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社交游戏如何最大化玩家的终身价值?

发布时间:2013-03-01 14:38:45 Tags:,,,,

假设你正在开发一款社交游戏,现在准备从中盈利。

那么你应该考虑哪些问题?谁会真的在游戏中买东西?你在游戏中的投入能够换来多少回报?

这些都是社交游戏开发者会提到的问题,答案只有一个:看情况。我知道这个答案太笼统了,但事实就是如此。因为可行与不可行之间的微妙平衡就是要取决于多种变量,例如:游戏类型、市场、时机、游戏玩法、营销预算和病毒渠道等。

社交游戏不可避免地需要依赖变化无常的社交网络平台。对此初创游戏工作室能做的就是保持敏捷性,并在加大投入之前进针对营销活动进行a/b测试。这不但可以帮助你节省时间和金钱,还可以让你收集到可用于优化产品的即时数据。

virtual goods(from blogspot)

virtual goods(from blogspot)

尽管如此,你仍得考虑以下一些情况:

*你提供的必须是有意义的虚拟商品

不能因为你已经创建了一款社交游戏,并且在其中的商店中填充了你自认为很棒/很酷的东西,就指望玩家会为其掏钱——无论你的游戏中有多少用户。虚拟商品必须有助于增强与游戏相关的用户体验,而为了做到这一点,你得先明白其中原因。为何玩家会在游戏中购买某项虚拟商品?只有理解了玩家的购买动机,你才能更好地将其整合到社交游戏中。

损害商品能否热卖并无一定的准则。

虚拟商品的需求和人气要取决于你开发的游戏类型。不要局限于“赌场积分”、“农场游戏中的种子”这种常规设想,而要想想“有机会赢得头等大奖的彩票券”或“农场的超级化肥”等有助于增强玩家体验的虚拟商品。

设计师应确保游戏中的虚拟经济并非事后添加的内容,而要在一开始就将其视为游戏玩法和用户体验的一部分进行考虑。

*谁会购买虚拟商品?

调查研究显示,仅有一小部分玩家会真正在社交游戏中掏钱(游戏邦注:但这并不意味着非付费玩家就毫无价值)。

在一款普通的社交游戏中,2-4%用户会在其中消费。而在社交博彩游戏中,付费用户比例则可能高达6-7%。

付费玩家也同样各有特点,在此我们可以将其划分为5种类型:

*鲸鱼:终身价值(LTV)超过500美元

*鲨鱼:LTV达100美元的忠实用户

*海豚:仅在首月玩游戏时掏钱,LTV为20美元

*小鱼:仅消费一次,LTV为5美元

*浮游生物:从来不掏钱(在玩家群体中占比96-98%)

分析这些数据:

通过分析数据,你可以发现如何最大化游戏销售额。

由此我们可以得知忠实用户(鲨鱼)的价值比一次性消费者(小鱼)多25倍,也清楚如果玩家进行了一笔交易,他们就更有可能融入游戏中,也就更有可能再次购买虚拟商品。问题是:我们该如何将小鱼转化为鲨鱼?只有理解了这一点,你才能去探索将海豚转化为鲸鱼的方法。

总结:

人们为何购买虚拟商品?

在社交游戏领域,人们购买虚拟商品的一个主要原因就是加强自己的体验。强化自己的虚拟体验包括升级工具、节省时间、变得更强大、更好看等等。

为何要使用虚拟货币?

1)区分“价值”与“成本”的差别;

2)人们在潜意识中认为虚拟货币比“真钱”更“便宜”;

3)能够更灵活地引导用户行为;

4)创建一个经济系统并推广赠礼、分享、帮助等用户生成内容。

简而言之就是:

*让游戏获得更多用户(浮游生物)——获取用户

*将更多用户转化为消费者(浮游生物->小鱼)——转化

*让消费者掏出更多钱(小鱼->海豚)——留存

*取悦高消费用户(鲨鱼&鲸鱼)——增值

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

Maximize the Lifetime Value of a Social Game Player

You have been working on your social game, and now you are ready to start making some money from it.

What are some of the things you need to think about? Who will actually purchase something? What can you expect to make for how much money you put in?

These are all questions a social game developer will ask at some point, and the answer is: it depends. I know this answer is vague, but couldn’t be more true. The delicate balance between what will work and what will not is highly dependent on so many variables that include things as: type of game, market, timing, game play, marketing budget, viral channels etc.

Also it doesn’t help that social games are reliant on the ever-changing landscape of social networks either. The best thing a start-up game studio can do is to remain as agile as possible and to a/b test all marketing campaign efforts before scaling up ad spend. This will not only help you save time and money but will also allow you to collect real time data which can be used to refine your product to what the market is telling you it wants.

With this said however, there are still a few key tips that you will still need to think about:

Your virtual goods need to make sense

Just because you have built a social game and have stocked your store with what you think are the coolest & best looking virtual goods does not mean that people will buy them – regardless of how many users you throw at your game. Virtual goods need to make sense to a user’s experience in relation to the game and in order to do that, you need to first understand the why before the what. Why will your players want to buy a virtual good in your game? By understanding players motives, it will make it much easier for you to integrate this into your social game.

There is no one fit solution to knowing what virtual goods will sell and which will not.

The demand and popularity of virtual goods will depend on the type of game you are building. Go beyond the basics, e.g:, ‘Coins in a Casino’, ‘Seeds in a Farm game’, and think instead something that will enhance a players experience such as ‘Lottery Tickets to a Casino’s progressive jackpot’ or ‘Super grow fertilizer for the Farm’.

As a game designer it is very important to make sure that your virtual economy is not an after thought but an integrated component in the actual game play and user experience.

Who buys Virtual Goods?

Studies show that only a small fraction of players will actually put any money into a social game at all. (Make note, this does not mean non-paying players have no value, because they do – I will save this for a future post).

You can expect in a general social game, 2-4% of your user base to make an in-game purchase. For social casinos, we have seen research that suggests as high as 6-7%.

The amount of money of a paying type of customer also varies which we have divided into 5 segments to give you a better example:

Whales: Have a lifetime value (LTV) of over $500

Sharks: Loyal repeat users who have a LTV of $100

Dolphins: Spend in the first month only, LTV of $20

Fish: make only one purchase, LTV of $5

Plankton: never spend any money (makes up 96-98% of your entire player base)

Analyzing this data:

By analyzing this data, it will help you think about how to engineer your game to maximize sales.

From this we know that a repeat customer (Shark), has a 25x value of a one-time purchaser (Fish). We also know that once a player has made a single purchase, they are most likely engaged in your game, meaning it is generally easier for them to buy again. Ask: So what can we do to convert these Fish to Sharks? and from there, you can then ask yourself what can we do to turn these dolphins into whales?

Wrap up:

Why do people buy Virtual Goods?

In the social game world, the main reason people buy virtual goods is to enhance their experience. Enhancing their virtual experience includes such things as upgrade tools, saving time, being more powerful, looking better.

Why Virtual Currency?

1) Distinguish the difference between ‘Value’ & ‘Cost’.

2) Virtual currency is perceptively ‘cheaper’ than ‘money’

3) More flexibility to train user behavior

4) Builds an economy and promotes user generated content such as gifting, sharing, helping

In a Nutshell:

Get more users into the game (plankton)  — aka acquisition

Convert more users into spenders (plankton > fish)  — aka conversion

Get spenders to spend more (fish > dolphins) — aka retention

Serve & keep your big spenders happy (sharks & whales) — aka value add(source:luckyladygames


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