作者：Elad Natanson

游戏开发很有趣。

我所认识的手机游戏开发者虽然都喜欢游戏开发的过程，但最终目的还是推出一款具有盈利性的游戏，甚至是下一款《愤怒的小鸟》。

不幸的是，许多开发者太迟才开始考虑盈利设置的问题。

那么你该何时开始考虑盈利的问题？在我看来，答案就是，在游戏策划过程一开始的时候，有时甚至要赶在编写第一行代码之前。

让我们先消除游戏行业的一个误区——盈利并非一个肮脏的字眼。人人都需要养家糊口，因此为玩家提供购买游戏虚拟商品、升级内容的游戏开发者并没有欺骗玩家。他们只是提供了一种优化游戏体验，同时又能创造收益的方法，以便开发者继续开发更棒更丰富，更令人兴历的游戏。任何想指责虚拟商品是对玩家的敲诈行为的人，都应该先想想花卉市场——他们不也是出售数十天就枯萎的东西，创造了数十亿美元的财富吗？

angry-birds-ad-screenshot(from alejandromostajo)

1.在策划阶段就要考虑盈利问题

当你在纸巾（或笔记本、iPad）上勾勒手机游戏的轮廓时，就该在游戏设计中植入盈利系统。所以在编写故事的任何一句话，在编译玩法机制之前，就要开始考虑盈利机制在游戏中的地位。

在这个初期阶段，你就要向自己提出以下问题：

IAP能够让游戏体验更出色吗？那么你该出售哪些虚拟商品？哪些虚拟商品可以增添游戏情境？我该如何向游戏植入广告？

虽然盈利机会不能决定游戏故事情节或游戏机制，但在这些初期阶段就开始考虑如何植入盈利机制却是个重要的步骤。

2.在开发游戏之前估算盈利流

手机游戏开发工作室Playviews,Inc.,联合创始人Joseph Kim曾撰文列举了能够帮助游戏开发者在设计阶段插入变量的工具/图表，以便显示他们的游戏能否产生积极的收资回报/资源。Kim声称他发现许多手机游戏设计师根本不知道自己究竟在干什么，因此在确定如何实现游戏收益时做出了错误的决策。

Kim还指出不同游戏题材/类型的留存率非常相似，因此开发者可以假设特定题材的游戏留存率与同类题材的其他作品相似，这样更容易估算收益。

在分配营销预算（甚至是开发游戏）之前要了解游戏可能实现多少收益，这一点甚为关键。这正是为何预测收益来源的重要意义所在。你原先甚为得意的游戏如果预期收益流情况不妙，就要迫使开发者增加新盈利渠道以实现收益，否则就只能彻底抛弃整个项目。

3.确定你所瞄准的市场，并根据地区和平台进行本土化处理。

在手机游戏开发领域，本土化是一个关键环节。这意味着你必须兼顾游戏所瞄准的国家/地区，及其运行的设备/操作系统。

例如，iPhone和Android用户之间就存在诸多不同点。虽然（据comScore数据显示）Android智能手机用户规模远甚于iPhone，但后者用户收入普遍较高（41%的iPhone用户家庭收入超过10万美元，而Android用户的这一比例仅为24%）。iPhone用户比Android用户更乐于使用移动设备购物（二者比例为23% vs 17%）。从IAP盈利机制来看，牢记这些重要数据对手机游戏设计影响甚大。此外还要注意，平板电脑用户与手机用户也存在较大区别，用户更经常在平板电脑上消费。

除了平台和设备的不同，地理因素也是另一大影响因素。例如，据Newzoo数据所示，87%亚洲游戏玩家体验手机游戏，而美国手机游戏玩家比例仅为52%，仅47%的亚洲玩家会为游戏付费，美国手机游戏付费玩家比例则是36%。

仅仅在你所瞄准的国家/地区展开营销活动是不够的——游戏开发者必须根据自己所瞄准地区的语言，以及流行的游戏题材创造内容。

4.广告盈利并不仅局限于条幅广告

虽然对多数手机游戏发行商来说，IAP、升级道具以及虚拟商品是游戏主要收益来源，但也不应该忽视游戏内置广告的力量。许多手机游戏开发者就是通过移动广告实现了大量收益。

移动广告的规划也要及早进行，以确保在游戏中植入营销渠道。如果你认为移动广告只是在游戏中运行条幅广告，那就要三思了。开发者在规划盈利机制时，可以考虑多种不同的手机游戏广告类型。当用户需要升级或购买一件道具之时，就是展示有效广告的绝佳机会。

有一种颇受欢迎的游戏内置广告就是插页广告，在游戏自然转场时播放的富媒体广告。插页广告提供了比条幅广告更丰富的营销画面，因此能够产生比后者更好的粘性和转化率。

在游戏开发前需要考虑的另一个营销工具就是植入式广告。虽然多数游戏开发者希望像Rovio一样能够通过《愤怒的小鸟》授权玩具等周边产品实现大量收益，但也不要将植入式广告排除在外。

与许多游戏开发者共事的经历让我发现，他们多数人骨子里并非营销人员。但尽早在手机游戏中植入营销机制，的确能够影响手机游戏的收益大小。（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）

Mobile Game Development: When to Think of Monetization?

by Elad Natanson

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.

The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Game development is fun.

Among the mobile game developers I know and work with, though they enjoy the game development process, they’re looking for a profitable game at the end of their efforts, maybe even the next Angry Birds.

Unfortunately, too many developers wait too long to start thinking of monetization.

So when should you start thinking of monetization? The answer, in my opinion, is at the very beginning, in the game planning process and sometimes even before a single line of code is written.

Let me start by dispelling a game industry myth – monetization is not a dirty word.  Everyone has to earn a living and to provide for themselves, their employees, and their families. Therefore, a game developer who offers players the opportunity to buy in-game virtual goods, upgrades, or power-ups isn’t deceiving their players.  They are simply offering a way to improve the gaming experience while generating revenue which enables the developer to continue developing a better, richer, more exciting, and sustainable game.  Anyone who thinks that virtual goods are ripping off players should first take shots at the florist industry which generates billions of dollars, pounds and euros by selling a product that dies within five to ten days.

Include Monetization in the earliest Planning Phase

When you’re outlining your mobile game on a napkin (OR a notepad or iPad) – this is the time to incorporate monetization into your game design.  So before a single word of the story is written, and before compiling your gameplay mechanics, start thinking about the role monetization will have in your game.

At this early stage, these are the kinds of questions that you should be asking:

Can in-app purchases make the game playing experience better?  If so, what kind of virtual goods will you offer for sale?  What virtual goods lend them to the playing environment? How can I incorporate advertising into the game?

Though monetization will never define the story arc OR game mechanics, it’s important to start thinking of how to integrate monetization in these early stages.

Create a Projection of the Revenue Streams before Developing your Game

In “Monetization-based Game Design: ARPDAU Contribution,” Joseph Kim, co-founder of mobile game development studio Playviews, Inc., presents tools / charts which enable game developers to insert variables in the design phase in order to show that their game can generate a positive return on capital investments / resources.  Kim claims that he’s seen too many mobile game designers who have no clue what they’re doing and therefore make poor decisions regarding how to monetize their games.

Kim also says that retention rates among the various genres / types are very similar; therefore developers can assume that their game in a set genre will experience similar retention patterns as other games in that genre, which makes revenue projections that much easier to calculate.

It’s important to understand how much revenue a game can be expected to generate before allocating a marketing budget (or even developing the game).  That’s why forecasting future revenue streams is so important.  The game you’re excited about might appear financially unfeasible once your project revenue streams, forcing developers to either add new revenue opportunities which will enable achieving profitability OR abandoning the project entirely.

Whom are you targeting? Think localization according to country and platform

With mobile game development, localization is critical to the development of your game. Local can mean both the country/region you’re targeting as well as the device/operating system you’re developing for.

Much has been made about the differences between iPhone and Android users.  Though there are more Android smartphones than iPhones (according to comScore), iPhone users generally have higher incomes (41% of iPhone owners have a household income of $100K vs. 24% of Android owners).  iPhone owners are also more likely to engage in mobile commerce than Android owners by a gap of 23% vs. 17%.  When thinking about monetization via in-app purchases, these are important statistics to keep in mind when planning your mobile game.  The differences continue as one migrates from phones to tablets, with m-commerce significantly higher on tablets than on phones.

Not only are there differences between platforms and devices, but geography also has an impact. For example, according to research from NewZoo, 87% of players in Asia play mobile games vs. only 52% in the US, and 47% of the players in Asia pay for games and in-game goods vs. only 36% who pay for mobile games and in-game goods in the US.

But it’s not enough just to run a marketing campaign in the countries/regions you’re targeting – game developers must create games that are in the language of the market they’re targeting and that also address the game playing genres and trends in the market.

Ad Monetization is More than Just Banners

Though App purchases, power-ups and virtual goods are the leading sources of revenue for most mobile game publishers, in-game advertising shouldn’t be an afterthought.  Many mobile game developers are generating a lot of revenue from mobile advertising.

The planning of mobile advertising should also be done early to ensure that marketing opportunities can be integrated into the game.  If you think that mobile advertising is only about running banner ads in your game, think again. Today, there are several different types of mobile game ad vehicles a developer should consider when creating their monetization plan.  The natural breaks at the end of a game, when a user needs to power up or when a player makes an in-game purchase all provide effective advertising opportunities which can generate significant revenue.

One format of in-game advertising which is gaining traction is the interstitial, a rich media ad served at natural transition points in the game.  Interstitials provide a richer marketing canvass than banners do, and therefore generate better engagement and conversion metrics than banners.

Another marketing vehicle which should be considered before game development is product placement.  Though most game developers can only dream of the revenue Rovio generates from licensing Angry Birds toys and merchandise, game developers should never rule out product placement.

Having met and worked with many game developers, I know that most aren’t marketers at heart.  But early marketing integration into a mobile game can be the difference between breaking even and reaching profitability.（source：gamasutra）