作者：Yaniv Nizan

鉴于现在的工作，经常会有开发者来找我询问有关其应用内部购买商店产品的定价问题。这真的是一个很棒的问题。一方面，如果你的定价过高的话，人们便不会愿意购买，但是如果你的定价又过低，你便赚不到多少钱。

你的目标ARPU是多少？

我通常会问自己的第一个问题是怎样才算较高的ARPU。 怎样的每用户平均收益才算成功？这里存在着一些方法：

你认为自己的游戏对于一般用户来说的价值是什么？它是值25美分，50美分，1美元还是5美元——这是否符合你的目标。

pricing(from legalfutures)

怎样的ARPU才能让你赚取足够的钱用于用户获取？广告成本除以新用户数量便是用户获取成本（CAC）。根据用户位置，这一成本的范围一般在0.5美元至2美元之间，但是如果你的游戏是基于社交性或病毒式传播，那么新用户便会为你带来更多用户，从而减少了有效的CAC。如果你的ARPU高于CAC，你便能够快速衡量游戏。

还有谁会削减你的收益？你可能需要给苹果和谷歌30%的收益分成。还有其他人吗？发行商？服务提供者？如果这样的话，你就需要想办法提高ARPU去维持运营利润。

你的购买比例

有多少用户会最终选择购买？这是你的转化率或购买率。大多数游戏会吸引0.5%至5%的用户进行消费。这取决于多种元素，而如果你的游戏获得广泛认知并且你的用户已经存在于游戏中很长时间了，那么这种购买比例便会大大增加。

将目标ARPU和购买比例作为定价基准

我将使用一些共事的开发者的真实案例进行解释。我曾经遇到一位开发者，他的最初盈利理念是销售1美元的额外关卡包以及收取1美元去删除广告。他表示将创造更多关卡包，并仍使用1美元的定价标准。假设他将创造4个不同的关卡包：他能从用户手上赚取的最大利益为5美元，但是平均收益可能为2美元。让我们将其称为每付费用户平均收益（ARPPU）。基于2美元的ARPPU，即使他的游戏能够转换高达2%的用户，ARPU最终也只能达到0.04美元。如果该开发者已经尝试着去明确他的目标ARPU，那么0.04美元绝对不是他想要获得的回报。

另外一个例子是关于一位开发者想要在无尽奔跑游戏中添加“拯救我”的作弊机制。在免费游戏中，作弊其实非常危险，这可能变成一把双刃剑。如果你让用户能够轻松地购买作弊机制，那么游戏便会变得非常简单，从而导致玩家失去游戏兴趣。他关于销售“拯救我”的想法就是以1美元的价格销售1个工具工具包（游戏邦注：包括25种道具）。而我认为如果有人购买了一包他本来会在游戏最后才获得的“拯救我”的工具，那么游戏将会变得不再有挑战性。如此即使ARPPU为1美元，最高转换率为5%，那么ARPU也只有0.02美元。这并不是他的游戏的真正价值。

通过定价获得一个稳定的ARPPU

关于定价问题的答案其实取决于实际的游戏。你可以开始估算目标ARPPU。如果你想要到达0.5美元的ARPU并期待获得2%的转换率，你的没付费用户就需要支付25美元的金钱，这便意味着有些人可能会花50美元。你可以先尝试着提供几个选择，在游戏发行前让用户帮助进行测试，并明确这些选择是否有意义，同时始终将目标ARPPU当成你的基准。以下是你在执行这些行动时需要记住的事：

1.单一的用户道具和能量机制将帮助游戏变得更具有吸引力，并为一系列的购买创造基础

2.可升级的道具将带给用户前进感，并引导着他们多次消费

3.基于难度曲线去平衡道具能量

4.让用户能够思考自己的选择——不要给予用户过多货币去购买所有内容

5.在付费用户身上重复第4个步骤。也许这看起来很奇怪，但是如果付费用户能够轻松地获得所有内容，游戏也就失去了乐趣。

（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）

How To Price your In-App Purchase Items – Real Life Examples

by Yaniv Nizan

Being where we are and doing what we do, developers often come to me and ask for advice about pricing their In-App Purchase Store Items. This is a very good question. On one side, if you price too high, people might not buy while if you price too low, you will not be earning as much as you can.

What’s your Target ARPU?

The first question I always try to ask myself is what will be a good target ARPU. What average revenue per user will be considered a success? There are a few ways to go at it:

What do you think your game is worth to the average user? Is it worth 25 cents, 50 cents, $1, $5 – that’s a good indication of what you should be aiming for.

What ARPU will allow you to spend money back on user acquisition? The cost of advertising when divided by the number of new users is often considered the customer acquisition cost (CAC). This cost ranges between $0.5 and $2 depending on the location of the user but if your game is social and viral the new users will bring more users and will reduce the effective CAC. If your ARPU is higher than your CAC you can scale your game quickly.

Who else is taking a cut in your revenue? You are probably giving 30% away to Apple and Google. If you find a way around that please share it with us . Is there anyone else? Publisher? Service Provider? If you do, you might need to increase your ARPU to maintain operational margins.

Your Purchase Ratio

How many out of your users will end up buying? This is your conversion ratio or purchase ratio. Most games get between 0.5% and 5% of your users to purchase. This depends on many factors but usually grows if your game is well recognized and if users play a long time in it.

Using the Target ARPU and Purchase Ratio as a Benchmark for Pricing

I’m going to explain this one with a few real life example from the developers working with us. One developer came to me when his initial thought about monetizing his game was to sell an extra level pack for $1 and remove ads for another $1. Down the line, he said, I’ll make more level packs and will sell them for $1 as well. Let’s do the quick math on this one assuming he will make 4 different level packs: The maximum amount he can earn from a user will be $5 but the average will probably be more like $2. Let’s call this one the Average Revenue Per Paying User (ARPPU). With an ARPPU of $2, even if his game is able to convert a whooping 2% of the users the ARPU will reach only $0.04. If this developer would have tried to figure out his target ARPU – $0.04 is not the number he would have returned with – not in a million years.

Another example, is from a developer who thought about selling a “Save Me” cheat in an endless runner. Cheats are very dangerous in F2P games as they can become double edged swords. If you let users buy cheats too easily the game will become too easy and users will lose interest in your game. His thought about selling the “Save Me” was to sell a pack of 25 for $1. My argument was that if someone buys a pack of 25 “Save Me” that will be the last thing he will buy in the game. The game will simply not be challenging enough with so much cheating power. If this is true, then the ARPPU is $1 and even with a maximal conversion ratio of 5% the ARPU will only be $0.02. This is not what his game is worth.

Pricing to Reach a Solid ARPPU

The answer to the pricing question is really dependent on the actual game. You should start by calculating the Target ARPPU. If your want to reach a $0.5 ARPU and are expecting a 2% conversion ratio, your average paying user will need to pay $25 which means that some of them will pay as much as $50 (yes, that happens – get over it). Start by playing around with a few options, test them with users before launch and see what makes sense while using the Target ARRPU as your benchmark. Here are a few things to keep in mind while you do that:

1.Single Use Items and Energy mechanics help make the game more addictive and create a base for a stream of purchases

2.Upgradable items that have levels can give users a sense of progress that leads to multiple purchases

3.Balance the power of the items you are selling against the difficulty curve

4.Make the user think about his options – never allow a user to get enough coins to buy everything

5.Repeat #4 for paying users. As odd as it may seem, paying users will get bored if they can buy everything.

Will be happy to discuss more about this or any other game economy design topic. You can find me at Google Plus Yaniv Nizan, the SOOMLA blog or on Twitter.（source：gamasutra）