作者：Mantin Lu

最近AppAnnie发行了有关使用ARPU去识别手机游戏最佳目标市场的全新报告。

乍一看我有点惊讶，因为只是通过ARPU我们并不能得出有关游戏性能的结论或真正了解其优劣。

当你在阅读这篇文章时，我想你应该已经知道ARPU是什么了。但以防万一，我还是要解释下这个词，“每用户平均收益，”即特定时间内所赚取的总收益除以该时间内的特定用户数。你可以使用任何你想要的时间期限，如周，月等等，只要你可以基于该时间段去计算特殊用户数量即可。

为了能够更好地判断游戏性能，我们至少需要明确其总收益，即意味着我们不仅需要ARPU，还需要了解其中的每月活跃用户。此外你还应该考虑游戏的用户留存以帮助你了解LTV。

所以一开始我担心的是全新发布的AppAnnie报告误解了其中的一些读者。于是我便更深入地去浏览报告并发现它只侧重创造游戏的最大收益同时也将MAU考虑在内了。于是我便改变了最初的看法。

尽管单单ARPU并不能完全代表游戏性能，但却足以呈现出该类型游戏在特定市场中的发展潜能。你可以了解到特定市场中的每个用户愿意为一个特殊游戏类型花多少钱。如果你想要创造一款全新游戏或进入一个全新市场的话这便可以作为一种指标。但除此之外你还需要掌握下载规模等其它参数，如CPA。AppAnnie所发布的最新报告显示的是五个市场（游戏邦注：包括日本，中国，美国，韩国和英国）的ARPU趋势。该报告只提供了有关iPhone的数据，而我们还需要去了解全球手机游戏市场的整体情况。在五个关卡市场中，中国在2016年第二季度中全球ARPU指数中排第二，而MMORPG占据了最高排行的更多位置。除了前四大MMORPG游戏外，越来越多成功的PC端MMORPG开始进入拥有全新内容的手机领域。基于成功的IP以及现有的大规模用户，像Seasun Games旗下的《JX》系列等游戏都在手机平台上大放异彩。再一次地这样的数据也进一步证实了我在之前的文章所说过的，MMORPG是中国市场最主要的游戏类型。

ARPU(from gamasutra)

而在美国市场，策略游戏成为该市场2016年第二季度ARPU的最大贡献者，比排名第二的赌场游戏的ARPU值多了一倍多。策略游戏玩家都拥有较高的用户粘性与热情，这能够有效提高这类型游戏的排名。这也再一次证实了我之前所说过的，策略游戏将成为手机游戏制作团队创造全新游戏的最佳选择之一。

game style(from gamasutra)

（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）

Choose the Right Mobile Genre in the Right Market by Understanding ARPU

by Mantin Lu

AppAnnie released a new report recently about using ARPU to identify best target markets for the mobile games.

I was a little bit surprised at the first glance since we couldn’t really conclude the performance of a game or fully understand its strength and weakness by looking solely at ARPU.

While you are reading this article, I guess you know what ARPU is. Just in case, it is “Average Revenue Per User”, saying, the total revenue earned in a set interval divided by the number of unique users in that interval. You can use any interval you want, week, month, etc., as long as you count unique users by the interval you choose for that metric.

In order to better gauge the performance of a game, we need to check out at least its total revenue, which means we need not only the ARPU, but also the monthly active users of it. Furthermore, to get a better picture, you should also take the retention rate of your game into account to understand its LTV.

So, at the beginning I was worrying that the newly released AppAnnie report would be misleading to some of the readers. Then I kept reading deeper and found out that the report only considered the most revenue making games and also take MAU into account. Then its point makes sense to me.

Even though ARPU alone can’t fully tell the performance of a game, it can reflect the potential of the genre in a particular market to some extent. You can tell how much money a user may be willing to pay for a particular genre in a particular market. You can use it as one of the indicators if you want to create a new game or to get into a new market. But still, you should also check out the download size and other metrics, such as CPA, in that market of the particular target audience to get a big picture of it. The latest report released by AppAnnie demonstrates the ARPU trend of five key mobile markets (Japan, China, US, Korea, and UK). The report only provides the statistics of iPhone, yet we still can get some insights of the big picture of the global mobile game market. Among the five key markets, China became No.2 worldwide in Q2 2016 ARPU with MMORPG making up some highest ranked titles; also, four of the top five ARPU games in China are MMORPGs. In addition to the four top MMORPG titles, increasing numbers of successful PC-based MMORPGs are now entering the mobile realm with new contents added. With successful IP and existing large audience, those MMORPGs, such as the JX series from Seasun Games, are flourishing on mobile platforms as well. The statistics, again, reinforce my statement in my previous article that MMORPG is the top game genre in China.

Looking at the US market, Strategy game became the top ARPU performer in Q2 2016, with more than doubled ARPU as No.2, Casino game. The players of Strategy game are mostly engaged and enthusiastic, which helps bringing the genre to the top of the list. This also reassures my point in my previous article that Strategy game would be one of the best choices for the mobile game production team to create a new game.

You can download the original report in English from here.

You can download the original report in Chinese from here.

See Original Blog Post on Linkedin

You can check out my other Blog Posts here

About Seasun Inc

Seasun is a leading Chinese online games publisher focused on creating high quality games/game engines that push the boundaries of player experience in action entertainment. The company is also involved in small-medium sized investments for game studios worldwide. We have recently started up our U.S. studio in Redwood City, CA to create top quality content for the western market.

Seasun has shipped many successful titles, including the popular MMORPG series JX (http://jx3.xoyo.com/), the MMOARPG titles First Myth (http://fs.xoyo.com/index1) and CQ (http://cq.xoyo.com/), along with our FPS MAT (http://xd.xoyo.com/). The “JX” series has grossed more than $250 million and has achieved a daily active user count of 3.3 million. We are currently building a special team of highly talented people to create the technology for our next-generation MMOARPG at this studio.

About Kingsoft

Kingsoft, Seasun’s parent company, is publicly traded in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (SEHK: 3888) with market value of 3.8 billion USD. Kingsoft has created 3 other subsidiaries alongside Seasun: Cheetah Mobile (NYSE: CMCM), WPS Office, and Kingsoft Cloud Service. Kingsoft has over 4,000 employees worldwide.（source：gamasutra）