[zenith]

The referral program is to entice players to promote the game. If you spend your own time promoting the game on other websites, word of mouth, etc, then you deserve every free referral point coming to you. If you don't want to spend the time to promote the game, then you don't deserve any referral points.

I think players who really put in some effort in promoting the game would feel cheated if I just handed out referrals for no work.

I am not sure why more players haven't taken advantage of free credits for simply posting their referral link on forums around the internet. It's simply a numbers game, the more you bring in the more chance you have of getting free referral points. Sure you might bring in 100 players who don't stick around, but out of that 100 you might find 2 or 3 players who generate 2,000 free credits a month for you.