作者：Peggy Albright

手机游戏开发者开始涉足最棘手的手机应用市场。虽然手机游戏市场充满希望，但它并没有给多数开发者带来显著的资金收益。此外，这片市场开始进入变更期，这将加剧竞争性。

据Newzoo最新调查显示，美国手机游戏用户共有1.01亿人。就全球范围来看，行业的收益非常显著。Juniper Research最近预测称，截止2016年，全球手机游戏市场的估值有望达到183亿美元。

有些公司在这片领域中发现真正的财富。例如，Rovio的《愤怒的小鸟》去年创收1亿美元，Zynga去年创收3.21亿美元。但这些只是个别成功案例，因为多数游戏开发者都在为极力创造有价值的收入而奋战。

Streaming Colour Studios发现，前20%的iOS开发者占据97%的App Store收益，有一半的苹果App Store开发者创造的收益还不到3000美元。谷歌Android游戏开发者的情况更是糟糕，因为Android应用更难创收。据Newzoo调查表示，iOS开发者的84%收益来自于iPad、iPhone和Android商店前200款高营收作品。

合并及日益激烈的竞争性

这一有利可图市场的竞争性促使手机游戏公司纷纷开始走向联合，有些公司斥巨资收购热门初创公司。日本手机游戏公司Gree International刚以2.1亿美元收购了Funzio Inc.，Zynga以1.8亿美元及3000万美元的员工安置费收购了OMGPOP。

企图变成未来收购目标的手机游戏开发者持续强化他们的商业战略，以提高自己的影响力。

Top Girl from article.wn.com

例如，CrowdStar（游戏邦注：公司刚在最近的融资中筹得1150万美元）之前曾在PC和手机平台发行社交游戏，公司的《时尚女孩》和《社交名媛》过去曾在应用商店的热门榜单置于靠前位置。公司最近放弃了自己的PC计划，专攻手机领域。他们认为手机游戏市场目前相当开放，是时候在此争取主导位置。

Social Girl from blog.games.com

CrowdStar创始人Suren Markosian表示，“这一领域没有主导者，所以人人都能够变成应用商店的主流开发者。我们相信自己能够实现这一目标。”

PC、掌机游戏公司瞄准手机领域

据Qualcomm高级内容及游戏主管Dave Durnil表示，PC和掌机游戏领域的高端和主流品牌公司准备扩展他们的手机战略，这将带来竞争压力及定价影响。

目前在这一领域中，主流游戏品牌公司都将知识产权授予手机开发者，目的是，待到游戏入驻PC和掌机平台之后，推出游戏的手机版本。Durnil预期，这些品牌公司未来将更多自行完成这些工作，他们开始推出在线多人游戏，允许采用不同类型设备的玩家相互进行较量。这些品牌公司将合理组织开发工作，这样PC、掌机或手机等平台的工作就能够同步进行，各平台的作品就能够同时入驻市场。Durnil表示，这一策略将先从搭载Windows 8和Windows RT系统的设备着手，然后扩展至Android和iOS产品。

Durnil预期这些品牌公司将就定价进行试验。许多玩家对于他们所热衷作品的高度忠诚能够让这些品牌公司避开免费增值模式，拟定高过常规下载费用的价位。可想而知，这将能够给游戏的价格带来积极影响。此外，品牌公司还能够利用手机平台的虚拟交易体验，给这些作品带来前所未有的诱人商业机会。

Durnil表示，“未来几年，我们将看到这些公司如何就他们的作品做出转变，采取什么定价结构，这将会非常有意思。”

免费增值模式&付费应用

创收和推广对游戏开发者来说非常有挑战性。付费下载-免费增值模式的转变势头将继续维持，越来越多开发者将积极通过虚拟交易机制进行创收，他们将更多借助广告渠道获取用户，创造收益。

GetJar创始人及执行总裁Ilja Laurs表示，80%的手机游戏只被玩家玩过一次，因此玩家多半会不愿意掏钱购买游戏。他表示，开发者的确应该避开付费应用：一次性付费应用和免费应用的比例是1:9。免费获得应用的用户其实更有价值，他们通常会购买虚拟商品，带来其他收益，而这些通常比一次性定价带来的收益高出10-50倍。

GetJar（游戏邦注：主要向开发者和广告商提供应用商店、创收及广告服务）最近引进虚拟货币机制，旨在简化游戏当中的微交易活动。在Laurs看来，这一方法将持续受到推崇，而且3年内，手机游戏当中一半的交易活动都将采用虚拟货币。

Laurs还认为，免费增值模式会促使开发者创造出更富有粘性的用户体验。他们需要以此更广泛地运用这一模式，这能够将用户带到更多创收机会面前。他觉得这一过程会提高应用质量和手机游戏市场。

免费增值模式需要开发者利用应用内部网络及各种其他营销和广告技巧获取用户，他们需要依靠广告创造收益。Laurs表示，因此，游戏开发者需要在手机营销领域创造出“最高消费的内容类型之一”。

鉴于手机游戏业务的重要性，更多供应商会迎合创收和广告解决方案的需求性。刚于去年9月成立的PlayHaven就是其中之一。他们还引进这样的平台：允许开发者利用辅助性应用内部消费活动、虚拟货币及产品折扣、推荐和广告之类的鼓励措施。（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）

Mobile game developers struggle to replicate Zynga’s success

By Peggy Albright

Mobile game developers are competing in one of the most difficult of all mobile application markets. Although the mobile game market is full of promise, it does not offer financial success to the vast majority of developers. The market is also entering a period of change, which will intensify competition.

Mobile games are played by 101 million people in the United States, according to a recent study by Newzoo. Worldwide, the revenues are substantial. Juniper Research recently projected that the global mobile games market will be worth $18.3 billion by 2016.

Some companies have found real riches in this market. Rovio’s Angry Birds, for example, brought in $100 million in revenues last year, and Zynga pulled in $321 million. Yet, that type of success is the exception rather than the rule, as most game developers struggle to make meaningful revenues.

Streaming Colour Studios has found that the top 20 percent of iOS developers earn 97 percent of App Store revenues and that half of all mobile games distributed via Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store produce less than $3,000 in revenues. The business is even more difficult for Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android game developers, because Android apps are harder to monetize. According to the Newzoo study, iOS developers generate 84 percent of revenues from the top 200 grossing games in iPad, iPhone and Android stores.

Consolidation and increasing competition

Competition for the lucrative market is driving mobile game companies to consolidate and some are paying substantial sums to acquire hot startups.  Gree International, a Japanese mobile game company, just purchased Funzio Inc. for $210 million, and Zynga just purchased OMGPOP for $180 million plus $30 million in employee-retention payments.

Mobile game developers that seek to become future acquisition targets are ramping up their business strategies to increase their influence.

CrowdStar for example, which just raised $11.5 million in a recent funding round, has previously offered social games for the PC as well as mobile devices and its Top Girl and Social Girl titles have enjoyed top app store rankings in the past. The company recently abandoned its PC efforts to work exclusively in mobile. It believes the mobile game market is wide open right now and that it is time to make a move for a leadership position.

“There is no single player that dominates the market, so anyone can emerge as the top player in the app store,” said Suren Markosian, founder of CrowdStar. “We believe we can do that.”

PC, console game companies look to mobile

Higher-end and major brands from the PC and console game industries are poised to expand their mobile strategies, and this could create competitive pressures as well as pricing impacts, according to Dave Durnil, director of advanced content and gaming at Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM).

So far in this sector, major game franchises have licensed their intellectual property to mobile developers to create mobile versions of games after the games have launched on PC and console platforms. Durnil expects these brands to begin taking more of that work in-house as they create online multi-player games that allow game participants who are using different types of devices to play against one another. The brands will orchestrate game development so that the work on all platforms, PC, console or mobile, will take place in parallel and the titles for each platform will come to market at the same time. The strategies will begin with devices that run on Windows 8 and Windows RT, and then expand to Android and iOS products, Durnil said.

Durnil expects these brands to experiment with pricing. The intense loyalty that many customers have for their favorite games may allow these brands to avoid the freemium model and charge more than the usual download fees. Conceivably, this could favorably influence prices of games in general. At the same time, the brands may also find the in-app purchasing experience used in mobile to offer a new and enticing business opportunity that is new to these products.

“It will be interesting in the next couple years to see how they bring those titles over and what their pricing structure is,” Durnil said.

Freemium model vs. paid apps

Monetization and distribution are generally challenging to game developers. The migration away from paid downloads to the freemium model is expected to continue and with that more and more developers will strive to monetize their games through in-app purchases and they’ll use advertising more to acquire users and generate revenues.

Ilja Laurs, the founder and executive chairman of GetJar, said that 80 percent of mobile games are played only once and therefore customers will always be reluctant to pay for games. Developers do have real motivation to avoid paid apps, he said: For every game that is sold for a price, nine are distributed for free. And those customers who acquire their apps for free are actually much more valuable, often yielding in-app purchase and other revenues that are 10 to 50 times higher in value than the price of an app.

GetJar, which offers its app store and monetization services as well as advertising services for developers and advertisers, recently introduced a virtual currency system to simplify the micro-transactions featured in games. Laurs believes this approach will continue to gain traction and that within three years, half of the transactions in mobile games will employ virtual currency.

Laurs also believes that the freemium model will motivate developers to create more engaging customer experiences. They will need to do this to promote ongoing usage that exposes customers to monetization opportunities. He believes this process will improve app quality and the mobile game market overall.

The freemium model does require developers to employ in-app networks and various other marketing and advertising techniques to acquire users and they need to derive income from advertising revenues. As a result, game developers are responsible for creating “one of the biggest spending categories among all advertisers” in the mobile marketing industry, Laurs said.

Given the magnitude of the mobile game business, more vendors will emerge to serve the need for monetization and advertising solutions.  PlayHaven, which launched in September, is one of these. It has introduced a platform that developers can use facilitate in-app purchases, virtual currency, incentives such as product discounts, recommendation and advertising.（Source：fiercedeveloper）