceblade

iceblade

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,217
Thread posted on behalf of eKongDiddy

So I was just looking through my friends list and I realized something. Most of these people on there only had 1-5 games, with demos, while I had 28 games. I'm sure there are others out there who have even more than I do, but this is insane. In the first 6 months of a consoles launch, I have more games on it than any other console I've ever had.

DNo169qVwAA4IJX


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On my families Wii, we only had maybe 5 games over that entire generation (We rarely received games for presents. Sadly to say, my brothers and I hacked and pirated the rest of our games). We each had our own Xbox 360, but only had at most 5 games we played over and over and borrowed from our friends. When I bought my PS4, I had around 10 or so that I had for those 2 years.
———

I don't know if I should feel ashamed or proud of all of the money I've spent on this thing.
I know what the obvious answer should be
Most of these games range in price from $15-$60. Does Nintendo look at this data and see where their big time spenders are? Are you guys considered a whale? How many games do you have?
 
Aostia82

Aostia82

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,366
you surely seem a whale, purchase wise
me too (I have 47 softwares on my switch), but mine are inflated by the review codes lol
 
Khanimus

Khanimus

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
40,212
Greater Vancouver
Buying a lot of games =/= exploiting addictive habits akin to gambling.

There are definitely games in there that I would say you could've probably spent your money better elsewhere.
 
Metanoia Prime

Metanoia Prime

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,158
California
I didn't even know the Switch had 28 games lol.

But yea, that's probably narwhal territory. Spending money on the base game and having logged in a lot of playtime does not a whale make.

Whales are the ones that don't mind paying for the highest tiered IAP to get the most fun out of the game immediately, and likely do it several times a month.
 
MogKnight

MogKnight

Member
Oct 27, 2017
103
I don't think I've ever really heard the term "Whale" being used to describe a person buying a bunch of games for a console they really like. See the term used for games with microtransactions where you spend a bunch of money on limitless things upwards to the thousands.

In any case, yeah sure there's metric tracking when it comes to sales and probably other data like time spent with the games... which does beg the question: Just how much time have been devoted to these purchased games? D:
 
Lyrick

Lyrick

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,818
Compare yourself to the tie ratio in the fiscal reports, do some more math and figure out how many standard deviations you are off from the average user

Hint: just by being active in a specialty forum you're probably a "whale" (more likely an enthusiast though) by discrete purchase console standards, but compared to mobile "whales" that spend more on a single game on a single weekend than many of us enthusiasts will spend on our entire collections for a generation. The term doesn't really fit.
 
Bán

Bán

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,307
I have often wondered this.

I've hacked my 3ds and Wii U and often when backing up my games I just download the ROMS / ISOs from the internet because honestly who has the fucking time for all that shit. And I've always thought that if Nintendo was to somehow find out about that hacking / downloading and come at me or whatnot, that my first point of defence would be the hundreds and hundreds of Nintendo games I have actually bought. In the past this would be my physical collection and hard to prove, but now they'd surely know that I've bought about 50 games digitally on 3ds, 40 digitally on Wii U, and 12 on Switch. Most of those being full priced retail games.

I wonder if they'd see that and go 'Leave that guy, that dude's legit. You don't want to upset people like him.'

But who knows, maybe they don't tally sales like that, or don't look at it on a per-user basis.

And it's just a thought experiment, I don't expect Nintendo to ever ban me for backing up my games.
 
eseqko

eseqko

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,390
I do believe Nintendo is in some way tracking users since their recent financial meeting had a breakdown of docked vs portable usage, and a breakdown of gender of Nintendo Accounts.

This isn't whale behavior though. Whale behavior on the Switch would be buying NBA2K and spending hundreds to thousands of dollars on VC Coins.
 
eKongDiddy

eKongDiddy

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,521
Beach City
Khanimus said:
Buying a lot of games =/= exploiting addictive habits akin to gambling.

There are definitely games in there that I would say you could've probably spent your money better elsewhere.
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Ah, I now see where I misinterpreted the term! Yea Flip Wars was not a good purchase, haha.

Metanoia Prime said:
I didn't even know the Switch had 28 games lol.

But yea, that's probably narwhal territory. Spending money on the base game and having logged in a lot of playtime does not a whale make.

Whales are the ones that don't mind paying for the highest tiered IAP to get the most fun out of the game immediately, and likely do it several times a month.
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I like the term Narwhal. Im guessing seal is below that?

Blue said:
My PS4 shows 176 digital games purchased......

:)
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Holy cow! How many hard drives do you have or do you delete/redownload them?
 
ghostship

ghostship

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
262
eseqko said:
I do believe Nintendo is in some way tracking users since their recent financial meeting had a breakdown of docked vs portable usage, and a breakdown of gender of Nintendo Accounts.

This isn't whale behavior though. Whale behavior on the Switch would be buying NBA2K and spending hundreds to thousands of dollars on VC Coins.
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The gender data was obtained via email survey. The docked/portable is less clear - while they introduced the gender data with explicit mention of the survey, for this they simply said "gathered via the internet" so it could come from some monitoring process.

On topic, 25 games on my system. More extraordinary is that I've completed a substantial number of them, as I usually have a habit of buying, and playing for an hour or two, and moving on.
 

AdropOFvenom

Member
Oct 27, 2017
242
I feel like the "whale" concept is a microtransaction thing. The kind of person who buys hundreds of dollars of lootboxes, on one game, because they absolutely have to have that Zenyatta Halloween skin, or whatever.

You just buy a lot of games. I guess there may be whales in that regard too, but I don't feel like that's the conventional usage of the term.

But yes, im sure they have significant market research into who is buying what buried in the Switch somewhere. I must ask what the 4 games not shown are though ;)
 
Braaier

Braaier

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
13,237
iceblade said:
Thread posted on behalf of eKongDiddy

DNo169qVwAA4IJX


———
On my families Wii, we only had maybe 5 games over that entire generation (We rarely received games for presents. Sadly to say, my brothers and I hacked and pirated the rest of our games). We each had our own Xbox 360, but only had at most 5 games we played over and over and borrowed from our friends. When I bought my PS4, I had around 10 or so that I had for those 2 years.
———
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Please don't pirate Switch games when the system is hacked.
 
Jonbjohns

Jonbjohns

Member
Oct 27, 2017
123
ghostship said:
The gender data was obtained via email survey. The docked/portable is less clear - while they introduced the gender data with explicit mention of the survey, for this they simply said "gathered via the internet" so it could come from some monitoring process.

On topic, 25 games on my system. More extraordinary is that I've completed a substantial number of them, as I usually have a habit of buying, and playing for an hour or two, and moving on.
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They have opinion surveys on their site that come up randomly. The gender stuff might come from that?

The docked/undocked is probably a secret trigger that sends the state once you turn on your switch and it is on the internet.
 
ghostship

ghostship

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
262
Jonbjohns said:
They have opinion surveys on their site that come up randomly. The gender stuff might come from that?

The docked/undocked is probably a secret trigger that sends the state once you turn on your switch and it is on the internet.
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No, it was very specifically described as an email survey sent to people in the US who had linked their Nintendo account to a Switch. Sent out to about 600k people, 11% response rate.
 
eKongDiddy

eKongDiddy

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,521
Beach City
Braaier said:
Please don't pirate Switch games when the system is hacked.
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I was young and didn't have money then. Nowadays I pay for stuff, haha.

AdropOFvenom said:
But yes, im sure they have significant market research into who is buying what buried in the Switch somewhere. I must ask what the 4 games not shown are though ;)
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That would be Mr. Shitty Shifty, Rocket Fist, Jackbox Party Pack 3, And Splatoon 2. Less than 10hrs in all of those.
 
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machinaea

machinaea

Game Producer
Verified
Oct 29, 2017
221
iceblade said:
Thread posted on behalf of eKongDiddy
Most of these games range in price from $15-$60. Does Nintendo look at this data and see where their big time spenders are? Are you guys considered a whale? How many games do you have?
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Click to shrink...
Yes (that's very basic data that companies have been collecting forever, the real analysis is done with much more granular data such as how you browse the store and when you make purchases etc.) and yes (most people don't reach even close to that attach rate, so you definitely qualifiy for whale/VIP/enthusiast etc. definition). And also yes, on pretty much every platform I also qualify for that (hundreds on Steam, 15+ on PS3, 15+ on Wii U, don't own Switch just yet).
 
Pooroomoo

Pooroomoo

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,972
I am sure they are collecting the data, but as many have said, that is not the definition of a whale.

Off topic, but I have one question I absolutely must ask - which game does the chimney icon represent?
 
PCPace

PCPace

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,841
Alabama
I have a ton of Switch and WiiU games. They must know I'm the core of their core demo. I don't know what they do with this information though. I don't tend to see a lot of surveys from them, though maybe they figure they already got me.

Nibel said:
Always assume companies collect all kinds of data they can get into their hands
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You're an admin here too? Did they just pick the admin list from people I follow on Twitter?
 
eKongDiddy

eKongDiddy

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,521
Beach City
Terraforce

Terraforce

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
18,917
Mario Odyssey was my 31 or 32 game myself. I see no shame in being a whale!
 
Skittzo

Skittzo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
41,037
Lyrick said:
Compare yourself to the tie ratio in the fiscal reports, do some more math and figure out how many standard deviations you are off from the average user

Hint: just by being active in a specialty forum you're probably a "whale" (more likely an enthusiast though) by discrete purchase console standards, but compared to mobile "whales" that spend more on a single game on a single weekend than many of us enthusiasts will spend on our entire collections for a generation. The term doesn't really fit.
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The problem is the tie ratio in their reports does not include sales of digital only games, only retail games (physical and digital) so we have no way of knowing how many digital only games the average user buys.
 
Brera

Brera

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
441
I think you are a whale. when I was a heavy gamer, I don't think I ever had more than 30 games for any system over its lifetime...in 6 months is insane.

I buy 3-4 games a year now but so far this year I've only bought Zelda mario kart and mario oddyssy for the switch...

If you are happy then it's fine but IMO you seem to be buying any old shit, are you even playing these games?
 
eKongDiddy

eKongDiddy

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,521
Beach City
Brera said:
I think you are a whale. when I was a heavy gamer, I don't think I ever had more than 30 games for any system over its lifetime...in 6 months is insane.

I buy 3-4 games a year now but so far this year I've only bought Zelda mario kart and mario oddyssy for the switch...

If you are happy then it's fine but IMO you seem to be buying any old shit, are you even playing these games?
Click to expand...
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Here goes my monthly play time since launch:

  • March: 52hrs
  • April: 56hrs 10min
  • May: 0hrs (Friends thought I was playing too many games so took it away until my birthday in June)
  • June: 47hrs 15min
  • July: 83hrs 20min
  • August: 51hrs 45min
  • September: 98hrs 40min
  • October: 100hrs 5min
All together: ~488hrs since launch. Most Played game is Mario Kart with 90hrs. Least Played is Mr. Shitty Shifty. On average I spend 20-30hrs with each game with some outliers which only have 1-2hrs.
 

Deleted member 26104

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 30, 2017
2,362
I've got 300+ digital games on XB1, had 200+ physical games on 360+PS3, and had 300+ PS2+XB. Video games are my main past time, so I tend to buy a lot.
 

Deleted member 11517

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,260
Sorry a 'whale' is someone who buys lots of dlc, season passes etc, preferably at outrageous prices. You're not a whale, you just like buying games (and not even that many compared to others)

Probably has been said already, but yeah, not a whale.
 
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Elfteiroh

Elfteiroh

Member
Oct 28, 2017
105
Montréal, Québec
At my last count, I had more than 200 games/app on Wii U, both retail and download. I had around 40 or 50 Wii games retail, counting downloads more than double the number. PS3, I think I had between 20 and 30 retail games, around 50 download. 484 Steam games.
I'm close to 30 Switch games with 7 retail. I have more games, but they are on older consoles. I also recently lost more than a 100 Commodore 64 games because the disk got too old and the data corrupted.
I'm a game dev, so most of them I use as inspiration/research material.

But yeah, if you have a Nintendo account (which you need to download games), then yes they have access to the number of games you bought. If their system is well done, it will be aggregated with everyone else numbers and they could know the exact attach rate, average number of hours played by everyone at any point in time, when people buy their games (eg: if there's spikes of sales just after a Nintendo Direct) and many other useful data.

Hell, the first game I worked on, we had data on which path people were taking,when they died, what powers/stats they where using, which creatures made the most player kills, even the number of times people were clicking on disabled buttons (SURPRISINGLY HIGH NUMBER EVEN AFTER MAKING THE BUTTON GREY AND MAKING A BUZZING SOUND). We also had the number of items/power ups/rewards that people left behind. There was more, but you get the idea. :P
 
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