The DeanBeat: This player spent $2 million in a mobile game. Then he led a boycott.

Gree, the Japanese game company that owns mobile games such as Modern War, hit the gold mine with Stephen Barnes of Houston. The 59-year-old owner of an appliance store has spent more than $2 million in Modern War, as one of the leaders of a clan that has been around for more than four years. He also helped stage a boycott where 144 teams stopped spending and demanded that Gree make fixes in the game.

Welcome to the complicated world of VIP gamers, also known as “whales,” who spend what many of us might consider to be crazy amounts in their favorite free-to-play games. They are the best of customers, as perhaps 2 percent of players in free-to-play games (where you spend real money on virtual goods) spend any money at all. Those who spend amounts like Barnes has are the rarest of people, and they come to expect good treatment from the game company. How game companies choose to accommodate the needs of these players can be very important, much like the way that Las Vegas casinos court and coddle their high rollers who gamble away millions. If the game companies lose their whales, the impact can reach far beyond one person.