I mean they aren't wrong. A person who spends that much money on a game would most certainly be considered a whale. Jesus, I've spent a lot of money on a game like Hearthstone but nothing close to 6.5k!!!
How about we don't do corporate apologism eh
> This is a 5 yr old... that's a whale. Of course we're going to refund him, he has no concept of the money he spent.
The term whale is just a description of the user's spending habits on the game and has not moral connotation attached to it.
The moral issue here is that people generally do not want to be hunted and exploited for profit. They imply that people are prey by labeling them "whale".
I guess it depends on the environment, but it's common for (adult) whales in mobile games to know the term and use it in reference to themselves (and minnow, dolphin, etc).
Like "hyper addicted".
The majority of the revenue for a f2p game will often come from whales.
It’s an exploitive practice, and while it should be legal to part a fool with his money, it doesn’t mean the company doing it is good or shouldn’t be shamed.