To keep people splurging in mobile games like the Custom Street Racing, FarmVille and Words With Friends franchises, their publisher, Zynga, uses a secretive VIP program that treats players like royalty. — George Wylesol/The New York Times
CSR 2 Realistic Drag Racing is a simple game, even by smartphone standards. Players compete in short street races – tapping a button on-screen to change gears at just the right time – for virtual currency that lets them buy new parts to make their hot rod a few tenths of a second faster.
It does not take long for the races to seem like distractions from the more consequential activity: scrolling through menus looking for new spark plugs or a better set of tires.
Players who want to upgrade their vehicles more quickly can spend real money. And they have. The Custom Street Racing series has generated more than US$1bil (RM4.06bil) in revenue since the first game was released in 2012.
To keep people splurging in mobile games like the Custom Street Racing, FarmVille and Words With Friends franchises, their publisher, Zynga, uses a secretive VIP programme that treats players like royalty. It is a tactic borrowed from casinos, which may offer a free meal or show tickets when they notice a player is losing more than usual on a slot machine promising a trip to the Land of Oz.
“We really have to cultivate these players and let them know they are connected to a person as well as a game, and that we’re here for them to fix any issues they have, and reward them for their loyalty,” said Gemma Doyle, who helped build Zynga’s VIP programme and now works in the finance industry.
Retaining big spenders, she said, is essential in the competitive world of mobile gaming, where roughly 90% of revenue can come from less than 5% of the player base.
Customers used to airline and credit card loyalty programmes now expect them in other industries, Doyle said. VIPs at Zynga, which is based in San Mateo, California, get regular check-ins from personal account managers and are entered into exclusive monthly cash sweepstakes. Other perks have included private concerts with Wynonna Judd, day cruises to Alcatraz and personalised dog training sessions at celebrity trainer Cesar Millan’s ranch.
Beverly Hamilton, a retired schoolteacher who plays FarmVille games for about an hour a day, won US$15,000 (RM60,847) in one of Zynga’s sweepstakes last year. She used the money to buy a 2023 Buick Encore.
Though Hamilton is not a big spender, she is a consistent one, typically paying US$20 (RM81) a month for virtual gems that can be used to unlock new crops or upgrade her farms. She has been a VIP for the past five years and said her account managers were always responsive when she encounters technical issues.
“If you just email Zynga you get this canned response, like they almost don’t even read the email,” said Hamilton, who lives on South Padre Island, Texas. When her game freezes while opening a quest, it is much more effective to contact an account manager.
“They’ll say, ‘OK, I’ll let the developers know right away’,” she said. “And then he usually sends me some gems for my trouble.”
Zynga’s account managers keep detailed files on players’ preferences – whether they would rather solve puzzles alone, compete online against others or just socialise with new friends. They also track past complaints and make notes about life events, like a sick pet or recent wedding. An account manager is expected to contact at least 125 players a day.
The typical VIP gamer, Doyle said, is a retired or semiretired professional drawn in by the chance to meet new people online. The continuous stream of updates and seasonal features in mobile games can also create a feeling of purpose and productivity.
“They can choose to spend their surplus income on golf memberships,” she said, “or they can play FarmVille with their newfound friends in Australia for the weekend.”
Zynga did not respond to requests for comment. Take-Two Interactive, which bought Zynga for US$12.7bil (RM51.52bil) in 2022, declined to comment.
Players who pour hundreds or thousands of dollars into a game are known as whales, a term borrowed from the gambling world that many people in the industry avoid. (“The size and shape of the animal is not a compliment to anybody,” Doyle said.) If a game stops feeling fun, those valuable players can pick up an alternative and help keep it afloat instead.
Some players grumble about the VIP programmes, saying they give unfair benefits while further transforming games into elaborate money traps.
One player who has not been courted as a VIP said that since 2016 he had spent between US$40,000 (RM162,280) and US$50,000 (RM202,850) on mobile games like Star Trek Fleet Command and Raid: Shadow Legends. He said he often felt guilty playing other games for pleasure and asked not to be identified because he feared that his wife might leave him if she found out the extent of his spending.
“It’s like an opium den except it’s in your hand and you can enter it with your mind whenever you want,” he said. “I lament it pretty much daily.”
Preventing burnout was a key goal when casinos introduced VIP programmes. Harrah’s influential programme, which began in 1997, used a digital tracking tool to detect when someone was losing more often than a slot machine’s predetermined odds, former executive David Norton described in The High Roller Experience.
To stop players from forming a negative memory that might dissuade them from coming back, an alert would instruct a casino floor attendant to approach them with a reward. Features like this helped Harrah’s increase the revenue it collected from VIPs by more than 50%.
Similar programmes are becoming widespread in the video game industry as companies invest in free-to-play and live service games.
Papergames, the developer of the breakout hit Love And Deepspace, has a tiered VIP programme with spending requirements from roughly US$700 (RM2,839) to more than US$14,000 (RM56,798). Scopely has generated more than US$5bil (RM20.28bil) from Monopoly Go! in part through its invitation-only Tycoon Club. (A representative from King, which develops Candy Crush Saga, said the company did not use VIP programmes.)
Riot Games, the studio behind multiplayer game League Of Legends and mobile hit Legends Of Runeterra, makes money by selling cosmetic upgrades for characters and weapons that typically cost between US$5 (RM20.28) and US$25 (RM101). It uses VIP programmes not just to specifically target big spenders but to connect with longtime players who are outspoken on forums and social media.
The company periodically flies influential players to its headquarters in Santa Monica, California, to meet with developers. In 2024 it paid for several to travel to Oslo, Norway, to playtest a Norwegian character in Valorant, a first-person shooter.
“Our goal is to make you feel that the community is thriving, that you have an opportunity to engage with Riot, and that the future of the game is really strong,” said Erin Wayne, the company’s head of global player community. “So we’re trying to appeal more toward the emotional side than we are the financial side.”
Despite the perks and special privileges, many VIPs can feel exhausted by their games.
During an online chat about Star Trek Fleet Command, a self-described VIP despaired about changes that felt like they were designed to encourage more spending, pointing to a noncombat zone where ships would automatically take damage unless players paid for special upgrades. Another player said keeping up with new content felt like a full-time job, one he would wake up for at 4 or 5am. Scopely did not respond to requests for comment.
SurgeROI, a company that Doyle co-founded, partnered with Keywords Studios to develop tracking tools that capture the difference in revenue between lucrative players who are part of VIP programmes and those who are not.
Marek Niszkiewicz, the customer support director for Keywords, said the programmes helped game studios recoup the costs of development, comparing it to pharmaceutical companies that rely on high prices for new drugs. “For every drug they develop they spend billions on drugs that fail,” he said.
Doyle has since left SurgeROI and now works on similar initiatives in the derivatives market. She describes herself as a “relationship manager”, comparing how she kept players happy and engaged over long periods to the work required to maintain a marriage.
At Zynga, Doyle knew she had built something that was working when she overheard an employee she had trained talking a VIP out of quitting a game altogether.
“The account manager said, ‘Listen, we’re not getting divorced over this’,” Doyle recalled. “‘We’ve been together for so long, we’ve been through thick and thin’.” – ©2026 The New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
