作者：Tyler York

为何要采用免费增值模式？

想想看，你从头忙到尾，投入了成百上千小时，好不容易做出了一款好游戏。从制作串连图板到编码，从找设计师到游击战式的市场营销，从玩法测试到修补漏洞，你几乎为游戏倾注了所有的心血。现在你想让用户为自己的辛苦劳动付费？

你可能会想，为什么不能？毕竟开发游戏可是件辛苦活，其难度远甚于一周就能搞定的一次性网页应用，制作游戏从编程、美工、文案到营销各个环节都要面临极大的挑战。如果不向用户收钱，何苦让自己遭这种罪呢？

不幸的是，用户根本不关心这一点。他们看到你的游戏拥有4.5颗星的评价，完美的宣传内容，出色的游戏截屏，甚至还有明髦的应用图标，但他们仍然不为之所动——他们就是要在掏钱之前先试玩看看。于是这些用户大批涌向先试后买的免费游戏，如果你的游戏并非免费产品，那就只能被甩在后头。

为什么要免费供应游戏？实话说，最好先把免费用户视为一种营销成本。从长远来看，无论你的游戏是付费还是免费，多数用户都会很快产生厌倦之心，所以你的目标就是尽可能地虏获长期用户。要抓住长期用户的心，建立强大的用户基础，推行免费政策是一个极为重要的优势。免费应用的下载及使用率比付费应用多6.6倍，再加上口碑营销和病毒式传播的推动作用，这种策略甚至有可能决定你的游戏究竟是跻身应用商店前100榜单，还是跌至谷底无人问津。 免费策略也是一种鼓励用户尝试游戏的好方法，其效果甚至超过了应用商店对游戏的描述内容。

免费是一种新的用户获取渠道，从在线文件存储器到Android杀毒软件等各个领域都可窥见其优势。这种趋势已经蔓延至各种游戏类型，从AAA级MMORPG到独立手机游戏概莫能外。在2011年3月，免费游戏在iPhone游戏的1亿次下载量中所占份额超过80.8%。也许有人会认为，多数免费下载量根本没有转化为真正的收益，但相关数据表明事实并非如此——在iOS前100名游戏营收榜单中，免费游戏创造的收益占65%。除此之外，该平台应用前100名营收榜单中，游戏所占比例达75%，这种现象表明手机游戏影响力不容小觑。但这类游戏的广告eCPM仍然很低，在营收上也仍未超越付费应用。所以也许有人会问：那么免费游戏的发展究竟从何而来？如何才能从中分得一杯羹？答案就是IAP（应用内置付费）模式。

in app purchase(from altdevblogaday)

为什么要采用IAP模式？

在2011年4月份的App Store前150名免费游戏中，有94款游戏（或称64%）采用IAP模式进行创收。IAP是虚拟商品领域最近广为采用的模式，这种趋势盛行的原因多种多样，但表现最为显著的是用户花真钱买道具的现象。在Zynga倡导这种模式之前，许多玩家对花真钱玩免费游戏的理念颇为怀疑，但自从《FarmVille》大获成功之后，不少游戏都开始采用这种模式，而玩家也开始适应这种消费理念。但对新付费用户来说，支付障碍却真是个门槛。这也正是iOS用户一般付费意愿更高（游戏邦注：因为苹果已经绑定了他们的信用卡），而谷歌努力解决Android平台这个问题的原因所在。假如开发商采纳了用户所选择的支付服务，那就相对比较容易促使用户花钱消费。

但值得注意的是，多数用户购买的IAP内容并非“耐用品”，68%被用户购得的IAP属于易消耗品，即那种用于加快游戏进程，或者短时间发挥作用之后，一用即尽的道具。这表明植入这种IAP产品的游戏无需推出新内容，就能让用户通过自然消耗游戏虚拟货币，或重复使用临时性加速道具而创造大量收入。这也正是IAP模式最具诱惑性的地方：你的游戏在用户眼里再也不会有一个封顶价格。

在过去，发行商只能通过实体店零售视频游戏，用户只能根据而游戏包装或宣传声势决定是否要花钱买下游戏。不管在他们看来，游戏究竟是价值5美元还是500美元，他们都无法掌握游戏的定价权，所以通常不得不花50美元买下游戏。如果最后发现游戏根本不值50美元，就只能自认倒霉，并且这些游戏除了原来的50美元之外，也无法再从用户身上获得任何收益。但现在有了IAP模式，玩家就算看不到游戏的价值也能乐在其中，并向好友提起这款游戏。现在铁杆级玩家在自己钟爱的游戏中豪掷1万美元的事情已不再是奇闻。这些“鲸鱼”玩家为当代手机游戏创造了半数以上的IAP收益，他们通常会为一款游戏消费20美元以上。假如平均每款iPhone付费应用售价为3.62美元，你就有可能通过IAP模式赚到比付费下载多5倍的收益。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Why your game needs to be free-to-play

Tyler York

You work your tail off to build a great game. You put in hundreds of hours. From storyboarding to coding to calls with the designer to guerrilla marketing to gameplay testing to bug fixing, you pour sweat and tears into your baby. And now you want your customers to PAY for it? What are you, crazy?

But why shouldn’t I, you say. Building a game is significantly harder than a one-off web app that engineers can churn out themselves in a weekend, and those engineers charge for them. Building a game takes all of the challenges of coding and throws art, writing, and marketing on top of it. Why am I being punished for building the tougher product?

Sadly, to quote Ben Horowitz, nobody cares. Or at least your customers don’t. They saw your game had a great 4.5 star rating, immaculately written marketing copy, a bevy of beautiful gameplay screenshots, and even a snazzy app icon. They still aren’t convinced: they need to try it before they buy it. In dramatic fashion, users are flocking to free-to-play games and if your game isn’t free, you’re going to be left behind.

So why give it away for free? Honestly, the best way to think of your free users is as a marketing expense. Over the long term, the majority of users will stop using your app rather quickly whether it is paid or free, so your goal is to find as many of those long term users as possible. When trying to build a large user base to find these long term users, being free is a tremendous advantage. Free apps will get downloaded & used up to 6.6 times more than paid apps, and since this effect is compounded by word-of-mouth and viral channels, this can be the difference between your game joining the vaunted Top 100 list or being left in the basement of the App Store for eternity. Being free is also a great way to get users to try your game and convey your game’s vision far better than an app store description ever could.

Free is the new customer acquisition channel for anything from online file storage to Android anti-virus. This trend encompasses all types of games as well, from AAA MMORPGs all the way down to indie mobile games. Free games accounted for over 80.8% of the almost 100 million iPhone game downloads in March 2011. While one may think that the majority of these free downloads never convert to real dollars, the data shows otherwise: freemium games now account for 65% of the revenue generated by the top 100 grossing games on iOS. Furthermore, 75% of these top 100 grossing apps are games, showing that mobile gaming is stronger than ever. Yet these staggering numbers have appeared as advertising eCPMs remain low and rarely beat out paid apps in revenue. You may ask: where is this growth coming from and how can I get a piece of it? The answer is in-app purchases.

Why In-App Purchases?

Of the top 150 free games on the App Store as of April 2011, 94 games or 63% of these games were using in-app purchases to monetize their userbase. In-app purchases have exploded onto the virtual goods scene recently, and while there are a number of factors that contribute to this trend, the most prominent is increased user familiarity with paying real-money for in-game items. Paying real money to play a free game is a concept that would have made most users balk before Zynga pioneered the approaches and hooks that made this behavior more appealing to players.
In the years since Farmville’s runaway success, countless games have adopted this model and players are far more comfortable parting with their cash for a game they enjoy. However, signup friction is still a key barrier to entry for the new buyer. This is highlighted by the fact that iOS users are more willing to part with their money because Apple already holds their credit card, and that Google is making big movesto fix this problem on Android. Once a user is signed up with a payment provider that is plug-and-play for developers, it becomes much easier to get them to spring for a level pack or Broadsword of Awesomeness.

However, it’s interesting to note that the majority of in-app purchases are actually not a Broadsword of any sort. Recent studies have shown that 68% of in-app purchases are consumable items, which are things that speed up or shortcut gameplay and are destroyed after use. This means that games powered by in-app purchases can show residual earnings without new content because players will pay for generic in-game currency or temporary boosts repeatedly. This is the coolest part about using an in-app purchases model: there is no longer a price ceiling on what a user thinks your game is worth.

In the past, shipping a console game would entail sales in retail stores, and users would either pay full price for the game upfront or not, based on it’s packaging and marketing buzz. Whether they found the game worth $5 or $500, they would always be forced into paying the $50 price tag and were not able to price themselves. Users that did not see the full $50 value in their game ended up disappointed, and games did not make any additional money from players that valued the game far above $50. Now, with in-app purchases, players that don’t find value in a game can still enjoy it and spread the word to their friends, and it is not unheard of for dedicated players to spend over $10,000 on their favorite game. These “whales” account for over half of all in-app purchase revenue in modern mobile games and by definition spend over $20 per purchase. Considering that the average paid iPhone app costs $3.62, you’ve actually earned over 5X more from this cohort by allowing users to price themselves.（source:altdevblogaday）