If you haven't played Game Of War (and I strongly suggest that you don't): It's a bit like Civilization. You build a city, research technology, train soldiers, and attack other players. I started playing because I was bored at work -- the same reason you started making clans clash or birds angry.
When you sign up, you're inserted into a kingdom populated by other newbies. New players will be added until it's full, and then the cycle begins anew. At first, it's harmless fun, and, yes, I realize I sound like a drug addict. Like many casual games, you have to wait a certain amount of time before a building is complete or certain technology is researched. The timers start low, so you can play for a few minutes every day and make decent progress.
At this stage, you can spend five bucks to wipe the floor with anyone who's still playing for free. You laugh off defeat because the stakes are low. You can easily catch up without spending a dime. But, soon, all of those new players you joined with aren't so new anymore. They're growing stronger, and, after a few months, the wait times to accomplish anything are so great that if you don't spend money to keep up with the fantasy Kardashians, you'll be overwhelmed. We're not talking five bucks anymore -- many players will have dropped a couple hundred at this point. Hey, those virtual troops weren't going to train themselves. Well, they were, but it was going to take forever.
You can't shrug off defeat anymore. Now, the only way to recover is to flash some cash. And you'll notice people in your kingdom doing exactly that, getting wiped out but coming right back a week later. If you try to do it the slow, steady, and free way, you'll get frustrated by the delays or just get wiped out again, before you can fight back.
You've gone from a game that was fun to play for free to a game that's no fun to play at all unless you spend to keep up. And you will spend because you've been putting in 30 minutes a day for half a year to reach this point. It's become an investment. Possibly the worst investment outside of real estate in the Pacific Northwest, but an investment nonetheless.
I remember reading about some Clash of Clans players who spend thousands and claim they're saving money that they would have spent socializing with real people. Sounds like a great trade-off there.
IT WAS A typical weekday night after work: Lee slipped off his shoes, climbed into bed with his iPad, and booted up Clash of Clans. The free-to-play strategy game, in which he went by the name “Metamorphaz,” had quickly become a favorite stress-reliever for him. After the game’s logo faded away, a sprawling virtual village popped into view.
Uh oh. A rival player had gone aggressive, and one of Lee’s fellow “clan” members was under attack. Lee tapped a few icons, donating dozens of his troops to defend the friend from a brutal assault of archers and barbarians. Then, he pulled up Clash of Clan‘s built-in, real-money shop. While the game is free to download, its maker Supercell profits by selling virtual items to the most engaged players. Tonight, Lee’s iPad questioned him with a blue pop-up window: “Do you want to buy one Chest of Gems for $99.99?”
Lee could use those gems to immediately fortify his army. He tapped “Yes,” almost without thinking. In less than a month of playing around two hours a day, he’d spent nearly a thousand dollars.
Game developers have a word for players like Lee: whales.
“A whale is a player that is willing to invest a significant amount of money in your game,” said Jared Psigoda, CEO of the browser game publisher Reality Squared Games, at Game Developers Conference Europe in August. “For most publishers out there … a handful of players make up a significant percentage of revenue, specifically once you get into the mid-hard-core, free-to-play type model.”
“The top 10 percent of players can account for as much as 50 percent of all in-app purchase revenue,” says Andy Yang, CEO of the mobile monetization research firm PlayHaven.
So who are these people?
Lee — who asked that we not share his full name, or any specific details about his line of work — is a single, 42-year-old businessman from California. He says that his annual income is “in the six figures.”
Lee says that spending money on games like Clash of Clans is actually saving him money in the long-run: Before he started gaming, he says he and a small group of friends would go out drinking, sometimes spending as much as $6,000 in a single night between them.
http://www.wired.com/2012/11/meet-the-whales/
I think I bought a couple of plants when Plants vs Zombies 2 came out to support the developers, though lord knows EA doesn't need my money, and of course, there's premium on fine websites like this one. What's the most money you've ever spent on an online game?
I take it that's an affordable portion of your disposable dollars? I have many toys I'd like to run out and drop that cash on....damnable kids and their money sucking hides makes it tough 
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