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游戏设计师谈对App Store低价应用的看法

发布时间:2011-02-05 06:03:00 Tags:,,,,

游戏邦注:本文作者是游戏设计师兼作家伊恩•博格斯特(Ian Bogost),这是他在2009年5月针对App Store低价应用盛行的现象所发表的一些看法。

上个月,我搭周日的早班飞机从亚特兰大到奥兰多。在书报摊前买了一本2009年5月号的《大众科学》期刊(Popular Science)。我对那个关于空间飞船的封面故事蛮感兴趣,可惜实际的文章内容却不如封面有意思,幸好另一篇关于飞机座位舒适度的文章还有些看头。总的来说,这本期刊算不错,但还不值得我随身带走,因此我把书留在座位背后的口袋中便离开了,价格:4.99美元。

上周回家时,我顺路在Krispy Kreme甜甜圈店买了些甜甜圈和一杯咖啡。亚特兰大在这个季节特有的湿气席卷了整个城市,所以我给joe咖啡加了冰块。回到车里,我觉得咖啡好像太甜了——不怎么喜欢这味道,但因为很口渴,多少还是喝了点。花费:1.49美元。

几天前,我在iTunes App Store发布了一款新游戏。该游戏的意义较为重大(游戏邦注:这是作者为Atari公司开发的一款视频游戏移植版本),因此我投入了大量时间和精力进行开发,力求尽善尽美。我在游戏中提供了大量内容,并只收取最低的服务费用。业内和许多用户对这款游戏的评价都很不错。

然而,在游戏发布当天,我却收到一封不太满意的用户电子邮件,上面写着“还我99美分。”

game_icons

game_icons

用户的认知失调(cognitive dissonance)

这一事件使我开始思考小型数字产品和iTunes App Store的消费体验。人们花1美元喝杯咖啡,或花5美元买本杂志的同时就会对商品产生某种期待心理。

一般来说,如此低价的商品都是易消耗品,很容易用完。当然,我也可以折回店里抱怨下咖啡太甜,不过有些时候我并不想计较这些鸡毛蒜皮的小事。

说实话,我很庆幸能收到那封电邮;这样一来,我可以通过电邮与那位玩家联系,了解他的想法;而对应用商店中的匿名负面评价,我们却很难做出回复。事实上,开发商已发现自从OS 2.2系统推出“为已删除应用评分”功能,即允许用户删除程序后再对其评级打分,App Store中的应用评价普遍有所下降。

这个问题一部分与平台设计有关。一般来说,普通电脑都有很大的硬盘空间用于存储应用和文件等。用户可以将程序放在桌面或Windows快速启动栏上,也可以放在Apple Dock界面,或者隐藏在程序文件夹里、应用程序目录里。

另一部分原因则与期望值相关。苹果已经建立起一套复杂的应用审核机制来保证应用产品达标,但每个人对应用的看法不尽相同,App Store中各种产品鱼龙混杂,很多应用并不如开发商承诺的那么好用。

但我认为,很大一部分用户和开发商对iPhone游戏或应用的不满来自于认知失调(cognitive dissonance)。

游戏不像咖啡,是不能被用尽的,也不能让用户产生即时的满足感,却能提供持续的挑战和奖励。这也正是弗兰克•南兹(Frank Lantz)认为游戏不同于媒介的原因之一。

然而,当我们以很低的价格购买某商品时,会很习惯性地将它当成消耗品。这年头一美元可以买到什么?基本上买不到什么。一杯咖啡,一包便利贴,一份培根奶酪汉堡,一张彩票——这些都是用完就没了的消费品。

应用价格战

我们很难令用户对99美分消费品与对视频游戏的期望值画上等号。前者提供的是一次性的使用价值,而后者提供的则是挑战和体验。

我认为iPhone游戏玩家也许并没有这么多不满,因为他们自己也困惑:究竟该将99美分的游戏当成可有可无的小事呢,还是一项可能提供丰富体验的服务?

不管用户怎么想,iTunes App Store都会坚持将应用价格战进行到底。虽然开发商想赚钱,但用户掏钱时却并不那么爽快。

Airport Mania

Airport Mania

这种情况造成的结果就是iPhone应用越来越廉价。据Distimo数据显示,iPhone应用的价格仅在2009年4月份便下降了8%,其中多数应用售价仅99美分。例如Reflexive Entertainment公司推出的游戏《Airport Mania》,一开始在PC和Mac平台发布时定价为19.99美元。一年后,只需9.99美元就能下载。而当这款游戏的iPhone版本登陆App Store时,售价仅99美分。实际上Reflexive公司甚至觉得有必要发布免费的简化版游戏。

很显然,用户宁可花99美分去尝试一杯咖啡,也不舍得在一款高级的电子游戏上花点钱,尽管这款游戏在其他平台上的售价可能是App Store的10倍。

的确,这种产品大幅度贬值的现象对iPhone应用造成了相当大的负面影响。以atebits公司推出的Tweetie为例,它的Mac OS X版本定价19.95美元,而iPhone版本却只需2.99美元,但实际上这两种版本提供的是同等质量的相同功能。也许有人会认为iPhone版比PC版的更为专业,但对游戏或者Twittie而言,它们在两个不同的平台提供的是等值的服务,区别仅在于适用不同的操作环境。

不可否认,免费发放游戏可能催生出Wired总编Chris Anderson所主张的“免费经济”。但需要指出的是,加了奶油和糖的免费咖啡与一杯售价1美元外加25美分牛奶的咖啡,口感还是有很大差别的。

App Store淘金热的真相

App Store应用售价的结果与开发商的长期发展密切相关。得益于苹果声势浩大的推广,App Store自上线以来的应用下载量已达10亿次(游戏邦注:这是2009年5月前的数据)。

许多主流媒体都在连篇累牍地报道,不少开发者为了从App Store成功淘金,不顾一切辞掉了工作,全身心投入iPhone应用的开发过程。

当然,有些独立开发者确实取得了不错的成就。但像Ethan Nicholas(《iShoot》的开发者)这样赚翻了的人毕竟是少数,而像Mark Johnson这样的却十分常见。Mark Johnson本人公布的销售数据显示,他开发的游戏《Hit Tennis》发行6个月共赚得1万美元。虽然不差,但也算不上什么收益。

Ethan Nicholas' ishoot

Ethan Nicholas' ishoot

据最近的预测显示,苹果可能仅从Apple Store销售额中创收2000万至4500万美元。而如果再参考应用总销售额的数据,我们就不难看清App Store淘金热的真相。

在2009年5月18日,App Store共发布了4万298款iPhone应用,假设App Store的总营收是2000万与4500万的中间值,那么这些应用的总营收就是1.083亿美元(未扣除苹果从中抽成的30%),每款应用的平均收益就是2688美元。那么苹果从中抽成30%后,开发商就仅仅创收1881美元。在此基础上扣除开发者在App Store上做生意的100美元年费,那么每款应用的净利润就是1771美元。

这笔钱可能仅够开发商用来买iPhone,Mac笔记本或台式电脑。简单来说,App Store对广大开发商而言可是个烧钱的地方。

如果我们更深入地分析,就会发现游戏应用的情况其实更糟糕。虽然iTunes中的游戏应用比例几乎达到20%,但平均每款游戏的售价却还不到其他应用的一半(游戏邦注:在2009年时期,App Store的游戏平均售价为1.44美元,其他非游戏应用平均售价为2.79美元)。

这意味着在同样条件下,App Store中游戏应用的营收比其他应用少50%。

这样算下来,每位开发商平均每款iPhone游戏应用的收益约为900美元。当然,如果App Store的实际营收是2000万美元,那么游戏开发商的收益还会更低。不过也有消息称,App Store的总营收可能高达9000万美元。

(然而对于广大App Store游戏开发商来说,应用营收的中间值可能比平均值更重要。因为大部分销售额都集中在热卖产品,因此这个中间值可能远低于平均值,不过目前还没有准确的数据可以说明这一点。)

另外需要说明的是,只有当某款应用在各个地区的总销售额超过250美元时,苹果才会为它分配销售特许权使用费,所以表现平平的应用很可能不会产生任何分配金额返利给开发者。照这种情形来看,开发商怎么可能通过更新应用功能,或者开发新产品取悦那些嚷嚷着“还我99美分”的用户呢?

产品免费,服务收费模式不可取

如果将这两件事情摆在一起,我们的前景似乎不容乐观。一方面,玩家的期望值呈两极分化:对消耗型产品的低期望,对纪念性产品的高期望;另一方面,开发者则冒着鱼和熊掌皆失的风险倾尽全力地开发产品。

这一矛盾可能导致许多劣质游戏产品被淘汰,这类产品的开发商可能就会放弃iPhone游戏,寻找其他更具创造性或者收益可观的出路。在这种情况下,产品价格、收益就会随着游戏质量的上升而提升。

而另一种结果可能就是无可挽回的恶性循环,如果App Store的价格战长期存在,那么玩家的期望值也不会主动让步。

假如我们用“纳什均衡”理论来看待这一问,情况又会十分奇怪。如果每个开发商都以双倍或三倍的价格销售游戏,那么用户对iPhone游戏的平均消费水准也会相应提高,超过先前的期望值。

如果iPhone游戏不再被拿来与咖啡作比较,它们可能就会(但并非总是)显示出自己原有的价值。虽然这种提价的做法究竟是否可行或者可能仍然存在争议,但我们显然可以看出,开发商都已深受iPhone应用销售模式的毒害。

事实上,大部分游戏平台都是亏本出售,它们主要通过游戏授权弥补差额,即买产品送服务模式。但苹果却反其道而为之,比起苹果公司2008年超过300亿美元的营收,App Store 一亿美元的销售额只不过是其中的一点零头。但我确信苹果并不会为App Store的营收感到困扰,因为App Store的服务宗旨就是拉动iPhone和iPod touch产品的销量。

谈到买产品送服务模式,我认为iPhone游戏开发商在响应Chris Anderson的号召,奉行产品免费,服务收费的模式之前,可能得先关注一下大众心理学家罗伯特•B•西奥迪尼(Robert Cialdini)和他的同事推出的新书《Yes!50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive》中提出的观点:免费发放将使产品掉价。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

Persuasive Games: I Want My 99¢ Back

[In his new column, writer and designer Ian Bogost looks at Apple's iPhone App Store -- and one of his game purchasers' demands to get his 99c back -- to discuss digital purchases, value, price point, and the 'race to the bottom' for iPhone games.]

Last month I took an early Sunday morning flight from Atlanta to Orlando. I wandered into a newsstand and picked up the May 2009 issue of Popular Science, which featured a cover story about space planes that intrigued me.

Automate Game Builds with FinalBuilder

The story turned out to be less interesting than the cover suggested, but I rather enjoyed another article about the discomfort of airplane seats. Overall I found the issue to be pretty good, but not good enough to carry along with me, so I left it in the seat pocket. Price paid: $4.99.

Last week I stopped on the way home at the local Krispy Kreme to pick up some doughnuts and grab a coffee. It was the first time this season that the heavy humidity characteristic of Atlanta wafted over the city, so I opted to take my joe on ice.

Once back in the car I realized that the iced coffee was sweetened — not how I like it. I was disappointed but also thirsty. I managed to enjoy the beverage somewhat. Price paid: $1.49.

A few days ago, I released a new game on the iTunes App Store. It’s a bit high concept (a port of an Atari VCS game I made), but I had worked on it carefully and knew it had been polished. I offered a good deal of context and charged the lowest price allowed by the service. Numerous trade and consumer rags picked up the story and said positive things about my effort.

Later in the day of release, I got a disgruntled email from one of my customers: “I want my 99 cents back,” he wrote.
Cognitive Dissonance

This made me start to think about small-scale digital purchases in general and the iTunes App Store in particular. When someone spends a dollar on a coffee or drops a

fiver on a magazine, certain expectations are set.

The goods to be purchased at such rates are consumables, things that can and will be used up, and quickly. Sure, I could have gone back in and complained about my iced coffee, but sometimes it’s not worth sweating the small stuff.

To be honest, I appreciated getting the email; I was able to respond to the private email and talk to the player, I think to his satisfaction. It’s harder, if not impossible, to respond to anonymous negative reviews and ratings on the App Store. Indeed, developers have noticed that average app ratings have been dropping since OS 2.2 provided a “rate on delete” feature, inviting users to star a program after having deleted it.

Part of this problem is related to platform design. An ordinary computer has a big hard drive for storing applications and documents and the like.

Programs can sit front and center on the desktop, in the Windows quick launch bar, or on the Apple Dock, or they can be hidden away in the Program Files folder or Applications directory.

Part of the problem is related to expectations. Apple has set up a convoluted application approval process to insure that programs do what they say, but the individual treatment any one app gets varies greatly. The App Store is noisy and many products don’t work as promised.

But I’m convinced that a large part of customer and developer dissatisfaction with iPhone games and apps comes from a cognitive dissonance.

Games aren’t generally like cups of coffee; they don’t get used up. They don’t provide immediate gratification, but ongoing challenge and reward. This is part of what Frank Lantz means when he claims that games are not media.

Yet, when we buy something for a very low price, we are conditioned to see it as expendable. What costs a dollar these days? Hardly anything. A cup of coffee. A pack of sticky notes. A Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. A lottery ticket. Stuff we use up and discard.

A Race to the Bottom

It’s hard to reconcile the value expectations of a 99¢ discard with those of a video game. One is supposed to offer single-use expendability, the other is supposed to offer depth and challenge over time.

I contend that iPhone players are not so much dissatisfied as they are confused: should one treat a 99¢ game as a piece of ephemera, or as a potentially rich experience?

Automate Game Builds with FinalBuilder

But the iTunes App Store has encouraged a race to the bottom among paid applications. Developers want to make money, but consumer response suggests a reticence to spend.

The result so far has been cheaper and cheaper apps: according to the mobile distribution firm Distimo, iPhone app prices have dropped 8% in April alone, with many games settling in at 99¢.

For example, Reflexive Entertainment’s Airport Mania, a click-management airline game, cost $19.99 when it was first released for PC and Mac. A year later, it still goes for $9.99 as a downloadable.

When the iPhone version hit the App Store, it was priced at 99¢. In fact, Reflexive even felt compelled to release a free “lite” version of the game.

Apparently 99¢ is a risk worth taking on a cup of coffee, but not on a sophisticated, long-form videogame worth ten times more on another platform.

Indeed, an order of magnitude value loss seems to plague iPhone applications in general. Take Tweetie, an excellent Twitter client by atebits. The Mac OS X version sells for $19.95. The iPhone version, $2.99.

Yet the programs offer exactly the same features with the same quality. One might argue that an iPhone program is more specialized than a desktop one, but in the case of games or Twitter clients, both platforms offer similar types of value, even if that value expresses itself in different circumstances.

Admittedly, giving a game away for free could invite “freeconomic” uses of the sort Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson has recently advocated.

But access to the App Store’s forthcoming micropayment features still require an initial purchase. A free cup of coffee and a change jar for cream and sugar is quite a bit different from a $1 cup of coffee with a 25¢ add-on for milk.

Mourning the Numbers

One of the emergent results of App Store pricing has to do with its long-term viability for developers. Thanks to a very public Apple promotion, it’s well-known that the App Store has enjoyed one billion app downloads since its launch.

A number of effusive stories in the mainstream press have detailed how developers have quit their day jobs in favor of full-time iPhone development thanks to the fat profits reaped from the endless cornucopia that is the App Store.

And indeed, some indie developers are doing pretty well. Cases like iShoot’s Ethan Nicholas are rare, but Mark Johnson recently published sales data for his game Hit Tennis, which has netted around $10k since its release six months ago. Not bad, but not an income either.

Consider this: recent estimates suggest that Apple has only taken in $20-$45 million in revenue from App Store sales. If we cross-reference the more generous end of that figure with metrics on total application sales, we can draw more grounded conclusions about the reality of the App Store gold rush.

Some 40,298 apps have been released for the iPhone as of May 18. Presuming revenue somewhere between those two numbers, with total revenues of $108.3 million (if Apple takes 30%), average gross revenue of $2,688 per app. Apple takes 30% of that, leaving the developer $1,881. Deducting the $100 fee Apple charges developers for the right to sell apps in the store annually yields an average net profit of $1,771 per App.

That’s just about enough to pay for the iPhone and Mac laptop or desktop you’ll need to develop for the platform in the first place. Put more plainly, for the average developer the App Store is a financial wash.

Things get worse if we look more closely at games specifically. Even though almost 20% of the apps available on iTunes are games, the average price of a game is 50% less than that of other apps ($1.44 for games, compared to $2.79 for everything else).

That means that dollar for dollar, games are making 50% less than other applications in the store.

By that logic, an average game developer might be lucky to clear $900 through sales of a single title. Of course, if the $20 million gross sales figure is accurate, then you can reduce things further. On the other hand, some sources think the revenue to Apple could be as high as $90 million.

(But for the average App Store developer, it may also be that it’s median revenue, rather than average, that is actually important. With sales tending to cluster around the top titles, median may be startlingly lower than average, though this is very difficult to discern.)

And one more thing: Apple doesn’t distribute sales royalties until the totals exceed the equivalent of $250 in each region, so it’s possible an average-performing title could result in no distribution whatsoever back to the developer. At that rate, who can afford to update features or create new products to sate the confused consumer who cries, “I want my 99¢ back?”

Too Good To Be True?

If we put these two issues together, a rather dour picture emerges. On the one hand, players are split between the low expectations of a throwaway good and the high expectations of a keepsake. On the other hand, developers are pouring non-trivial effort into the creation of products that risk being neither fish nor fowl.

One result of this collision might be a sort of weeding out of the less serious or lower quality products, as the folks creating them give up on iPhone games and find other creative or commercial outlets. In such a situation, perhaps prices and profits will naturally rise along with quality.

But another result might be an irreparable poisoning of the well. If the race to the bottom persists long-term on the App Store, players’ expectations will match it.

Something curious might happen if we consider the problem as one of Nash equilibrium. If everyone selling games doubled or tripled their prices, then the average cost of games for iPhone might rise above the threshold of cognitive dissonance.

No longer would iPhone games register as neither coffee nor Klax, and instead they might telegraph the value they often (but not always) provide. Whether or not such a move is feasible or possible is debatable, perhaps suggesting that the iPoison has already been installed.

Most game consoles are sold at a loss with the intention of making up the difference in game licenses — the razor blade model. But Apple does things exactly in reverse. $100 million in App Store sales is a drop in the bucket compared to Apple’s $30 billion+ in 2008 revenue.

But I’m sure this figure doesn’t bother the company; the App Store service is meant to drive their highly profitable iPhone and iPod Touch sales anyway.

Speaking of razor blades, before iPhone game developers embrace Chris Anderson’s call to make their products free in the hopes of charging for services atop them, they might want to take note of the counterpoint pop-psychologist Robert Cialdini and his colleagues offer in their recent book ‘Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive’: giving away a product makes it less desirable. It’s something worth pondering over a forgettable $1 cup of joe. (source:gamasutra)


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