本次的话题是上一个话题“如何营销儿童应用”的延伸。激烈辩论的双方分别是Applifier公司倡导者Oscar Clark和nDreams公司首席执行官Patrick O’Luanaigh。

Patrick O’Luanaigh（nDreams首席执行官）

我认为儿童应用的最理想模式就是带付费墙（游戏邦注：这是一种“计量收费”模式，即玩游戏到达一定次数或时间后将向玩家收费）的样本（DEMO）。我知道这是一种老模式，现在不流行了，但我觉得它最理想。

父母可以让子女不花任何钱就玩到游戏，游戏中不会每隔几分钟就弹出让父母烦恼的99美元的IAP。孩子玩游戏，假如游戏够好，达到付费墙，家长就不得不妥协了。如果家长知道游戏不错，能够全程观看孩子的游戏情况并“诊疗”游戏，再加上孩子自己也喜欢，那么一次性付点费用也值得。

提高游戏的重玩价值，这样孩子就可以重复玩，直到家长让步——同意购买。

apps for kids(from techradar.com)

Oscar Clark（Applifier倡导者）

得了吧，Patrick，我们都知道DEMO不管用——在Jesse Schell的《Releasing a Game Demo Can Cut Sales in Half》一文中，他指出使用DEMO宣传游戏反而导致XBOX的销量减半。这是因为玩完DEMO，人们对游戏的期待已经得到满足，而要让他们购买完整的游戏，你必须重新激发他们的兴趣。

问题是，我们现在考虑的是IAP（IAP并不邪恶！），而不是提供服务。

相反地，我们必须意识到，这笔交易涉及两种不同的消费者——孩子（消费娱乐的人）和家长（看门人和价值的最终裁决者）。我们必须明确双方的需要，同时给双方提供好处。

Moshi和Club Penguin在订阅服务方面都做得很好（至少有一阵子）。但我不敢肯定那就是理想的。我认为，更有意义的方法可能是允许父母使用游戏钱包作为对子女的奖励。举一个教育游戏的例子，孩子玩游戏获得成就，父母得到子女的进度报告。

另一个例子是，家长设置游戏钱包定时发放定量的钱，但把钱花在哪里又成问题了——但父母可以通过奖励良好行为培养子女的“资源管理”能力。

老实说，也许我们还可以做得更简单一些，也就是让消费点更加清楚和直接——让孩子向父母展示游戏，以及告诉家长和孩子双方能通过购买得到什么好处。

不要跟玩家或家长提钱，只要向他们体现价值就行了……事实上，这不正是我们要做的吗！信任能大大刺激重复消费。

这就是为什么每一次听到开发者说想为孩子制作游戏时，我就感到幻灭。这种话很傻很天真。当向作为成年人的父母（代表孩子的立场）营销时，压力绝对很大。比处理IAP还困难。儿童游戏要显得可靠、可信、安全，一点点邪恶都会让游戏完蛋。如果你没有用真诚的态度来推销你的产品给不同的受众……那你最好别在儿童游戏这行干了。因为你最终会失败。

Patrick O’Luanaigh

不敢苟同。我不认为XBOX数据与儿童使用iPad而父母决定消费有关，如果IAP在儿童游戏中被禁止（我认为是可能的），那才可能是唯一明智的选择……

Oscar Clark

好吧，这个数据只针对XBOX——但也印证了PC和手机游戏。我的记忆很混乱，但我相信从一度免费玩（基本上就是DEMO）到PSHome的转化率通常是相当低的—-不过你知道得比我清楚。

就像免费模式使DEMO极难成功，因为那需通过玩DEMO对游戏产生更大的体验期待。但问题是，在我们玩DEMO的时候，我们的情绪正好达到“期待低谷期”。

（Gartner宣传周期）

上图反映了一个行业的发展过程，但它也体现了“期待低谷期”等于“买家后悔”的个体“消费行为”。要让玩家从意识、兴趣、渴望达到做出购买行为的阀值，玩家必须对游戏抱有很高的期待值。如果购买游戏符合我所说的这个循环，那么一旦我们放出DEMO，我们就会发现玩家掉进“低谷”，因为玩家的期待在他们体验真正的游戏时没有得到满足。让他们的期待值达到全额购买完整游戏的程度是非常困难的。那就是为什么预告片更可行，因为增加了玩家的期待值。我们永远不能指望游戏通过DEMO到达“复兴期”，因为那需要玩家体验游戏的更多部分，但又导致值得购买的部分减少。达到第一次微交易的阀值比较容易，特别是因为它们往往价格低且持续性强（游戏邦注：可以重复，不需要限制内容访问以做成DEMO）。

我不是说，你认为这种可能比其他选择更好就是错的——我只是想点出这种做法的问题和难度。我们都知道大部分DEMO都是在开发末期才做的。

如果你说的禁止针对儿童的IAP（在我看来是很令人震惊的，但我承认并非不可能）是正确的，我认为整个市场可胃因此崩溃。

我认为，问题不是我们是否应该使用微交易，而是我们如何负责任地使用。这就好像用炸药炸鱼与用钓鱼杆钓鱼——我想我们都知道哪一种做法更可持续，哪一种做法会导致环境污染和资源浪费。

Patrick O’Luanaigh

我认为孩子购买游戏的情况是完全不同的。他们不会看预告片（我想，甚至绝大部分儿童手机/平板游戏也都没有预告片）。他们不会对iOS发布翘首以待，不会有玩DEMO时产生的期待。游戏机和成人玩家也是这样的。但根据我的经验，孩子只是在苹果应用商店上搜索然后下载他们觉得不错又不花钱的东西。唯一能让他们花钱的是他们熟知的IP和他们的伙伴推荐的游戏。

Oscar Clark

我不知道那与我所说的是否矛盾。对比我的经历和我女儿的行为，似乎跟你所描述的情况非常接近。她正是搜索应用商店找免费游戏的。她问我能不能购买游戏内的道具——尽管这很少发生。她也看Youtube上的游戏视频和视频广告……

有趣的是，她能接受广告，不过她认为广告是没有意义的；虽然如果有广告和IAP，她确实会感到生气 。总之，她不想在游戏上花钱。

我的消费习惯与她类似，只是我能以更加专业的眼光看待新游戏罢了。我唯一做得不够的事就是，通过Youtube发现新游戏。尽管我认为Everyplay视频是一种寻找能够刺激我对新游戏产生期待的好办法，而DEMO达不到这样的效果。当然，我说这个不是为了发表对Everyplay的看法。（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）

[Gamesbriefers] Should you market children’s apps with demos or trailers?

By Gamesbriefers

This fascinating debate between evangelist Oscar Clark and CEO Patrick O’Luanaigh emerged as a side-note to a recent Gamesbriefers thread about how to monetise children’s apps

Patrick O’Luanaigh CEO of nDreams

I think the best model for children’s apps is a demo with a paywall. I know it’s an old model and not in vogue, but I think it’s ideal.

Parents can let their kids try the game without paying anything, knowing it won’t hit them with $99 in-app bundle offers every few minutes. The kids play the game, and providing it’s good, hit the paywall and pester mum and dad. The parents know that it’s a good game, they’ve been able to watch the kids playing it and ‘vet’ it, the kids clearly love it, and it’s a small one-off fee.

And make the game replayable, so kids can keep replaying the initial section until Mum and Dad give in.

Oscar Clark Evangelist for Applifier

Come now Patrick, we know that demos dont work… there was some data from Jesse Schell on how for XBOX they deliver half the sales of a game compared to a trailer… it’s because all the anticipation of the game is satisfied and you have to start again to get the excitement needed to buy the full thing.

The problem is that we are thinking like about in-app purchases (which aren’t evil!) rather than about delivering services.

Instead we need to realise that there are two different customers. The child (who consumes play/entertainment) and the parent (who acts as gateway and final arbiter of value). We have to understand the needs of both and deliver goods that align well with both.

Moshi and Club Penguin both worked well (at least for a time) with a subscription service. But I’m not sure that’s really ideal. I suspect that a more interesting approach would be to have a built in method for the parent to use the game wallet as a reward system for their child. One example for educational game could be where kids playing the game get achievements which are relevant to play and parents get a report on their progress on the material and a breakdown of what that means for their development.

Another example might be a wallet parents set up a subscription which releases a regular small amounts into the game, but where spending itself becomes a lesson in ‘resource management’; and where parents can top that up by giving children star’s for good behaviour.

To be honest perhaps we could be even simpler than this by making the purchase points clear & simple with a parent friendly message asking the child to show the parent and telling them both what to expect from the purchase.

Don’t nickel & dime players or parents, just show them where the value is… actually shouldn’t we do that anyway! Trust is a great motivation to repeated spending.

This is why I despair everytime I hear a developer say “I want to make a game for my kids”. Its usually naive and foolish. There is a burden of due diligence when selling to parents (on behalf of kids) above that of selling to adults. It goes beyond the way we handle in-app purchases. Its about being reliable, safe, trusted and trust worthy and you can’t afford to be evil. If you don’t have a trusted attitude sell your wares to a different audience… better yet file for bankruptcy; you’ll have to eventually.

Patrick O’Luanaigh CEO of nDreams

Let’s disagree on that. I don’t think Xbox data is relevent to children using iPads where parents make the purchasing decision, and if in-app purchases are banned for children’s games in some territories (which I think it possible), it may be the only sensible option….

Oscar Clark Evangelist for Applifier

Ok this data was just XBOX – but it supports my experiences on PC and mobile too. My memory is clouded but I also believe that the conversion from a one-time free play (i.e. essentially a demo) in PSHome was generally pretty low too – however you will know better than me.

Like going ‘Free’ making successful demos is extremely challenging and requires using that experience to build up a level of anticipation and expectation from unlocking the bigger experience. The trouble is that the moment we play the demo we hit the ‘Trough of Disillusionment’

The Gartner Hype Cycle was created to reflect the hype stage of an industry but it also reflects individual ’Purchase behaviour’ where ‘Trough of Disillusionment’ equates to ‘Buyer Remorse’. We need high expectations to get past the thresholds of Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action to make any purchase. If a purchase follows this cycle as I suggest, then once we give a demo we find users dropping down into the ‘Trough’ as there is no space for anticipation when we experience the reality of the game. Getting their anticipation level back up to the point needed to achieve the full price purchase will be extremely challenging. That’s why Trailers can be more successful as they simply reinforce expectations. We never get to the Slope of Enlightenment with a demo as to be able to do that we have to experience so much of the game that there would be little left to purchase. Getting to the threshold for the first micro-payment is less challenging not least as they tend to be lower in price and is more sustainable where it can repeat and we don’t need to restrict access to the content to form the demo.

I’m not saying that you are wrong that this might be better than some other options – I just want to highlight the problems this entails and that its not an easy choice. And we all remember how late in the development cycle most demo’s are built.

If you are right and in-app purchases to children were to be banned (which would in my view be colossal over-reaction–but I admit not impossible) I believe that will impoverish the market as a whole.

For me the issue is not about if we should use micro-transactions, its about how we use them responsibly. It’s a bit like comparing fishing with dynamite vs fishing with a line – I think we know which one is sustainable and which one leads to the most damage and waste.

Patrick O’Luanaigh CEO of nDreams

I guess I just don’t think children buy games in the same way at all. They don’t watch trailers (I think the vast majority of kids mobille/tablet games don’t even have trailers). They don’t look forward to iOS releases and have expectations that can be knocked back when they play a demo. I think it makes sense on console and for adult gamers. But in my experience, kids just search on the AppStore and download stuff that looks cool and isn’t “paid for”. The only paid-for stuff they buy are IPs they know and games that have been recommended by their friends.

Oscar Clark Evangelist for Applifier

Not sure if that’s contradictory to what I’m saying or not. Going by what I’ve seen and what my daughter does it seems very similar to how you describe it. She crawls through apps stores to find free games, plays them and asks me for permission to buy in-game stuff – although that’s very rare. She also looks at Youtube videos of games and of course video ads…

Interestingly she has no problem with ads although she considers them to be pointless from her perspective; although if there are ads and in-game purchases she does find it annoying. All that being said she is never really one to spend money on games.

My purchase habits are similar, although of course I have more exposure to new games professionally. The only thing I don’t do enough of is use YouTube to find new content. Although I am finding Everyplay video to be an amazing way to find new games that stimulates my anticipation in a way a demo never could. Honestly I wasn’t trying to make a point about Everyplay when I started this thread!(source:gamesbrief)