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开发商如何通过Facebook Credits增加营收

发布时间:2011-06-11 10:16:16 Tags:,,,

游戏邦注:本文作者为Wagner James Au,文章主要探讨开发商如何使用Facebook Credits提高游戏营收。

从7月份开始,所有Facebook游戏就得统一使用Facebook Credits进行付费活动。关于如何借助该虚拟货币实现营收最大化,顶级游戏开发商给出如下建议。

Facebook Credits from blog.yvd.com

Facebook Credits from blog.yvd.com

开展折扣活动提高短期收益

Popcap(游戏邦注:Facebook游戏《宝石迷阵闪电战》和《祖玛闪电战》开发商)通过开展“快乐时光”周五Facebook Credits消费折扣活动,销量显著提高。

但Popcap的Jon David表示,虽然开展折扣活动是好策略,但若持续时间过长(如开展一整天),就会导致随后营收出现下滑。

例如,在消费者享受到折扣商品之后,额外商品销量就会开始减少。

David建议开发商试验各种活动持续时间和定价,以便找到增加收益的最佳平衡点。

防止虚拟商品定价过低

为增加收益,Gaia Online(游戏邦注:Facebook游戏《Monster Galaxy》开发商)的Mike Sego给出这样的建议,这个建议乍听似乎不合常理:“确保将价格调至合理高度……我们常常容易定价过低。”

该公司通过试验发现,降低商品价格并不一定会带来更多付费用户。

很多玩家已经习惯花60美元购买掌机游戏,高价值用户愿意每月支付30美元甚至更多,从而获得高质量Facebook游戏体验。

Sego补充表示:

准确定价很困难,但若难以把握,定价稍高比定价偏低要保险很多,因为这样一来,你能够开展更多折扣活动,调低价格,直至发现最佳价位。

他发现,这个定价策略会降低Facebook Credits使用范围,“但会带来更多营收。”

避免提供免费Credits

据Wooga(游戏邦注:该公司制作过众多顶级Facebook游戏)的Jan Miczaika表示,提供免费Facebook Credits并无法成功促进营收增加。

相反,它会“给游戏生态系统带来很多摩擦,引发付费困难,并且不会给整体营收带来任何影响,不论积极,还是消极。”

Wooga认为宣传馈赠存在的问题是,他们不会带来新付费用户或者促进新用户花钱购买虚拟商品。

Miczaika表示,“免费Credits遍布各处,这并无法带来附加价值。”(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

How To Monetize Games With Facebook Credits

by Wagner James Au

Facebook Credits will become the mandatory payment method for games on the social network next month. With that timing in mind, here are suggestions from top game developers on how to maximize revenues with the virtual currency.

Use Discounts To Increase Short-Term Monetization

Popcap, developer of Facebook games Bejeweled Blitz and Zuma Blitz, sees strong sales from its “happy hour” Friday discounts of virtual goods purchased with Facebook Credits.

However, Popcap’s Jon David cautions, while discounting is a good strategy, extending discounts for too long (such as an entire day) often leads to a drop in revenue in subsequent days.

For example, after customers take advantage of the discount offerings, the market for additional purchases may drop off in the days following the sales period.

David recommends experimenting with discount length and pricing to find the optimal levels for increasing revenue.

Beware of Under-Pricing Virtual Goods

To increase revenue, Mike Sego of Gaia Online (developer of Facebook’s Monster Galaxy) offered this advice, which may sound counter-intuitive at first: “Make sure that you’re pricing things appropriately high… it’s easy to make items too low of a price.”

Through testing, his company discovered that pricing virtual goods for significantly fewer Facebook Credits did not necessarily lead to significantly more paying customers.

Just as many gamers are already accustomed to paying $60 for a single console game, high value users might be willing to pay $30 or more a month in Credits for high quality Facebook gaming experiences.

Sego added:

It’s tough to price things at the right sweet spot, but when in doubt, it’s safer to go slightly too high rather than too low, as that frees you up for more opportunity to experiment with discounts, lower the prices later until you find a sweet spot.

He did note that this pricing advice will likely reduce adoption to Facebook Credits, “but could result in higher overall revenues.”

Avoid Promotional Credits

According to Jan Miczaika of Wooga, developer of numerous top Facebook games, using promotional giveaways of Facebook Credits has not proven a successful strategy for increasing monetization.

Instead, it “created a lot of friction in the ecosystem, introduced billing headaches and, as far as we can see, did not have an impact on overall monetization neither positive nor negative.”

The problem with promotional offers, from Wooga’s perspective, is they don’t seem to add new paying customers or introduce the idea of paying for virtual goods to new users.

Instead, Miczaika told us, “There were simply free Credits slushing around in the system, which did not add value.”

Facebook developers, what strategies have been most successful for you?

To learn more about successful strategies for deploying Facebook Credits in games, click here to read the latest report from Social Times Pro.If you’re not already a subscriber, click here to become one or buy the individual report.(Source:allfacebook


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