作者：Shanti Bergel

此前数个季度，社交游戏的发展速度令人称奇。据报道称，各个公司都赚到了更多钱，游戏巨作的增长速度也超过1年前的预测值。看到这种情形真令人感到兴奋。我正在探索推动社交游戏获得成功的因素，本文将探究如何将度量运用于社交游戏设计中。

目前多数社交游戏普遍采用虚拟商品运营模式，这种方式由亚洲免费游戏（游戏邦注：free-to-play，下文简称F2P）开发商首创。尽管所有的F2P盈利度量讨论最后通常都以每用户平均收益作为衡量盈利的准则，但所有公司几乎从未真正公开这个数值。因而，其他各种用户度量值（游戏邦注：最经常使用的是最高同时在线用户数和总注册用户数）时常被外界用来审视某款游戏的盈利能力。即便是这些替代性的数据也显得有点不可信赖，因为它们是公司自行公布的数值，而且通常是出于公共关系和投资关系原因才公布。换句话说，你只能看到强大的产品，然后根据这些不完整的数据来猜测其盈利能力。

但是在社交游戏方面，社交网络自身公布的用户度量值使得人们更能看清整个生态系统。尽管每个主流网络给出的真实度量值不尽相同，但通过努力和某些有把握的猜测，Myspace公布的终生安装数值能够转化成Facebook的日活跃用户（游戏邦注：下文简称DAU）和月活跃用户（游戏邦注：下文简称MAU）。DAU是需要关注的数值，这是认定某款社交游戏流行度和潜力的关键度量值。之所以这样认为，最主要的原因在于对社交网络平台内外的F2P来说，游戏全部价值由活跃玩家来带动。活跃玩家可以邀请朋友（带动游戏病毒式营销）、消费内容（带动游戏内度量值）、让游戏社会化（成立社群）以及购买游戏虚拟商品（带动游戏盈利）。而且，通过观察各阶段DAU和MAU的比值，可以迅速察觉游戏拥有较理想的用户留存率。尽管只是个大概的数值，但这对粗略掌握用户参与比例很有帮助。

Facebook-game-asking-for-help(from pc.ign.com)

明白了这些标准的重要性，应该就不难理解为何社交游戏开发商都在不遗余力地尝试新方法来增加DAU数量。这些方法包括每日奖励等公开吸引方式、病毒式的礼品赠送邀请，以及某些更具创意性的方法。但最新的热门DAU刺激方式是构建于无尽反馈循环的核心游戏机制，目标在于让玩家不断回到游戏中。

回到盈利问题上，用户度量与其有一定的联系。DAU/MAU比值越高，游戏的盈利潜力越大。这项数据显示游戏很吸引人而且能成功带动用户参与度，但与销售额或营收并无直接关联。盈利参与度产生于玩家间，极像是游戏设计和价值观的功能。盈利没有既定或确保成功的解决方案，这是片独特的发挥创意之地。尽管某些最佳盈利手法行之有效，但并不能通用于所有游戏设计过程。比如，通常认为功能性道具所带动的用户转化率比装饰性道具高。

但是，这种现象高度依赖于游戏及其用户产生的社交动机。在PvP游戏中，卖得最好的确实很可能是那些让玩家可以在竞争中处于优势的道具，他们可以在取胜后向他人炫耀。但是在虚拟世界中，热门道具可能是那些本质上更具装饰性的商品，因为这样玩家便可以向别人展示更具个性化的世界。其他因素也可能带动付费用户转化率，包括用户类型、用户玩游戏的深度、游戏经济平衡性、道具推销手段、付费方式和游戏利用社交行为来刺激愉快、内疚、培养、复仇、感激、自豪等关键情绪的方法。

此外，让玩家购买社交或功能性优势产品是种很微妙的商业行为。这在高DAU游戏中显得格外突出，因为玩家确实非常活跃地参与到这些游戏中。在拥有完善平衡性和大量用户的游戏中引进或改变道具销售结构，如果这种行为与他们的期望相悖或使他们在游戏中的投入化为乌有，便有可能让玩家群体愤怒并产生挫败感。这是很危险的事情。

尽管商家确实将社交游戏当做服务来运作，而且可以不断进行优化和更新，最初发布、用户发展、游戏优化和盈利间也必须维持平衡。我想说游戏应该在发布之处便埋下健全盈利方案的种子，并让它随着游戏的增长不断发展成熟。在理想状态下，盈利的核心主题应该通过系列A/B测试获得的真实数据来验证，这至少能够估算出顾客终生价值和每个玩家的盈利点。只有这样，方案才真正对游戏推广起到作用。否则，迅速增长的成本结构、未经测试的盈利流和潜在的用户发展时间炸弹都可能带来风险。

只有将侧重点放在短期盈利最大化和留存玩家上，游戏才能顺利发展。当然，尽快建立流量帝国也是种方法。尽管风险较大，但如果手头有足够的流动资金，那就不妨重点提高DAU数值，暂时先将盈利摆在第二位。因为从某种程度上来说，流量本身就带有可观的交叉推广价值。这种推广方式较为可行，毕竟从不同游戏转移现有玩家，至少比一款新游戏从头开始获取用户的成本更低。你得想法将这些用户人气转化为收益，但如果游戏数量足够多，你所掌握的机会也就更多。这依然是种高风险的做法，只适合那些有足够资金进行反复试验的开发商，小型开发商可以选择其他方法。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Designing For Monetization: How To Apply THE Key Metric In Social Gaming

The last several quarters have brought amazing new dynamics to the social gaming scene. Companies are reportedly making more money and hit games are growing faster than even the most bullish pundits could have predicted a year ago. Exciting times. As part of my ongoing exploration of social gaming success factors, I took a crack at exploring how metrics are being applied to shape social game design. Comments, feedback, razzing, and tweets to @sbergel are welcome.

Social games are now almost universally based on the virtual goods model which was pioneered by free-to-play (F2P) game operators in Asia. While all F2P profitability metrics discussions have traditionally boiled down to revenue measurements revolving around Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) per n grouping (cohort/entry vector/day/week/month/year/lifetime), almost never will companies

actually release these figures. As a proxy therefore, various usage metrics – peak concurrent users and total registrations being the most common – are often employed from the outside to gain insight into the fortunes of a given game. Even these proxy numbers can be a bit murky however as they are self reported and usually released for PR/IR reasons. In other words, you typically only hear the good stuff and are left to read tea leaves based on fragmented and/or incomplete data.

In the case of social games however, the social networks themselves publish usage metrics resulting in greater transparency across the ecosystem. While the actual metrics from each of the major networks are different, Myspace’s lifetime installs figures can be converted to Facebook’s Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU) with some elbow grease and educated guesswork.

DAU is the one to watch. It has emerged as the key metric in determining the popularity and potential of a social game. The most primary reason for this is that active players drive all downstream value in a F2P game be it on a social network or off. Active players are the ones who invite friends (read: drive virality), consume content (read: drive in-game metrics), socialize the game (read: create community), and buy things in-game (read: drive monetization). Additionally, by looking at DAU versus MAU over time, one can quickly get a sense of how well a game retains its users. This is a heuristic hack but, it is useful in getting a rough benchmark of engagement rates. More on that in a sec.

Given its importance, it should come as no surprise that social game developers are constantly and rapidly experimenting with new ways to increase DAU counts. These range from unabashed operant conditioning hooks like daily point awards to viral gift invites and ever more creative feed story variants. The hands-down new hotness in DAU stimulation however are core game mechanics built on endless feedback loops aimed at getting the player to recursively schedule follow-on play sessions. MC Escher eat your heart out.

Getting back to the money however, it bears remembering that usage metrics are proxies. A high DAU/MAU ratio is simply an indicator of potential. It demonstrates that the game is compelling and can successfully drive engagement but it does not speak directly to sales or earnings. Monetizing engagement is very much a function of game design and the perception of value that it creates among players. There are no silver bullets or cookie-cutter solutions here – monetization is unique snowflake land. While best practices are constantly being honed, they are not universally applicable across all game designs. For example, functional items are sometimes said to drive higher conversion rates than cosmetic ones. But, that dynamic is highly dependent on the game, its audience, and the social motivations it generates. PvP game? The best sales are indeed likely to be status-oriented and come from items that give players an advantage in beating the snot out of each other…and bragging about it afterward. Virtual world? The hot items could very well be more cosmetic in nature and yet serve the very real purpose of signaling identity to others. Other factors potentially driving conversion to pay include the demographics of the audience, the depth of their commitment to the game, game economy balance, item merchandising, payment methods, and how well the game leverages social artifacts to activate key emotions like joy, guilt, nurturing, revenge, gratitude, pride, etc.

Moreover, allowing players to buy social or functional advantage can be tricky business. This is particularly true in high DAU communities which are by definition extremely active and engaged – these players are invested in the game and therefore highly opinionated and emotional. Introducing or tweaking the item sales structure in a well-balanced game and/or large community can result in anger and frustration in the player community if it upends their expectations or invalidates the investment they have made in the game. Here be dragons.

While social games are indeed operated as a service and able to be constantly optimized and updated, there is a delicate balance to be struck between speed to initial launch, audience development, optimization, and monetization. I would argue that games should contain at least the seeds of a robust monetization scheme at launch which is capable of maturing as the game grows. Ideally, the core thesis of which would have been validated with actual data from a series of A/B tests which enable insight into at least a notional Life Time Value and arbitrage point per player. Only then does it really make sense to go for scale. Otherwise, one risks being saddled with a rapidly growing cost structure, an untested revenue stream, and potential audience development time bomb.

Ahem. Let me rephrase that last bit. Only then does it make sense to go for scale if the priority is maximizing near-term revenue and retaining the player base. There is of course a case to be made for building a traffic empire as fast as possible. This is riskier but, with enough runway cash on hand, there are scenarios where designing for monetization might reasonably take a back seat to aggressively redlining a game’s DAU. For, in the right hands, the traffic itself can have sizeable cross-promotional value. To the degree it can be done successfully, shifting players from game to game is potentially cheaper than acquiring them from scratch on a per title basis. At some point the eyeballs have to be converted to cash but, with a large enough portfolio of games, you do get more times at bat. Still, this is a high wire act to be performed only by those with the financial resources for big bet trial and error. Your mileage may vary. (Source: shantibergel.com)