作者：Tero Kuittinen

蓬勃发展的手机游戏行业与传统的主机游戏行业大相径庭，因为后者开发预算大、生产周期长且游戏寿命短。2012年的游戏业拉开了竞争序幕，规模小而运作灵活的iOS应用开发商推出新产品概念，准备与迪士尼和Zynga这样的行业巨人展开较量。

Mountain Sheep是芬兰的一家小型开发商，旗下仅七名员工。2012年二月，该团队的游戏新作《热血冰球》（Ice Rage）闯进了美国iPhone游戏的前十强，其独立开发的这第三款手机游戏为Mountain Sheep树立了新的里程碑。在此之前，《迷你血战》（Minigore）和《摩托男爵》（Bike Baron）双双突破100万美元收益，而《热血冰球》也将再创辉煌。接下来我们来看看几组数字。

Ice Rage(from forums.toucharcade.com)

*低开发成本=数月内的巨大收益。《摩托男爵》大概是Mountain Sheep最知名的一款游戏。本作首发于2011年。开发成本大约是15万美元，创造75万次下载量，收益超过50万美元，游戏内道具收益更是超过100万美元。

*生产周期缩短。开发《摩托男爵》历时12个月；开发《热血冰球》仅需1个月——开发成本降至3万美元因为Mountain Sheep调整了开发重心，将精力放在定期更新上，因为现在的手机游戏都需要时常更新来维持热度。Kimmo Vihola是Mountain Sheep的管理总监，他估计生产一款普通的手机游戏大约需1万5千美元成本。一次普通的更新可以稳定1个月左右的销售。有些游戏依靠特别吸引人的拓展包，甚至保持了1到2年的销售峰值。

*玩家创造内容。付费版的《摩托男爵》共有80个关卡。Mountain Sheep开放关卡编辑软件，支持狂热的粉丝们创造自己的关卡。7万个关卡从粉丝手中诞生了，大大延长了游戏寿命。有了草根们的大力支持，《摩托男爵》在包括美国在内的65个国家中荣登头号iPhone游戏。

*拓展包复活游戏。2010年10月，《摩托男爵》跻身美国iPhone游戏前10名榜单；又于同年11月滑出前200名；12月份凭借新内容再次闯进前100强；2012年1月又跑出前200名；1.5版本发行后将排名保持在120名左右；2月1日发行1.6版本回归前100名。

《迷你血战》首发于2009年7月，于同年8月占据美国iPhone游戏榜单第6名；5个月后因僵尸主题拓展包和一段时期的免费下载而猛冲到第2名；2011年3月下降至第21名。随后的几波更新又创造了销售高峰。2011年12月，《迷你血战》仍然位居第52名，此时距首发已经30个月了。对主机游戏来说，这种寿命几乎是不可能达到的——《马里奥赛车》（Mario Kart）每年12月在日本的销售反弹大概是罕见的例外。

*多种价格策略。有些开发商一开始选择免费模式，将赌注压在游戏道具出售上。有些开发商只收费6到9个月，之后将游戏转为免费增值模式。有些开发商坚持对每款游戏收费0.99美元，即使那游戏已经有些年头了，在购买前玩家可以免费试玩一段时间。Mountain Sheep的做法是，开展4天免费下载《迷你血战》的促销活动。据Vihola所言，游戏内道具销售在这短短的4天时间内猛增了4倍。甚至在游戏转为标价0.99美元时，这个活动仍然对下载量产生深远的影响。最终，成功的开发商投入拓展包开发的成本虽然有限，但却可以创造足以维持数年盈利的内容。

《热血冰球》的一个有趣的特点是局域多人游戏模式。两名玩家可以各执iPad的一端进行比赛。迅速增长的iPad用户数量使开发商得以玩转两种非常不同的设备——显示屏较小的iPhone和拥有社交游戏潜力的iPad。开发商必须根据最佳iPad体验的图象质感的新标准来设计游戏。然而，作为主要收益来源的iPhone，游戏角色一定不能太小。 Mountain Sheep在对今春发行的新游戏进行最后的润色时，希望在游戏内道具销售机制上有所创新。

这是让欧洲和美国游戏开发商都关注的主题。手机游戏发行后的第一或第二个月，过半数的收益产生于游戏内道具销售。所以，游戏内道具销售是改进盈利增长策略的关键所在。

老一辈游戏巨头如迪士尼和EA能否适应手机游戏的生态系统，然后从行业新贵们当中杀出一条血路呢？此时，迪士尼的《Where’s My Water?》带着它的品牌角色“沼泽鳄鱼”雄据美国iPhone游戏榜单的第1名。

但最长寿的前20名游戏却是出身于古怪的小工作室。《水果忍者》、《愤怒的小鸟》、《割绳子》和《涂鸦跳跃》在发布了500至900天以后仍然势头强劲。《热血冰球》和《坦克英雄》强势回归iPhone游戏榜单前十强——这两者分别来自芬兰和加拿大的小型独立工作室。

2012年，行业巨人和新手都聚集在手机游戏市场，希望通过改进产品开发策略获得优势。今年，游戏机游戏的十年市场竞争将浓缩为一场智慧的闪电战。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2012年2月14日，所涉事件及数据均以当时为准。（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 Revenue Math

by Tero Kuittinen

The booming mobile game industry is a very different creature than the old console game business with its big development budgets, long product cycles and short game life spans. The year 2012 kicks off with small, nimble iOS app developers experimenting with new product concepts and trying to fend off mammoths like Disney and Zynga.

Last week marked a new milestone for Mountain Sheep, a tiny Finnish developer with seven employees. “Ice Rage”, its latest title, broke into the Top Ten of iPhone games in the United States. This is the third mobile game Mountain Sheep has developed solo. “Minigore” and “Bike Baron” both cracked the 1 $M revenue barrier and “Ice Rage” is on track to repeat the feat. Let’s take a look at the math.

Low development costs = a tidy profit within months. “Bike Baron” is perhaps the best-known Mountain Sheep game. It debuted in October 2011. Development tab was roughly $150’000. In three months, “Bike Baron” generated 750’000 paid downloads, grossing more than $500’000. With in-game purchases, total revenue topped $1M.

Bike Baron

Production cycle is speeding up. Developing “Bike Baron” took twelve months. Developing “Ice Rage” took just one month – and development cost tumbled to $30’000 as Mountain Sheeplearning how to fine-tune production. Shifting resources to regular updates makes sense, because mobile games are now a software service that requires upgrades as often as once a month to maintain momentum. Producing an average mobile game expansion costs roughly $15’000, estimates Kimmo Vihola, Managing Director of Mountain Sheep. An average update stabilizes sales for a month or so; a superior update actually creates a substantial increase in sales. Some games hit peak sales 1-2 years after the launch, on the back of a particularly appealing expansion package.

Community creates content. Paid version of “Bike Baron” features 80 levels. Mountain Sheep hands out level editing software, which enables aficionados to create their own levels. 70’000 levels have been created by fans, extending the life span of the game. Grass roots support made “Bike Baron” a Number One iPhone game in 65 countries, including USA.

Expansion packs keep the game alive… In October 2010, “Bike Baron” hit the iPhone Top Ten mobile game chart in United States. It slipped out of Top 200 in late November. New content jacked it back to Top 100 in December. It slipped out of Top 200 again in January – and with the help of Version 1.5, returned to around #120. Version 1.6 on February 1 pushed it back to Top 100.
… a long, long time. An earlier game called “Minigore” debuted in July 2009 and became Number 6 iPhone game in the United States in August. It rebounded to Number 2 five months later – and then returned to Number 21 in March 2011, buoyed by a zombie-themed expansion and a period of free distribution. Several subsequent waves of updates created substantial sales spikes. “Minigore” was still able to reclaim the Number 52 position in December 2011, 30 months after its debut. This sort of longevity is almost impossible to achieve in the console game market – the nearest example is probably the Mario Kart sales rebounds in Japan during the December of each year.

A plethora of pricing strategies. Some developers opt for free-to-play approach from the start, betting big on in-game purchases. Some charge a fee for 6-9 months and then move to the freemium model. Some keep charging $0.99 even for aging titles, offering limited free-to-play periods. For “Minigore”, Mountain Sheep opted for 4-day promotional campaigns of free game downloads. According to Vihola, these short periods can quadruple the in-game purchase revenue. They have a long-term impact on download volumes even after the game returns to the $0.99 price slot.  Eventually, a successful developer can create a stable of properties that continue generating revenue for years with limited development cost for expansion packages.

One interesting feature of “Ice Rage” is the local multiplayer option. Two gamers can have a match holding the opposite ends of an iPad. The mushrooming iPad user base is pushing developers into juggling two very different devices – the iPhone with its tiny display and the iPad with its potential for social gaming. Games have to be designed with a new level of graphical finesse for optimal iPad experience. Yet the characters can’t be too tiny for iPhone, the major revenue source. Mountain Sheep is currently putting finishing touches on a new game launching this spring. It is expected to feature novel in-game purchasing mechanics.

This is a theme both European and US game developers are buzzing about in 2012; the Holy Grail of the industry is creating completely new methods of persuading consumers to spend money inside a game. After the first month or two, more than half of the mobile game revenue is typically generated by in-game purchases. This is the key area for refining revenue growth strategies.

Will old giants like Disney and Electronic Arts end up adapting to the mobile game ecosystem and push the upstarts aside? At the moment, Disney’s heavily marketed “Where’s My Water?” with its eminently franchisable Swampy the Alligator is the Number One iPhone game in America. Sleek and heavily marketed corporate franchises like Real Steel, Madden NFL, NBA and Scramble have lodged into Top Twenty.

But Top Twenty games with most longevity still come from quirky, small studios. “Fruit Ninja”, “Angry Birds”, “Cut the Rope” and “Doodle Jump” still look strong, 500-900 days after their launches. Just over the past week, “Ice Rage” and “Tank Hero” have stormed the iPhone Top Ten game chart – and this duo was created by tiny, independent houses in Finland and Canada.

In 2012, both corporate behemoths and a flurry of tiny boutique salamanders are swarming around the mobile game market, trying to gain an edge by evolving their product development strategies. This year is going to be like a decade of console game market competition compressed into a rapid battle of wits.(source:forbes)