作者：Michail Katkoff

如今的免费游戏主导着最畅销游戏排行榜单，并促使一些传统付费游戏也开始添加应用内部付费机制（IAP）。但事实上，如果只是在一款售价0.99美元的游戏上添加IAP并不能帮助它变成畅销游戏。因为这些游戏缺少了免费经济元素。它们并未拥有像刷任务循环等核心机制。

但并不是说一切就已成定局。如果你拥有稳定的用户留存率，并且分析数据表示玩家很热衷于刷内容，那么你便可以通过出售玩家所需要的内容而赚钱了。迪士尼的《小鳄鱼爱洗澡》便是如此。

Where_s My Water（from blogspot）

欢迎屏幕

欢迎屏幕应该保持尽可能的简单。只要包含基本按键便可以：游戏和交叉推广，而不需要呈现任何有关商店，排行榜，选择，或twitter和Facebook等按键。因为这些按键只会白占空间但却不能生成任何行动——至少我从未看到有人支持在欢迎屏幕上设置这些按键。

从盈利角度来看，简单的欢迎屏幕能够帮助你真正将报价呈现在玩家面前。无论是交叉推广，销售还是可下载内容，只有当屏幕上不再出现任何不相关的按键，你的核心内容才能真正体现出来，并吸引更多用户去下载应用。

关卡选择

这可能是最难利用的空间。传统的游戏都是将所有交叉推广，病毒性和商店按键都整合到欢迎屏幕上，而当玩家按压游戏按键时，他们便会清楚所有报价。

从盈利角度来看，如果能在玩家玩游戏的过程中，而不是开始游戏前提供相关内容也许会更有效。以下便是《小鳄鱼爱洗澡》的关卡选择流：

Flow（from blogspot）

1.欢迎屏幕

玩家在这里做出选择：进入游戏，检查更多游戏或利用正在进行的推广行动。

2.游戏

这是一款真正带有多个关卡包的付费游戏。

3.内容包1（付费）

这是第一个内容包，突出了一些来自真正游戏的全新且未看过的内容（游戏邦注：如新角色，游戏类型等等）。玩家可以进入内容包并测试前几个关卡的一些内容。

4.内容包2（付费）

这是第二个内容包，并且与第一个内容包一样，它也突出了一些从未看过的新内容。虽然这个内容包中的关卡还不多，但是我们将迎来更多新关卡（尽快开始销售并添加内容）。第二个内容包的定价与第一个内容包一样，玩家可以选择购买第一个，第二个还是两个一起购买。

5.免费关卡

这里有一些更新的免费关卡，并且有可能提高游戏的用户留存。在关卡选择视角上它们被放置在付费内容之后，所以玩家将先看到付费内容再注意到免费内容。

6.下载免费版本

这是我们最新的游戏。利用技术，你可以在玩家点击游戏或开始下载内容时将他们带到应用商店。

游戏礼物

推动着玩家去购买游戏并将游戏当成礼物一样呈献给他们并不是什么坏事。

给付费内容定价

如果你的付费游戏定价0.99美元，那么传统付费内容的定价也是0.99美元。但是逻辑思维和虚拟内容的定价几乎没有共同之处。所以我的建议是，将付费内容的定价翻倍，因为收益的增加将能控制游戏的用户转换率。

让我们看看下面的表格。如果定价从0.99美元升到1.99美元，那么转换率必须减半达到收支平衡点。而不管是0.99美元还是1.99美元的定价，IAP的需求都是非常有弹性的。

A/B测试将引导你设定最合适的价格点。而如果你没有能力进行A/B测试，那就每个价格点试运行几天，并基于最终销量做出最后的决定。最重要的是你无需害怕去测试各种不同的价格。

切忌强迫；注重诱惑

将付费内容锁定在购买按键后并不是一种好的销售方式。相反地，游戏应该给予玩家一定的选择，让他们自己决定是否开始玩付费内容。只有前面的几个关卡能够诱惑玩家，并且基于这种方法将能大大提高游戏的转换率。

接受付费内容

在付费游戏中添加付费内容能够在不破坏游戏的前提下提升游戏收益。游戏呈现付费内容的方式决定着游戏最终的转换率。开发者必须确保有效设置了欢迎屏幕和关卡选择。同时，刺激需求也能够推动付费内容明显地区别于传统游戏。

（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）

Where’s My Water and the Art of Selling Paid Content

By Michail Katkoff

Freemium games are ruling the top grossing charts so well that even all the traditional paid games are now having IAPs. But the fact is that adding IAPs into a game, which was designed as a $0.99 app to be played off-line seldom makes the game any better nor transforms it into a top grossing title. These games just lack the freemium economies. They don’t have the core loops with infinite sinks and grinding loops.

But all is not lost. In case you have a solid retention and the analytics are showing that players are rigorously grinding through the content it is time to make money buy selling what your player demand – content. And Disney’s Where’s My Water sure knows how to sell content!

The Welcome Screen

The welcome screen should be as minimalistic as possible. It is enough to include the essential buttons: play & cross promote. No need for shop, leader-boards, option or those big twitter and facebook buttons. They just take the space without generating any actions – at least I haven’t seen any supporting numbers for having those buttons on the welcome screen.

From a monetization view having a minimalistic welcome screen gives you the opportunity to truly push an offer to the players. Be it a cross promotion, sale or downloadable content – when the screen isn’t cluttered with irrelevant buttons your slide-in banner truly pops out and generates those much appreciated downloads.

The Level Selector

This is probably the most un-utilized space. Typically all the cross-promotion, virality and shop buttons are shoved into the Welcome Screen and once players press the play button they are clear from all the offers.

From the monetization perspective it’s just so much more efficient to offer players content while they are playing and not while they’re trying to start playing. Below is the level selector flow from Where’s My Water, which in my opinion is simply unrivaled.

1. Welcome Screen

Players option in this view: get into the game, check out more games or take advantage of ongoing promotion.

2. The Game

This is the actual paid game with several level packs.

3. Content Pack 1 (Paid)

This is a first content pack featuring something new and unseen from the actual game (new character, game type etc.) Players can enter the content pack and test out few of the first levels.

4. Content Pack 2 (Paid)

This is the second content pack and as the first one, it also features something new and unseen. There are bit less levels in this content pack but more levels are coming (start selling as soon as possible and keep adding content). Price is still the same as with the first content pack and players can choose whether they will purchase the first, the second or both of the content packs.

5. Free Levels

Here are some additional free levels that are updated once a while the increase the retention. They are placed after the paid content in level selector view so that players will take a look at the paid content on their way to the free content.

6. Download Free Version

Here’s our newest game. Depending on the technology you can either take the player to the app store when they click on the title or simply start content download from the level selector view.

+ Gift the game

Doesn’t hurt to offer players to buy the game and send it as a gift

Pricing the Paid Content

In case your paid game costs $0.99 the logical price for additional paid content would be also $0.99. But logical thinking and pricing of virtual content have very little in-common. Instead my suggestion is to at least double the price of paid content simply because the increase in revenue tends to overpower the dip in conversion.

Just see the table below. In case where price is doubled from $0.99 to $1.99 the conversion has to be halved to reach the break even point. And at price points of $0.99 and $1.99 the IAP demand is without exception very inelastic.

The A/B tests will guide you to the optimal price point. And in case you don’t have the power to do A/B tests, just run different prices for few days for each price point and make the decision based on sales you make. Most important thing here is that you aren’t afraid of testing with different prices.

Don’t push; rather lure

Locking paid content behind BUY buttons is not the best way to sell them. Instead give players an option to start playing the paid content. Few first levels will hook a good portion of them and the conversion will be far better this way.

Embrace the paid content

Adding paid content into a paid title has the potential to significantly increase the revenue from the game without breaking it. The way the paid content is offered plays a major role in conversion. You have to make sure you make good use of the welcome screen and the level selector. At the same time to drive the demand it’s also important to make the paid content somewhat different from the regular game – be it graphics or a tweak in the gameplay. Good luck with adding the paid content, I’m sure you’ll be happy with the additional revenue.(source:blogspot)