作者：Jon Jordan

在我眼中，Glu Mobile是西方手机游戏产业的领头军。

经历了兼并与重命名（游戏邦注：前身为Macrospace，Sorrent和Superscape），这家纳斯达克上市公司（GLUU）已经专注于手机游戏长达十年，并经历了各种趋势变化，包括Java，电影授权，运营商，中国市场，智能手机以及现在的免费游戏。

这家美国上市公司总是能够清晰地呈现出其每个月的市场份额变化。但是其竞争对手，如EA Mobile或Gameloft却都未曾具有这般透明度。

特别是最近几年，该公司更是将透明度落实到极致，即最大化地提供了有关游戏运营的相关信息。

这也是我为何推迟讨论Glu该季度（于11月2日公开）收益成果的一大原因。

苹果的影响

Glu的第三季度收益受到了“疲软的市场境况”的重创。

也许你会认为在当前“手机游戏蓬勃发展”的环境下出现这种情况很可笑，但是这些问题的确影响着作为市场领头者以及市值达1.6亿的Glu，以及该领域的其它公司。

特别是苹果仍将继续抑制iOS平台上的奖励安装行为。Tapjoy服务通常成为这一话题中的众矢之的，但广告商和盈利服务公司也常采用类似的方法。

Glu预计，苹果所采取的这些行动有可能让他们第四季度的销售额损失175万美元。

每一家面向iOS平台（这仍是拥有最高每用户收益的平台）运营行游戏的公司都将受到同样的影响。

盈利

更让人担忧的问题还是各大应用商店间不断提升的竞争性，而不断涌现出的更多游戏的成功主要也是取决于用户留存及其盈利。

着眼于2012年6月的转化率，我们可以发现Glu旗下表现最佳的游戏便是面向女性玩家的《Stardom》。

glu-metrics-june2012（from pocketgamer）

这款游戏的每付费日活跃用户平均收益为13.2美分，而月活跃付费玩家占总玩家的3.9%。但是因为游戏所拥有的玩家数量并不多，所以约束了其生成更多收益的能力。

相反的，最近刚发行的《Deer Hunter》拥有比《Stardom》多出3倍的活跃用户，并且3.4%的用户的平均支付额为8.9美分。

3个月的下降

9月份的时候，《Stardom》的月活跃付费用户比值下降了三分之二，即只剩下1.1%；而《Deer Hunter》的下滑速度更加迅猛（只剩下1%了），与此同时其活跃用户指数也急剧下滑。

当然也有好消息，即Glu通过新游戏《血之荣耀：传奇》和《永恒战士2》吸引了大批玩家。

glu-metrics-september2012（from pocketgamer）

但是它们也可能引起产品互侵的情况，并且平均活跃付费玩家从1.7%下降到0.7%也不是一个好趋势，更别提苹果对于激励行为的镇压了。

成功率

Glu以及其它发行商所承受的另外一大压力便是，成就一款大热游戏变得越来越困难了。

如今每一家游戏公司都在发行自己的手机游戏，并且许多游戏都是面向Glu所侧重的年轻男性领域。

像Glu等公司都认为采取游戏组合的方法能够帮助他们以交叉推广的方式将新游戏呈现在现有玩家面前，同时更轻松地收集到玩家与游戏互动的相关信息。

这些因素再加上长久的测试能够有效地提高一款新游戏的成功率。

glu-original-ip-success（from pocketgamer）

但是Glu却能未印证这一事实，至少在过去一季度是这样的。就像我们所看到的，图中第三季度的灰色条框（代表失败）所占比例远远超过黄色条框（代表成功的游戏），这是在第二季度黄色条框所占比例高达75%之后所出现的下滑。

越来越多的投入

所有的这些问题再加上产业中所存在的结构问题，都让包括Glu在内的众多公司开始通过发行更多游戏去提高销量。

如GREE，DeNA，Gameloft，TinyCo，Gamevil以及Com2uS便都提高了发行率。

当然了，发行率的提高也意味着竞争变得更加激烈，并且游戏公司所面临的情境也会更加严峻。

所以这些公司的唯一选择便是花费更多资本去创造更高质量的游戏，购买更具吸引力的授权品牌或投入更多广告成本。

当然了，也有些公司认为这些问题只是针对于Glu，而他们自己则可以通过各种方法取得更棒的成绩。

但是我却认为对于大多数公司而言这是不大可能的事。

坚持

对于Glu的未来，我想他们必须投入更多的成本才能在接下来的一年中继续发展，所以该公司已经开始削减运营成本了。

同时，他们也开始考虑接下来发行的产品类型，例如将面向更能赚钱的PvP的游戏，同时还会包含该公司最成功的一款游戏《Gun Bros》的续集。

当然了，因为第四季度将迎来至关重要的假期季，所以该公司下一季度的盈利（也就是从10月份到12月份）有可能出现巨大的增长。

（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）

What Glu’s financials tell us about monetisation, competition, and success rates in mobile gaming

by Jon Jordan

In my opinion, Glu Mobile is the bellwether company for the western mobile gaming industry.

Created through various mergers and renamings (Macrospace, Sorrent, Superscape), the NASDAQ-quoted company (GLUU) has been focused on mobile gaming for a decade, riding the various trends – Java, movie licences, carrier focus, China expansion, smartphone – and now free-to-play gaming.

Equally importantly though those ‘interesting times’, as a US publicly-owned mobile gaming-only company, its financials have provided the clearest picture on how the market is developing month-on-month.

Competitors such as EA Mobile (financials obscured as part of EA corporate) or Gameloft (financials obscured by French accounting laws) don’t provide the same transparency.

Indeed, in recent years, the company has taken transparency to the extreme, providing a depth of information about its operations that’s almost too expansive.

That’s one of the reasons for my delay in considering its most recent quarter; announced 2 November.

Apple turbulence

As I explained in my headline then, Glu’s Q3 financials were hit by “a softening of market conditions”.

It might seem ridiculous in the context of the ‘current mobile gaming boom’, but as a bellwether, the issues now experienced by Glu – an innovative, globally-operating $160 million market cap company (at time of writing) – will come to impact many others in this space.

The most obvious – because Glu highlighted it – is Apple’s continuing hindrance to any incentivised consumer behaviour on iOS. Tapjoy is the company most often mentioned in this context, but such methods are used by many companies from advertisers to monetisation outlets.

Glu said Apple’s efforts in this area would knock $1.75 million off its Q4 sales predictions.

Every free-to-play company operating on iOS – still the highest grossing platform per user – will be similarly impacted.

Too many?

A more worrying general issue is the rising level of competition in the various app stores, and what this flood of games means in terms of the retention of players and their level of monetisation.

Looking at its conversion metrics for June 2012, Glu’s best performing game was the female-oriented Stardom.

Average revenue per paying daily active user was 13.2c with 3.9 percent of monthly active players paying. However, the game had a relative small audience, limiting its ability to generate absolute revenue.

In contrast, the latest Deer Hunter game had three times as many active players, 3.4 percent of whom paid at a reasonable rate of 8.9c.

Three month decline

Moving onto September, Stardom’s percent of active paying players was down two-thirds to 1.1 percent, while Deer Hunter had dropped further – a mere 1 percent – and its active audience had also collapsed.

Indeed, with the exception of Stardom, all of June’s games had experienced a decline in audience, ARPDAU, and the percent of monthly active players paying.

On the upside, Glu could point to big audiences for newer games Blood & Glory: Legend and Eternity Warriors II.

Potentially, they could have caused some cannabalisation, but a drop of 1.7 percent to 0.7 percent in terms of average active players prepared to spend money in games isn’t a good trend, especially combined with Apple clamping down on incentivisation.

Hit potential

Another warning sign for Glu – and other publishers – is how much harder it’s becoming to get a hit.

Every game company is now releasing mobile games; many of them in the same young male space that Glu inhabits.

Companies such as Glu argue that taking a portfolio approach enables them to cross-promote new games to their existing audience, also collecting data on how players interacted in their games.

These factors, combined with prolonged beta testing, should ensure the hit rate for new games rises.

However, this wasn’t Glu’s experience, at least during the past quarter. As you can see, the proportion of the grey bar (failures) to yellow (successful games) jumped in Q3, after hitting a low of 25 percent in Q2.

More and more

All these issues combined pose a structure problem for the industry, particularly as many companies – including Glu – continue to look to increases the volume of releases to increase sales.

Just look at the likes of GREE, DeNA, Gameloft, TinyCo, Gamevil and Com2uS, who are all increasing their release rates.

Of course, with everyone releasing more games, the competition gets more intense and the situation becomes worse.

Then, the only option is to spend more on developing higher quality games and/or buying high profile licences and/or spending more on advertising.

Of course, some companies will argue that these issues are specific to Glu and that they – through whatever means – can do better.

Personally, I think that’s unlikely for the vast majority.

Stuck to you?

As for Glu’s future, it’s got enough cash to see it through 2013, and it’s already started to trim its operating costs.

Meanwhile, its head of studios is considering the company’s portfolio of new releases that will focus on the highly lucrative PVP genre, and includes a sequel to one of the company’s most successful games Gun Bros.

Certainly, after the hope offered by what’s always been the key holiday season for mobile games, next quarter’s financials – covering October to December – will be fascinating to unpick.(source:pocketgamer)