作者：Isaac Knowles

自从发行以来《Pokemon Go》便占据了下载量和收益排行榜的榜首并吸引了无数媒体的关注（甚至上了美国《新闻周刊》的封面）。它同时也牢牢霸占着用户的屏幕。你可能认为这款游戏将占领手机游戏市场，但是根据App Annie最近的报告，“《Pokemon Go》并不会长久影响着iOS和Google Play上其它游戏的每日收益。”这主要有两大原因：《Pokemon Go》将许多新玩家带到了手机游戏领域（游戏邦注：例如那些之前从未玩过手机游戏的人），App Annie同时也将Supercell和MachineZone等手机游戏巨头的收益和用户包含在估算内。但虽然如此我们还是遗留了一个问题：这款游戏对于更小的发行商和游戏会有什么影响呢？

我们都知道手机游戏产业已经变成了一个受热门内容推动的产业，在这里所有热门内容都有可能影响到其他开发者，其中既包括排行前10的大型开发者也包括满足于1万的月活跃用户的独立开发者。在本文中我将分析《Pokemon Go》的发行对于我们的3款消费者游戏的影响并讨论你是否应该并如何用你的游戏去对抗下一款大热游戏。

一款新游戏的发行对于现有游戏的影响主要取决于一些元素，即包括全新发行游戏的优势和受欢迎程度，以及它的目标用户是否与现有游戏的目标用户出现重叠。基于这些元素我们便可以看到用户粘性的变化—-包括游戏次数和游戏时间长度。我们也会注意到较少新用户来到游戏中以及现有用户的注意力出现下降。如此最终我们只会迎来更低的收益，而因为那些仍留在游戏中的玩家非常忠实于游戏，所以我们的每用户收益可能会提高。

为了衡量《Pokemon Go》对手机游戏市场的影响，我分析了三款游戏的数据：射击游戏，三消行动游戏和益智游戏。每一款游戏都是来自不同的发行商并且它们的周活跃用户值也具有显著的区别。尽管这并不能代表所有小型开发者和发行商，但这却能够帮助你们了解在《Pokemon Go》发行后你的游戏在手机游戏生态系统中的长期发展。

在7月6日后的两周内，这些游戏大概增加了50万新用户，我从中获取了游戏活动数据并根据参加日期将用户按照周进行划分，即范围是在7月6日之前2周和7月6日之后2周。我努力确保所有用户活动都会出现在他们参加活动的那一周。所以在一个特定群组中我将拥有7天和1天的每用户活动。

根据这些原始数据，我推出了一些能够代表每款游戏和玩家群组的常见性能，包括新用户数量，总的游戏次数，每次游戏的时间，总收益等等。

显然这里存在各种变量。在《Pokemon Go》发行的那一周新用户数量出现了增加，与此同时APRU数值却趋于下降。但是我们只能看到KPI数值中一些显著的统计变化。例如在《Pokemon Go》发行前两周始终保持稳定数值后，游戏每用户游戏次数和时间在《Pokemon Go》发行后分别下降了11%和9%。而用户留存数值反而让我们充满好奇。我们会认为那些在《Pokemon Go》发行前进入游戏中的玩家用户留存将出现下降，毕竟他们多多少少都会受到《Pokemon Go》的吸引，所以在第二周的时候他们将不大可能在登录之前的游戏中。但实际上在《Pokemon Go》发行前游戏的用户留存并未出现下降，反而是在《Pokemon Go》发行后才开始下降。为什么会这样呢？或许是那些在《Pokemon Go》发行前一周开始游戏的玩家真正将时间投入于这些游戏中。反而那些在《Pokemon Go》发行后才加入游戏中的玩家因为花更少的时间于游戏中，所以他们也更不可能长久地留在这里。

总之，只是基于这些数据我们是很难去分析《Pokemon Go》对于这些游戏的影响。我们也很难说《Pokemon Go》的发行对于这些游戏的收益创造了正面影响还是负面影响。不过即便如此10%的用户留存和用户粘性的下降在整个7月份中也是不可小觑的结果。尽管这些都不是多可怕的数值，但却比App Annie有关整个Android生态系统的报告更加鲜明。从中我们也可以意识到较小的开发者和发行商比排行前十的巨头们更容易受到《Pokemon Go》的发行的影响。

而所有的这一切也将引出一个重要问题：是否有办法让你的游戏能够抵制这种具有冲击性的新发行的影响？在此手机游戏公司可以采取两种策略。首先便是计划内容的更新时间，其次便是考虑提供具有针对性的通知内容去提高现有用户的用户留存与盈利。

Pokémon Go(from myzaker)

有效计划内容更新时间

内容更新是关于留住现有的用户并将一些老用户拉回游戏中。如果不存在其它可能让这些用户分心的新游戏，他们便更有可能留在你的游戏中。因此你必须留意一些即将发行的大型游戏并避免你的内容更新时间撞上这些游戏的发行时间。虽然更新时间的计划主要取决于你的游戏和用户，但几乎所有游戏公司都应该避开在《Pokemon Go》发行的时候去更新游戏内容。就像儿童游戏的开发者必须清楚，第三季《动物之森》的发行可能会抢走你的用户。所以你最好能够在他们之前或之后再更新内容。

利用一些特殊的内容提供

虽然夹在一些大型新游戏间发行新内容并不是个好主意，但努力去留出玩家，提高用户转换率与奖励重复购买都是一些有帮助的方法。从理论上来看人们拥有的预算包括时间和金钱，而你最好在全新发行内容将其耗光前有效去把握它们。即你需要好好利用游戏的启动画面，广告，特殊的内容提供以及推送通知等等。开发者经常听到这样的建议，即通过提供“无需动脑的”购买内容尽早让新玩家在游戏中花钱，但如果是在大型游戏发行前或发行后，这将会带给玩家一种紧迫感。相反地你可以使用一些特殊内容去推动玩家的早期购买，即使这些内容不能给带来更多收益。那些真正投入于游戏中的玩家更有可能留在游戏中并在之后继续在此花钱。同样地，那些告知玩家每日奖励以及其它奖励的提醒内容也将让玩家始终记住你的游戏。所以即使你不喜欢使用推送通知，你最好也考虑在大型游戏发行后一周使用这种方法。给予那些对游戏保持忠诚的玩家奖励，并提供给那些未能留在游戏中的玩家之后回到游戏中的理由。

学习

下一次当你被夹在大型游戏发行之间时，你需要花些时间去了解其中的影响。首先你应该回头去看看在像《Pokemon Go》或《皇室战争》发行期间你的游戏的数据变化并尝试着明确发生了什么。假设一些能让自己做得更好的方法，然后在下次大型游戏发行时对这些方法进行测试。在下一次遇到这种情况时真正去实践你所学到的这一切。

把握市场的变化

学习的内涵便是了解一些即将到来的变化。如果你的竞争者发行了一个全新的内容，你就必须了解这一情况！如果即将出现一个可能影响到你的用户的大型游戏，你也必须了解这一情况！任何游戏网站都会有关于即将发行的游戏的时间安排表。你最好将这一页面放入收藏夹便经常打开检查下。同样地，你也需要对对手做些研究。了解那些可能与你争夺用户的游戏并在App Annie上检查它们的表现。当这些游戏推出新内容时你应该对此作出相应的回应。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Pokémon GO’s Impact on Smaller Developers

by Isaac Knowles

Pokémon GO has topped download and revenue charts since the day of its release and captured an unprecedented amount of media attention (even making the cover of Newsweek). It has also occupied an inordinate share of users’ device time. You might think this would greatly disrupt the mobile gaming market, but App Annie recently reported that “Pokémon GO has not had a sustained and meaningful impact on the daily revenue of other games on iOS and Google Play”. This has a lot of face validity for two main reasons: Pokémon Go has brought a lot of new players to mobile gaming (e.g. people who never played a mobile game before), and App Annie included revenue and audience estimates for mobile game powerhouses like Supercell and MachineZone. But the question remains: what was the impact on smaller publishers and games?

We all know that the mobile game industry has become a hit-driven business, and those hits can have a major impact on other developers, from the majors in the top 10 to the indies who are content with 10,000 monthly active users. In this post, I’ll report on the impact of Pokémon GO’s release for three of our customer games, and discuss whether and how you can inoculate your game against the next big hit.

The impact of a new game release on an existing game depends on several factors, including the strength and popularity of the newly released game, as well as whether its target audience overlaps with the incumbent game’s target audience. Depending on those factors, we might see changes in user engagement – both number of sessions and session length. We also might see fewer new users and lower retention of existing users. Finally, we probably expect lower revenues, though we might see an uptick in the revenue per user, since those who stick around are probably more intensely interested in our game.

To measure the impact of Pokémon GO’s release on the mobile game market, I analyzed data from three of our customers’ games: a shooter, a match-three action game, and a puzzle game. Each game was from a different publisher, and each game varied significantly from the others in terms of weekly active users. Though this is by no means a representative sample of all smaller developers and publishers, it should still provide some insight into the fortunes of games in the long tail of the mobile game ecosystem in the aftermath of Pokémon GO’s release.

Approximately 500,000 new users appeared in these games within two weeks of July 6th, and I pulled the game activity data for all of them. I then split the users up into weekly cohorts based on their join date, spanning from two weeks before to two weeks after July 6th. I kept all user activity that occurred during the same week in which they joined, but discarded the rest. Thus within a given cohort, I had as much as seven days and as little one day worth of activity per user.

From these raw data, I calculated several common performance indicators for each game and cohort: A count of new users, the total sessions played, time per session, total revenue, and several more. Each of these is illustrated below. To preserve the anonymity of our customers, I am reporting the values in relative rather than absolute terms, using the “two weeks before release” cohort as a baseline.

There’s obviously quite a bit of variation. Arguably, the number of new users increases in the week of Pokémon GO’s release, while ARPU tends to drop. However, we only see consistent and statistically significant changes in the KPIs across the bottom row. Sessions and time per user fell 11% and 9%, respectively, after holding fairly constant in the two weeks prior to the release. The retention numbers are curious. We would expect to see a drop in retention for the user who joined the week before release – after all, they would be distracted by Pokémon GO, and thus be less likely to log in again in their second week. In fact, we don’t see a drop in retention for the cohorts before release, but rather in the cohorts after release. Why might this be? Perhaps players who started in the weeks before Pokémon GO’s release took the time to really get invested in these games. In contrast, those who joined after the release played fewer sessions and spent less time in game. Therefore, they are less likely to stay retained.

Overall, the effect of Pokémon GO on these particular games is hard to parse based only on these data. It is certainly difficult to tell whether revenue was positively or negatively affected by the release. That said, the 10% reduction in retention and engagement could have knock-on effects that last well beyond the month of July. And while these are not dire numbers, they are somewhat more stark than what App Annie reported for the entire Android ecosystem. It would appear that smaller developers and publishers were more vulnerable to Pokemon GO’s release than were the big guys in the top 10.

All of this raises an important question: Is there any way to inoculate a game against the effects of major new releases? Mobile game companies have two strategies available to them here. One concerns the scheduling of content updates, and the other concerns offers and notifications specifically designed to increase retention and monetization of the existing user-base.

Schedule Content Updates Wisely

Content updates are all about retaining existing users and pulling old users back into the game. They will have the strongest positive effect when these users don’t have other, new games to distract their attention away from your game. Therefore, it’s worthwhile to pay attention to upcoming major mobile releases and avoid scheduling content updates in the same time frame. How much time? Well, that depends on your game and your audience, but it’s safe to say that just about every game company should have avoided updates around Pokémon GO’s release date. Developers of children’s games beware: Nintendo’s planned Q3 release of an Animal Crossing app will probably steal away your audience. Schedule your content update well before or well after, if you can.

Make Use of Special Offers

While releasing new content in the midst of a major new game release is a bad idea, efforts to retain players, increase conversion, and reward repeat purchases can pay dividends. On the theory that people have a budget of both money and time, the trick here is to tap into that before the new release drains it dry. That means splash screens, interstitials, special offers, and push notifications. Developers are often admonished to get new players to buy in early by offering “no-brainer” purchases, but in the time just before and after a major game release, this takes on a new level of urgency. Use offers to promote early buy-in, even if that means less revenue on first purchases than you’d like. Players who are invested are more likely to be retained – and to buy again later. Also, reminders of daily bonuses and other rewards will keep your game in front of player’s minds. So even if you usually avoid push notifications, you might consider using them in the weeks after a major game’s release. Reward the players who stay loyal, and give those who don’t stay a reason to return soon.

Learn Something

The next time you’re in the midst of a major release, take the time to learn about the impact. First, go back and look at your data during the release of games like Pokémon GO or Clash Royale, and try to figure out what happened. Hypothesize ways you could perform better, then test those ideas during he next major release. Use what you learned to improve your response the release after that.

Be aware of the market

Implicit in learning something is being aware of coming changes. If your competitors just released new content, you should know that! If a major release is coming that will affect your audience, you should know that, too. Any number of gaming websites keep a calendar of upcoming releases. Bookmark that page and check back often. Also, do your opposition research. Be aware of the games that compete for your audience and check up on them on App Annie. When they release new content, you should respond accordingly.(source:gamasutra)