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浅析3个追踪游戏表现的参数定义

发布时间:2013-04-26 09:58:21 Tags:,,,,,

作者:Bjorn Fant

你的游戏表现如何?下载量达到顶峰,现在每天都有稳定流量,并从Paypal或苹果进帐大笔收益。一切看起来都很美好,其实不然。

下载量,新用户,应用内置付费(IAP)及其他流量数据都只是一些华而不实的参数。它们可以用来满足开发者的虚荣心,但却无助于指引方向。

我们观察自己的游戏时,应该学会找到a)获取新用户以及b)让这些用户付费之后的动力所在。免费游戏与付费游戏(基于下载付费或订阅费用)之间存在巨大差异,在此我将着重以免费游戏为例。

ltv(from lloydmelnick)

ltv(from lloydmelnick)

留存率——用户是否重返游戏?

相信你之前已经听过这个术语。它是指多少人在今天注册,明天、后天甚至一周后再次返回。假如他们没有在首周返回游戏,很可能再也不会重玩你的游戏了。你的游戏应该力争让20%-45%的用户在一周之后重返游戏,如果留存率低于这一数据,那你的游戏就真的需要再加把劲了。

这听起来也像是一种“虚荣”参数?并非如此。我们可以使用这一数据查明用户很可能在什么时候接纳我们的游戏。它也有助于开发者展开营销活动,测试游戏新功能。添加Facebook登录系统会增加还是减少用户回头率?应该何时向用户发出推送通知或邮件?

用户获取成本 & 每用户平均收益

如果你真想让游戏获得发展,那就很可能付费获得新玩家。付费获得用户的唯一有效时间就是当你能够获得回头用户之时。这非常简单。

用户获取成本 < 每用户平均收益

为计算每用户平均收益(ARPU),你需要理解用户生命周期(LTV)的概念。关于LTV的定义有许多说法,但这绝对不是指用户在生物学意义上的寿命。它是用户在你的游戏中所投入的总体时间,一般是2至12个月(游戏邦注:这要取决于游戏的具体情况)。一般的iOS用户生命周期为3个月左右。那么你将从第1天到第90天从用户身上获得多少钱?为什么?为了增加ARPU,你可以调整和测试游戏中的销售内容,努力最大化商品需求。

关于用户获取成本(UAC)的说法也不尽相同。移动和网络广告平台一般通过每安装付费来考虑这一成本。而Facebook等社交网站及谷歌通常是依据每点击付费来衡量这一成本,虽然这会增加你计算的复杂度,但却仍然算是可行做法。

我们尝试将付费获取与非付费获取分开说明,因为这很难衡量。非付费获取用户来自病毒传播渠道(人们向自己认识的人推荐),PR以及人们自己从目录中找到你的游戏。

请注意:UAC与ARPU都要针对整个用户群体进行统计,而不仅仅是瞄准25%的活跃玩家。因为获取成本取决于整体用户,开发者就需要获得足够的付费用户以抵偿这一成本,最好还能够从中获得利润。(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

The vital metrics we track for our games

by Bjorn Fant

The following blog was, unless otherwise noted, independently written by a member of Gamasutra’s game development community. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Gamasutra or its parent company.

Want to write your own blog post on Gamasutra? It’s easy! Click here to get started. Your post could be featured on Gamasutra’s home page, right alongside our award-winning articles and news stories.

How is your game doing? Number of game downloads have peaked and now at a steady rate each day.  Money is coming in as batches from Paypal or Apple. All is good. Well, not really.

Downloads, New users, In-app purchases and other traffic stats are vanity metrics. They are good for your ego but not for actions. Read more about the difference in this post by Eric Ries on the Four hour blog.

When we look at our games we need to see learn about the driving forces behind a) getting new users onboard and b) getting these users to pay. There is a massive difference between freemium games and games were you charge a download fee or subscription fee. I will focus on freemium in this post.

Retention – Are the users coming back?

You’ve heard this one before. But what does it mean? It’s how many people that sign up today, come back tomorrow, the day after and the week after. This is enough for most games. It’s very
likely that if they are not back after the first week, they will not play your game ever again.  You should aim at somewhere between 20%-45% of the users returning after one week. If it’s lower
than that, you need a better game.

But hey that sounds like a vanity metric, right? Well not really. We use this data to pinpoint when users are most likely to adopt our game. It’s also useful for marketing bursts and testing new features. Will adding a Facebook login increase or decrease returning users? When do we push notifications or emails to the users?

User Acquisition Cost AND Average Revenue Per User

If you are serious about growing your game, you will most likely pay to get more players. The only time it’s valid to pay for users is of course when you can get a return on that player. It’s
really quite simple.

User Acquisition Cost < Average Revenue Per User

For calculating Average Revenue per User (ARPU) you need to have a comprehension of the users Lifetime value (LTV). The opinion differs on how you define LTV but I believe it’s not the time that passes until your user dies. It’s the lifetime the user spends with your game, and this usually reaches from 2 to 12 months, depending on your game. Say maybe 3 months for an average iOS-game.

What money will you get from your user day 1 to 90 and why? To increase your ARPU, you can tweak and test what you charge for and try to pinpoint when the need for these goods are the greatest.

User Acquisition Cost (UAC) varies between different sources. Advertising networks for mobile and web are usually based on a Pay per Install basis. That’s fine and rather easy to enter in your
spreadsheet UAC. Social networks like Facebook and Google offers this measurement too but usually charges per click, which add one level of complexity to your calculation, but it’s still doable.

We try to separate the paid acquisition from the non-paid acquisition, as it is not as easy to measure. Non-paid user acquisition comes from virality (people telling their friends), PR and people generally discovering your game in directories and such. The art of creating a viral game is left for another blog post.

Please note that both UAC and ARPU need to be calculated on the entire user base, not just the 25% active players. As acquisition costs are based on all users, the paying users need to pay for this cost and hopefully some profit.(source:gamasutra


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