作者：Robert Weber

谷歌最近引进了一项重要的新规则，禁止开发者在Google Play进行欺骗性的应用推广。谷歌制裁欺骗性广告的确是一大智举。但是，新要求并没有真正解决该措施的核心问题：糟糕的应用曝光。该平台有超过三分之二的应用无法取得收支平衡，无怪乎有些独立开发者会转向拙劣的广告手段或刷排名机制。当然，苹果App Store也存在类似的问题，但谷歌核心竞争力在于内容曝光度，所以市场对Google Play期望更高也并不让人意外。

所幸谷歌拥有大量可快速掌握超越苹果的曝光渠道。这个搜索巨头可以在以下方面为独立开发者社区提供极大的帮助。

*改革排名系统：当前Google Play的“热门应用”榜单与广告投入联系过于紧密。多数独立开发者并没有足够的广告预算角逐这个市场，因此仅有少数最为成功的独立开发者能够在榜单前列获得曝光度。对独立开发者来说更糟的情况就是，多数Google Play用户只会从这些热门应用榜单下载应用。一个解决方法就是创造独立游戏列表。谷歌应该调整其整体排名算法，以便那些缺乏广告投入的应用获得更多曝光度。

google-play top grossing apps(from theguardian.com)

*解决5星问题：与排名榜单相似，多数持续获得5星评价的应用也是因为操纵系统，而非靠自然声誉获得较高评价。谷歌有多种方法可以变革这个系统，这包括：1）只允许玩家体验了15分钟的玩法之后的应用弹出评价请求，以免产生不公正的评价；2）添加一个来自Google Play的自动弹出对话框，这样玩家就无需离开游戏进行评价（游戏邦注：通常情况下，应用会弹出对话框询问用户是否喜欢该应用，如果用户给予肯定回答，就会将其引向应用商店发表评价）。这个做法对于保证用户评价的真实性来说十分重要。（第二种做法甚为关键，因为多数开发者不会将不喜欢自己游戏的玩家引向应用商店，所以大部分应用评价并不能很好地反映更广大游戏群体的看法）

这可能需要谷歌投入数月时间修复星级评价和排名问题，并进行大量A/B测试才能实现最佳平衡。但Google Play能够引进其他更简单的功能来增加自己的筹码：

*创造仅针对独立开发社区的热门应用榜单和徽章：投入超过10万美元的广告资金来获得足够的曝光度，并因此获得“自然发展”究竟是否公平？对于谷歌这家自称不作恶的公司来说，它当然要解决这个自相矛盾的问题。为此，谷歌应该考虑推出仅用于推广独立开发者的热门应用榜单。这可能为预算有限的开发者带来庞大下载量（谷歌可以用多种方法定义“独立开发者”，但其内在目标是推广由预算有限的小型团队制作的游戏）。同理，由独立团体设计的应用也应该含有一个确认其身份的徽章或其他特殊图标。这将有助于独立游戏吸引寻找新颖玩法的用户。

*独立开发者资料：同上，我还希望Google Play添加一个资料功能，允许独立开发者在自己的应用中露脸。这将迅速为Android应用生态圈增加一个人性化元素，令开发者及其粉丝用户之间建立更强大的联系纽带。

*将开发者的YouTube渠道与其应用页面绑定：游戏预告视频是玩家发现并决定下载游戏的一个关键途径（对于名气较小的工作室和发行商来说尤其如此），要知道谷歌正好掌握了最大的视频网络。谷歌应该给予开发者选择是否将其YouTube渠道整合到游戏中的选择。这将有助于独立开发者以最快，最小的预算，最诚恳的方法推广自己的游戏——只要向玩家展示游戏玩法即可。

除了曝光度，还要有更好的广告解决方案

应用曝光度并非游戏开发者面临的唯一问题。与之同样糟糕的是，开发者无法创造足够的收益维持项目运营。据多数行业报告显示，三分之二的游戏开发者无法取得收支平衡。许多开发者试图通过广告创收。但多数人的做法都错了，最后几乎都放弃了。但是，广告的确是增加大部分游戏开发者收益的一个主要创收工具，在F2P模式日益占据上风的当前形势下尤其如此。与此同时，谷歌新政表明，欺骗性的广告网络会损害Google Play的利益。所以谷歌不但应该制裁那些违规者，还应该对那些正当竞争者以及富有创意的广告内容格式加以鼓励。

谷歌能够限制开发者使用欺骗性广告手段的一个方法就是推崇本地广告格式，这有助于保护游戏玩家体验。而广告永远不会是一个完美或完善的解决方案，整合了较高设计标准的本地广告可以令用户获得趋于纯粹的游戏体验，而无需他们支付任何费用（要知道有98%的玩家从来不会购买IAP）。

需要知道的是，即使谷歌执行了这所有的调整，也还是无法保证应用开者就能一帆风顺。在这个庞大的市场中，多数独立游戏还是会陷入沉寂。但至少驱逐那些“恶劣的”广告商，可以净化独立开发者的竞争空间。现在他们可以使用以安全、透明、用户友好型的方法盈利的广告网络。谷歌只需要利用这一举措，并帮助开发者提升曝光度即可。这样，那些设计精良，低成本的游戏（无论其竞争对手的预算有多庞大），就不会有太多转向卑劣广告手段的动机了。（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 Google can fix the broken app store for indie-game devs — and leapfrog Apple in the process

Robert Weber

Google recently introduced an important new rule prohibiting deceptive promotion of apps on its Google Play store. It’s great that Google is clamping down on spammy advertising. However, the new requirement doesn’t really address a core, underlying cause for the practice: broken app discovery. With more than two-thirds of apps failing to break even, it’s no surprise that some indie devs desperately turn to sketchy ad practices or bot farms that manipulate rankings. Of course, Apple’s App Store struggles with the same woes as well, but given that Google’s core competency is content discovery, it’s fair for the market to expect much more from Play.

Fortunately for Google, it has a number of means to quickly gain the edge on discovery over Apple. In the process, the search giant can greatly help the independent developer community. (Which, after all, makes up the majority of app developers.)

Mobile user acquisition is hard but filling out this survey is easy.

Reform the ranking system: At the moment, Google Play’s “Top Apps” lists are too directly tied to ad spend. Most indie developers don’t have an advertising budget large enough to compete on this playing field, and consequently, none but the very most successful indies last long enough on the top ranks to receive notice. To make things even harder for indies, most Google Play consumers only download apps from these Top Apps lists. One solution is to create indie-only lists [see below]. Google should also tweak its general ranking algorithms to give more prominence to apps gaining traction without ad dollars.

Address the 5-Star problem: Similar to the crippled ranking lists, many or most apps with consistent 5-star ratings got them not through organic acclaim but from working the system. (One common, if very dubious technique: An app prompt asks people if they like the app, but it only takes them to the app store to post a review if they answer “Yes.”) There are a number of ways Google could reform this system; here’s just two ideas:  1) Only allow app ratings after 15 total minutes of gameplay to curb unfair judging; and 2) Add a pop-up prompt automatically — directly from Google Play — so that players never have to leave the game. This is important to ensuring that this process captures true app ranking score. (The latter is important because most developers don’t typically send players  who don’t like their game to the app store, so the majority of reviews are not a good representation of the broader gamer population.)

In any case, it will probably take months to fix star ratings and rankings and a lot of behind the scenes A/B testing to achieve the best balance. But Google Play can introduce other, simpler features right now to help level the playing field immediately:

Create indie-only Top App Lists and Badges: Is it fair that it takes over $100,000 in advertising to achieve enough visibility to grow “organically”? For a company that claims to do no evil, it sure makes sense to address this contradiction. To do that, Google should consider duplicating Top App lists only featuring indie developers. That would attract heavy downloads for those with limited budgets. (There’s many ways Google can define what constitutes an “indie” developer, but the underlying goal is to highlight apps made by small teams on limited budgets.) For similar reasons, apps designated as indie should have a badge or other special icon that affirms that status. This will also give indie game an underdog appeal to consumers searching for something original to play.

Indie developer profiles: Related to the above, I’d love to see Google Play add a profile feature that enables indie developers to literally put a face to their apps. Doing this will instantly add a human-interest element to Android’s app ecosystem and help create stronger ties to devs and the consumers who love their games. (Consider how important the personal element has been to the success of Kickstarter projects.)

Integrate developers’ YouTube channel into their app pages: Game-footage videos are a key way gamers discover and decide to download games (especially from lesser known studios and publishers), and Google happens to own the largest video network of them all. Google should give developers the option of embedding their YouTube channel into every game that they own. This will also help level the playing field by giving indie developers the fastest, lowest budget, most honest way to promote their game — simply showing how it plays.

Beyond discovery: Better advertising solutions

App discovery isn’t the only problem facing game developers. Just as bad is developers’ inability to generate enough revenue to stay in business. According to most industry reports, two-thirds of game developers fail to break even. Many attempt to make money through advertising. Most do it wrong. Nearly all give up. However, advertising is the primary revenue generator for an increasing majority of game developers, especially as free-to-play overwhelmingly becomes the dominant model. At the same time, as Google’s new policies show, deceptive ad networks hurt Play. So Google should not only crack down on bad actors but also encourage white hat ad players and innovative ad content formats.

One way Google can shepherd developers beyond from spammy ad formats is to encourage native ad formats, which preserve games’ player experience. While advertising is never going to be the perfect or entire solution, native ads that incorporate high design standards move things closer to a pure gaming experience without having to charge gamers a premium to cover development expenses (and deals squarely with the reality that some 98 percent of gamers simply make no in-app payments). For some tips and tricks, I wrote this guideline of technaZiques for successfully integrating native ads in games.

To be sure, even if Google were to implement all these changes, it wouldn’t guarantee sunshine and roses for app developers. With such a large market to compete in, most indie games will still fail. But with the “bad guy” advertisers handcuffed, indie developers at least have much more peace of mind. For now, they can work with ad networks which monetize in a brand safe, transparent, user-friendly way. Google just needs to capitalize on this move by also helping devs at the discovery level. That way, well-deserving, low budget games — no matter how much their big budget competitors spend — have less incentive to turn to the next shady ad practice.（source：venturebeat）