The article makes it sound like they just discovered whales in 2014 -- I was at Zynga in the early days, and we were definitely aware of them even on early games, but there wasn't a formal VIP program.
The push to give them special treatment didn't take off until the Facebook tax appeared; at that point it became important to move big spenders to a separate payment channel without the 30% skim.
No, most revenue was just people buffing their FarmVille plots. The company aimed away from online gambling or even hardcore gaming.
It was hard to understand what whales were doing because the games were so far from gambling; there was no legal way to cash out, and even goods sales were policed. Money spent was clearly for amusement purposes only.
These were people who spent thousands of dollars leveling up in Mafia Wars. The interpretation at the time was that these were affluent individuals who simply enjoyed competing with money.
The push to give them special treatment didn't take off until the Facebook tax appeared; at that point it became important to move big spenders to a separate payment channel without the 30% skim.