Just 0.19% of gamers drives half the revenue for mobile games that try to lure you into in-app purchases

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Candy Crush

King.com / YouTube

Candy Crush tries to get you with in-app purchases.

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Just 0.19% of mobile gamers drives a staggering half of the revenue for games that use in-app purchases.

The "freemium" game model is simple. You make a game free to play, but then offer all sorts of bonuses to players who shell out real money to buy them through in-app purchases. These could be power-ups, or extra lives, or less time to wait between your next play session.

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Often, a little notification pops up that asks you if you just wouldn't rather pay a few bucks and have some sort of obstacle removed from your otherwise-blissful fun.

Who actually says "Yes" and clicks the buy button? A surprisingly small percentage of people, according to research on user behavior in February, 2016, from marketing company Swrve. The research looked at 40 "freemium" games and over 20 million players.

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Swrve found that 48% of revenue came from the top 10% of paying players, which represented just 0.19% of all players. Paying players spent an average of $24.66 per month.

Here is the breakdown of how many purchases paying players made in a month:

Screen Shot 2016 03 28 at 11.35.45 AM

Swerve

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