作者：Mark Rose

基于数字商品设计营收模式似乎有些过于直白。创造富有吸引力的产品，让用户能够购买增值内容，以提高自己的游戏体验，然后在一旁计算交易量。

经验告诉我们，这没有那么简单。众多注意事项汇聚成成功战略，各注意点都意味着利润和损失之间的差异。

digital goods from groupbuyingsite.com

下面是推动数字商品模式可行性的5点建议：

1. 把握视觉营销的艺术

将虚拟货币商品化存在相应技巧，但我们很容易就会忽略基本要素。常见错误是过度依赖虚拟货币，在此所有价格层级都有相同价值（10:100美元层级，20:200美元层级，30:300美元层级等）。

学习如下3个商品化虚拟货币的黄金法则：

a. 提供较低价格点（<5美元）和较高价格点（约100美元或更多）能够促进初次购买——通过初次购买“打破僵局”非常重要。高价格点在“锚定”更廉价的选择，将它们的价值合理化方面发挥重要作用。例如，初次游戏的玩家也许会犹豫是否要花费99美元，但若是被用作较高锚定价格，它促使29美元的选择变成更“明智”的消费。

b. 将受欢迎价格点定位于平均价格之上。随着时间的流逝，这能够通过将玩家吸引至“热门”选项，进而提高平均价格标准。

c. 融入“最佳价值”选项。归根到底：玩家重视价值。

2. 避免混乱的付费墙

普遍看法是，你所添加的各个付费方式都能够帮你获得增值收益。

遗憾的是，许多发行商都极力想要遵循这一规则，但忽略设计元素。最终结果是带来混乱的付款页面，在此导出比导入要简单许多。修复方法？向用户展示巧妙设计和相关付费选择。你很快就能够从中创收，添加新内容。

3. 设计更杰出的付费体验

付款页面逐步变得越来越混乱已是司空见惯的现象——尽管也许是出于正面意图。

经常会发生这种情况：刚发行时，付费页面非常整洁、直观，呈流线型模式。顺利完成——收集200美元。但在短短几周里，就出现添加包含客户服务选项的文本或植入法律小组的认证语言的请求。

这些类型的请求依次出现，很快付款页面就会遍布免责声明、警告和提醒内容。

修复办法？查看市场导向的付款页面以及辨别其直观性。用户应该只需登录一次，必填内容应明确标记，公认信任符号（游戏邦注：如获得Visa认证）应非常突显。

在数字商品领域，优先考虑的是快速、简单且安全的付款方式。确保付费过程流畅且具有功能性，你将能够促使玩家持续返回。

4. 避免给予过多或过少虚拟货币

游戏开发者犯下的一个简单错误是，给予你更多虚拟货币。你也许会想，“有什么方式比赠予虚拟货币更能够吸引玩家？”

虽然玩家会很快享受于零成本的付费功能，但他们多半不会想要以额外成本购买虚拟货币。与此相反，分配过少虚拟货币也会带来问题。

我们经常看到的是，发行商提供通过赚取的虚拟货币，例如经验积分和付费虚拟货币——这是个杰出策略。赚取货币和付费获得的货币之间的心理和机制差异远超乎你的想象。

就经验来说，我们通过提供小批量付费虚拟货币获得显著成果——在此用户能够获得心理利益以及把握运行方式的机制过程。

经历付费虚拟货币过程1-2次，能够让购买虚拟货币操作变得更普遍、自然及具有可能性。

5. 只需点击一下就能“购买更多”

如今多数游戏通过虚拟货币创收。虚拟货币成为促使游戏引擎持续运转的“燃料”。

但我们很难在玩法过程中找到虚拟货币的平衡关系。

下面是两个需要遵循的简单规则：

a. 在各玩法页面上显示虚拟货币总数。将虚拟货币指示器看作是汽车的里程计（游戏邦注：永远存在）。

b. 在虚拟货币选项旁边添加“+”或“add more”链接/按键，鼓励和促进消费活动。

通过将消费活动嵌入应用中或变得移动化进而优化整个体验过程，这样玩家无需离开游戏环境就能够进行付费。

上述内容的根本要素是：在付费方面，简单性至关重要。玩家期望获得无缝隙体验，在此他们能够轻松找到自己所需的内容，然后进行购买。（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）

Selling digital goods is a science — here are 5 tips for getting it right

By Mark Rose

Designing a revenue model based on digital goods might seem straightforward. Create a compelling product, give users a way to buy incremental content to improve their gaming experience, then sit back and count the transactions.

Experience tells us it’s not that simple.  A number of considerations feed into a successful strategy, and each of them can mean the difference between profits and losses.

Here are 5 tips on getting the digital goods mode to work:

1. Understand the Art of Visual Merchandising

There’s an art to merchandizing virtual currency, but it’s easy to miss the basics. A common mistake is becoming too structured with virtual currency, where all price points have the same value ($10:100 Points, $20:200 Points, $30:300 Points, etc.).

Learn the three golden rules when merchandising virtual currency:

a. Offer a low price point (<$5) and a high price point (~$100, or more). A low price point will encourage the first purchase — “breaking the ice” with the first purchase is critical.  A high price point is important for “anchoring” the more affordable options and rationalizing their value.  For example, a first-time gamer might be hesitant to spend $99, but when used as a higher anchor price, it makes the $29 option appear to be a more “sensible” purchase.

b. Position the most popular price point just above the average price. Over time this helps drive up the average price by drawing gamers to the “popular” options.

c. Include a “best value” option.  Bottom-line: gamers appreciate value.

2. Avoid the Muddled Payment Wall

The common wisdom is that every payment method you add will earn you incremental revenue.

Unfortunately, many publishers do their best to follow the rule, but disregard design. The result is a cluttered checkout page that’s easier to navigate out of than navigate through.The fix?  Show users a smart design and relevant payment options, and you’ll quickly monetize users and add new ones.

3. Design an Even Better Checkout Experience

It’s common for a checkout page to quickly clutter over time — and it can happen even with the best intentions.

It works like this. At launch, the checkout page is clean, intuitive, and streamlined. Pass Go – collect $200. Within a few short weeks requests are coming in to add text with customer service options or integrate certification language from the legal team.

These type of requests come one after another, and soon the checkout page looks unnecessarily cluttered with disclaimers, caveats, and warnings.

The fix? Look at market-leading checkout pages and recognize how intuitive they’ve become. Users should only have to log-in once, required fields should be well marked, and recognized trust symbols (i.e. Verified by Visa) should be made prominent.

In the digital goods space, the priority is a fast, easy, and secure checkout. Make it frictionless and functional, and you’ll keep gamers coming back.

4. Stop Giving Away Too Much or Too Little Virtual Currency

An easy mistake for game developers is giving away too much virtual currency. You may be thinking, “What better way to attract an audience than giving away virtual currency?”

But while gamers will quickly enjoy the premium features at no cost, they may be less inclined to purchase virtual currency at an additional cost. In contrast, dispensing too little virtual currency can also lead to problems.

It’s also not uncommon to see publishers offer an earned virtual currency, e.g. experience points, and a paid virtual currency — and that’s an excellent strategy. However, the psychological and mechanical divide between earned currency and paying for currency is larger than you might think.

Through experience, we’ve seen strong results by offering a small amount of paid virtual currency — where users can receive the psychological benefit as well as understand the mechanical routine of how it works.

Going through the process of paid virtual currency once or twice makes the act of buying virtual currency more familiar, natural, and probable.

5. “Buy More” Should only be One Click Away

Most games today monetize using virtual currency. Virtual currency has become the “gas” that keeps the game engine running.

However, it’s often hard to find the virtual currency balance during game play.

Here are two simple rules to follow:

a. Make virtual currency totals available and visible on every page of game play. Think of the virtual currency indicator as the speedometer on a car – ever present.

b. Next to your virtual currency option add a “+” or “add more” link/button to encourage and facilitate purchases.

Get bonus points by making the purchase experience in-app or mobile, so gamers don’t have to leave the gaming environment to make payments.

I’ve outlined five steps to improving your in-game monetization process, and the underlying theme to them all is this: simplicity is paramount when it comes to checking out. Gamers expect a frictionless experience, where it’s easy to find what they need and purchase what they want.（Source：venturebeat）