游戏邦注：本文原作者是德国手机游戏发行商及开发商HandyGames公司首席执行官Christopher Kassulke，该公司曾推出热门手机游戏 《Guns’n'Glory》，并在2011年pocketgamer读者精选大奖的评选中仅次于《愤怒的小鸟》，成为亚军得主。

在几年前，主要手机游戏销售渠道是网络运营商的门户网站，但最近几年基于手机操作系统的应用商店迅速崛起后，运营商应用网站的则开始惨淡经营，目前通过该渠道下载游戏的用户还不足2%，而其付费下载用户人数则更是不值一提。许多运营商都在忙于相互抢夺市场份额，却疏于武装自己，为用户提供更良好的服务体验。

运营商销售平台失去市场竞争力有多种原因，有些平台是数十年如一日，总是不更新原来的旧面孔；另一方面，它们的付费流程都过于复杂繁琐，极大影响了用户体验；最重要的是，这些平台提供的游戏和应用程序质量很成问题，跟不上运营商的品牌形象及其下载渠道的档次。

所以这些挂着运营商招牌的门户网站所提供的服务，总是不能符合用户的期望。

Guns-N-Glory

游戏质量

现在许多应用商店都不缺应用数量，作者对这些运营商平台的建议是，多引进已经过市场检验的好游戏和应用，而不是单纯追求产品数量。

除此之外，为用户提供下载高质量内容的优质服务，是将用户转化为消费者的关键因素。

但实现这一点的前提是，为用户提供他们真正所需的内容，那就是免费的应用。

事情上大家都很清楚，98%的下载应用均为免费产品。所以，你的平台如果缺乏一系列物美价廉的内容，那就很有可能流失客源。

HandyGames很早就开始关注这种模式，开发了不少免费及广告赞助版本的游戏，并通过游戏内的链接、内置付费功能，将用户引向了下载游戏的门户网站。

他们认为这种做法，可以为网络运营商的门户网站、应用商店创造再次销售付费内容的机会。根据他们的经验，无论是否带有内置付费功能，免费内容的下载量总是更高。

免费内容

当然，网络运营商可能会认为，提供大量免费内容会压缩付费产品的空间，这会触及他们的利益底线。虽然这一点可能不假，但从长远来看，运营商应用商店的生存还是取决于用户的需求，而最受用户欢迎的却正是免费内容。

如果用户不能在此平台找到所需的内容，他们当然就会转向其他应用商店。

免费内容的下载量可能会一直占有优势，但也有许多用户愿意为高质量的内容掏钱。不过为了更好地销售产品，运营商首先要解决的问题是，如何将用户吸引到自己的平台，而不是将他们送到竞争对手的怀抱——免费内容正是实现这一点的良策。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

HandyGames’ Christopher Kassulke on how operators can save their failing game portals

Christopher Kassulke is owner and CEO of HandyGames, a mobile game publisher and developer based in Giebelstadt, Germany.

Until a few years ago, the main distribution channels for mobile phone games were the download portals of network operators but, in recent years, the market has shifted dramatically towards OS-specific app stores.

Currently less than 2 percent of network operator customers download games from the operators’ download portals and even less are willing to pay for downloads. While network operators have been competing with each other for market share, they’ve been largely unsuccessful in increasing the utilisation of their download platforms relative to their customer base.

Epic Fail

There are many reasons for why network operators have failed to increase market volume.

In some cases, the download portals have remained more or less unchanged since the early days of mobile gaming at the beginning of the century. In other cases, the purchasing process is burdened with complex and arcane payment systems that aren’t particularly user-friendly.

Most importantly, the quality of the offered games and apps is often lacking, to the point where there is a distinct disconnect between the network operator’s brand image and the quality of its download portal.

The download portal often does not meet the customers’ expectations of a service that carries the network operator’s brand.

Only triple-A need apply

Offering quantity is what the big app stores already do sufficiently well.

I’d argue the download portals of network operators should accommodate the demand for a more focused selection of apps and games that have been screened for quality -curation of a market, rather than saturation.

Making users feel the download portal provides good guidance when it comes to quality content is an important factor in turning users into returning customers.

This, by itself, is not enough, though. The first step is to offer users something they actually want and what users want is FREE content.

The facts are unambiguous; 98 percent of all app downloads are free. Unless there is a strong line-up of free quality content, most potential customers will simply ignore a download portal or app store.

We’ve focussed on this model at HandyGames by making our titles free and ad-supported, whilst including the option to refer the user back to the download portal via in-game links and in-app purchase functionality.

We think this offers the network operator a second chance to sell paid-for content on their download portal or app store; in our experience free games increase downloads substantially, paid-for or not.

Growing the market

Of course, network operators may argue that offering free content decreases demand for paid content, threatening their bottom line. This may be true now, but the long-term survival of their app stores ultimately depends on giving the customers what they want and the customers want free content – free games in particular.

If they don’t get them, they’ll go elsewhere or stop downloading until they change device.

Free content may dominate the download charts, but many users are still willing to pay for good content, but in order to sell anything at all, the networks operators first have to manage to attract users to their download portals – or else the money will continue to be spent elsewhere.

Free content is the best way to achieve this.（source:pocketgamer）