本文原作者：Matt suckley 译者游戏邦ciel chen

能使你的营收更上一层楼的关键有什么呢？为了寻找答案，我们访问了我们的手游专家以下几个问题:

你觉得单独哪项规则在营收模式设计中最为重要？

今年有哪些营收机制是你最看好的？

Torulf Jernström (TribeFflame的CEO)

如果一定要我挑出App Store里营收最高游戏跟其余游戏的关键不同点，我觉得是巨大的游戏规模。

那些顶尖游戏的虚拟经济规模都非常巨大——价值数万美元甚至更多。

而与此同时，大部分独立游戏的虚拟经济能到几十美元就了不起了。他们此处的差别就差了有大概1000倍。

（我记得我在今年夏季在赫尔辛基（芬兰首都）PGC的演讲中将其列为首要的重点内容。）

关于年度营收策略中，我对今年Rovio工作室成功地提高了《愤怒的小鸟2（Angry Birds2）》收益所采取的营收策略印象最深。

Adam Telfer（Wooga的产品负责人）

我完全同意。是的，规模就是所有强大的营收模式的基奠——其节奏本质上会随着内容增添而成倍加快。

其经济体必须维持在数万美元的水平上。

Dimitar Draganov在GDC欧洲2015大会上展示了《战争游戏》是如何构建其虚拟经济使之能维持在数十万美元水平的方法——这里还没算上社交交易的数额。

至于今年我最看好的营收机制应该来自《精灵宝可梦》，它的营收机制非常有诱惑力，属于一种出色并且平易近人的社交购买行为——由于能感受到你的购买行为会让身边的人都受益，因此你会感觉非常好。不过通常这些社交购买行为在没有受到明确引导之前，看上去都不怎么诱人——这种诱惑力通常只在游戏后期才能体现。而《精灵宝可梦》在玩家的生命周期前期就很好地执行了这种诱人的营收机制。

Shintaro Kanaoya（Chorus Worldwide的CEO）

我所知道的一个很不错的营收系统是这样的，玩家预先支付给了开发者/发行商给出的售价，然后玩家就可以尽情的享受游戏而不需要有其他金钱投入。

这种系统很彻底，不过它对游戏设计有着深远的影响——它很有可能成为营收系统中的明日之星。

讲一件非常严肃的事，我们将在新年期间发行一款叫做《Glyph Quest Chronicles》的游戏，由来自布莱顿的We Heart Dragon独立游戏团队开发。

这款游戏将做出以下挑战：

让玩家免费玩

尽可能让玩家不受阻碍地体验游戏中的连续性收益

游戏本身能赚钱

这是一个试验品，但是我们加入了一种叫做“掌柜模式”的内容，这种模式会奖励那些在游戏里花过一部分数量金钱的玩家不需要花额外的钱就能尽情享受游戏的其余内容。

常识——有可能是对的——告诉我们，要消除那些已经证明自己爱花钱的人的消费动机是一件非常愚蠢的事。

Glyph Quest Chronicles

但是这里隐藏着这么一种哲学观点——团队觉得他们的游戏是拥有一定“价值”的，除了那以外，玩家应该要能够无阻碍地进行游戏（他们依旧能够尽情玩快捷小游戏），但“掌柜模式”的体验比“无掌柜模式”版本会少一些“支付摩擦”。

尽管我们在“掌柜模式”下赚到的钱可能没有“无掌柜模式”的多，但这个试验品就是为了了解其是否能够鼓励非付费玩家做出冒险、投资游戏，成为赞助者中的一员。

时间将告诉我们这种尝试是不是完全不可取的……

Will Luton（Rovio Stockhom的高级产品经理）

对于我来说，游戏内容规模是高层次消费的重要条件，但并非必要条件。

游戏机制只是刺激玩家的消费动机而已，然而真正让他们想要进行消费的本质原因是和其他人的交互。所以为玩家创造更多（建设性的或破坏性的）交互方式是营收模式中最重要的内容（或说到底是为了用户留存）。

有效的F2P设计要能够将人际交互行为作为中心焦点。

William D. Volk（Forward Reality的首席未来学家）

营收模式中最重要的是将F2P模式设计成玩家心目中公平合理的样子，让玩家不需要“付了费才能赢游戏”。

执行效果最好的应该是那种能让大部分玩家在每天（或其他时间周期）有限的游戏时间里免费玩的系统。

游戏货币或体力会随着游戏时间消耗减少。就是说，玩家会耗尽“体力”但在第二天能够被奖励获得更多的体力。

玩家并非被迫去购买更多体力来继续游戏，但游戏时间却被这种“体力值”所限制。据GameRefinery获悉，美国热门榜前100名游戏中有91%的游戏都拥有这个机制。

这种被叫做“体力机制”的玩法在《糖果粉碎》中有扮演了重要角色。

这是一种很好的机制，它鼓励了用户留存量；玩家会为了得到更多的体力值而重返游戏。

想要当场玩更久的玩家，就会花钱购买体力。
当然了DLC也起了一定作用，不过我会说设计良好的体力机制似乎和F2P游戏的成功有异曲同工之妙。

Torulf Jernström（Tribeflame的CEO）

正如William所说，GameRefinery有很多关于这方面的数据。他们好心地准我说出目前排行榜的前三名。

在这些游戏中，我们可以看到收入前100的游戏跟其他游戏的最大不同：

发出/寻求帮助

限时活动

限时IAP商品

第一个很明显是Will已经解释过的一种社交特色。另外两种则是实时设定的部分。

GameRefinery关于限时活动产生影响的数据

William所举的这种时段限制到现在都很流行。在游戏排行榜前100名中有95%的游戏使用这种方法，100名以外的游戏使用这种方法的有65%。

今年早些时候，我在这里对GameRefinery数据进行了更长时间的深入研究。

Devin Nambiar（Electronic Arts亚太地区的产品管理主管）

创意人员经常性地认为有竞争力的营收模式与有趣的游戏玩法是呈负相关关系的，这使得营收模式的设计最终常常跟游戏设计不太和谐。

然而，我会说最棒的游戏都会将好玩有趣的元素内容和营收模式设计以某种方式相结合，这种设计结合能使玩家对游戏的付费水准和迷恋程度达到相当高的水平。

根据我曾经在Kabam以及现在在EA参与运营热门榜游戏的经验，我会说最重要的一条营收模式设计“规则”就是要创造游戏内可以促进玩家的“冲动性消费”行为的事态。

这些事态会造成一个混乱的环境让玩家被迫做出直接影响游戏中某些事物结果的决定，而要做的这个决定是有时限的。

这里最好的例子就是（之前也有人提到过）有限的时间机制。它包括了限时活动，除此之外还有限时增值道具和限时游戏商品。

当你强迫玩家在有限的时间窗口内做出决定，你会创造出一种事态紧急的感觉迫使玩家消费来达到他们想要的结果。

这里一个简单但非常典型的例子就是Netmarble公司的《Seven Knights》，这款Kakao平台的韩国战牌游戏提供了限时折扣的扭蛋券，这让玩家在打开扭蛋时却没有获得追加奖品。

这是通过打开gacha时跳出的临时界面达成的效果，这个界面给用户提供了“再来一次”的临时折扣——不过这种折扣只有他们当时就决定要继续打开gacha才有。

我认为这个策略很棒而且很优雅，可以增加每名玩家索引开gacha的几率，直接让硬通货的贬值，而这正是营收模式在F2P游戏中的意义之所在。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

But what do other mobile game developers think is the key to bringing your monetisation to the next level? To find out, we asked our Mobile Mavens the following:

What do you think is the single most important rule of monetisation design?

What are some of the best monetisation mechanics you’ve seen this year?

Torulf Jernström CEO Tribeflame

If I have to pick only one thing that separates top earners from the rest of the games on the App Store, I will have to go with plain, enormous volume.

The in-game economies of the top games are just huge – worth tens of thousands of dollars or more.

Meanwhile, most indie games’ economies top out at a few tens of dollars. There’s about a 1000x difference there.

(I believe that I also listed this as #1 in my PGC Helsinki talk this summer.)

As for the monetisation of the year, I’m very impressed with how Rovio managed to improve Angry Birds 2 during the year

By Matt Suckley, Features Editor

Last week, we began out latest Mobile Games University course on Monetisation Design, looking into the different types, the design process and psychology behind it.

Unity Evangelist Oscar Clark also shared his expert advice with the seven rules of monetisation design.

And on Wednesday December 7th, he’ll be presenting a free webinar on the subject.

But what do other mobile game developers think is the key to bringing your monetisation to the next level? To find out, we asked our Mobile Mavens the following:

What do you think is the single most important rule of monetisation design?

What are some of the best monetisation mechanics you’ve seen this year?

Torulf Jernström CEO Tribeflame

If I have to pick only one thing that separates top earners from the rest of the games on the App Store, I will have to go with plain, enormous volume.

The in-game economies of the top games are just huge – worth tens of thousands of dollars or more.

Meanwhile, most indie games’ economies top out at a few tens of dollars. There’s about a 1000x difference there.

(I believe that I also listed this as #1 in my PGC Helsinki talk this summer.)

As for the monetisation of the year, I’m very impressed with how Rovio managed to improve Angry Birds 2 during the year.

Adam Telfer Product Lead Wooga

Completely agree. The base of all strong monetisation is scale – essentially pacing multiplied by content.

The base of all strong monetisation is scale.ADAM TELFER

Economies must last tens of thousands of dollars.

Dimitar Draganov at GDC Europe 2015 showed how Game of War’s economy was built to last beyond hundreds of thousands of dollars – and that was ignoring social purchases.

As for monetisation mechanics this year, Pokemon GO’s lure mechanic was excellent for a very approachable, social purchase.

You felt great about purchasing it since benefited everyone around you.

Usually these types of social purchases don’t become enticing until you’ve joined a guild – and usually that’s in the late game. Pokemon GO had a great way of implementing this mechanic early in the lifetime of its players.

Shintaro Kanaoya CEO Chorus Worldwide

There’s this great system I saw whereby a player learns about a game, pays all the money the developer/publisher wants for it upfront, and then the player gets to play the whole game without any pull to spend any more money.

It’s pretty radical, but it has profound implications for game design. Might just be the next big thing.

In all seriousness, we’re going to be publishing a game in the new year called Glyph Quest Chronicles from We Heart Dragons, an indie team in Brighton.

The game is going to try square the circle of:

Being free-to-play;

Allowing players to have an experience as unencumbered as possible of continual monetisation;

And being profitable.

It’s an experiment, but we’re putting in something called Patron Mode, which rewards players that have spent a certain amount of money on the game to enjoy the rest of it without as much of a need to spend more money.

Common wisdom – which may well be right – says that removing the incentive to pay from people that have already proven themselves to be good spenders is incredibly dumb.

Glyph Quest Chronicles

But the philosophy behind it is that the team feels the game is “worth” a certain amount, and after that, they should be able to play unencumbered (they will still be able to enjoy the shortcut items), but the Patron Mode experience will have less pay-friction than the non-Patron Mode version.

While we will be reducing the maximum amount that we could potentially monetize a “whale” for, the experiment is to see if it encourages non-payers to take the plunge to becoming a patron.

Time will tell if this was complete folly…

Will Luton Executive Producer Rovio

For me, content volume is important to allow high levels of spend, but it doesn’t create it.

Players are only so motivated by game mechanics, however they’re highly motivated by other people. So giving players ways to interact (constructively or destructively) is the most important element of monetisation (or indeed retention).

Effective F2P design puts compelling human interaction as the central focus.

William D. Volk Chief Futurist Forward Reality

The main thing of import is to have a free-to-play design that players themselves view as fair and reasonable. Players shouldn’t have to ‘pay to win’.

91% of the top 100 games in the US app store feature an energy mechanicWILLIAM D. VOLK

What seems to work best is a system that will allow most players to play for free if they limit the amount they play per day (or other time period).

The currency or energy is expended during gameplay. That is, they run out of ‘energy’ but they will be rewarded with more energy the next day.

They aren’t forced to buy more to continue to play, but the amount of play is restricted by this. 91% of the top 100 games in the US app store feature this mechanic, according to GameRefinery.

This so-called “energy mechanic” plays a big role in Candy Crush Saga.

This is a good mechanic because it encourages retention; the players come back to get more energy.

The players who want to play more, right then and there, then will spend money on the energy to do so.

Of course DLC plays a role as well, but I’d say a well designed energy mechanic seems to be a common thread in the success of free-to-play games.

Torulf Jernström CEO Tribeflame

GameRefinery has lots of data on this, as William pointed out. They kindly gave me permission to tell about the current top three.

These are the ones where we see the largest difference between top 100 grossing games, and the rest:

Sending/asking for help

Limited time events

Limited time IAP offers.

The first is, obviously, a social feature as Will already explained. The other two are really parts of live ops.

GameRefinery data on the impact of limited-time events

The session length restrictions that William linked to are also still popular, with 95% using them in the Top 100, and 65% of games outside the top 100.

I did a longer dig through the GameRefinery data earlier this year here.

Devin Nambiar Head of Product Management, Asia-Pacific Electronic Arts

Monetisation design often ends up at odds with game design in the sense that creatives often tend to think there’s an inverse correlation between aggressive monetisation and fun gameplay.

However, I would say that the best games tend to marry fun factor and monetisation design in a way that enables outsized levels of spend and addiction by design.

In my experience, working on top grossing titles at both Kabam and now at EA, I would say the single most important “rule” of monetisation design is to create situations in-game that enable ‘impulse purchase’ behaviour.

The single most important rule of monetisation design is to enable ‘impulse purchase’ behaviour.DEVIN NAMBIAR

These situations create a chaotic environment where a player is forced to make a decision that directly impacts the result of something in the game, and this decision is time boxed.

The best example of this are, as someone previously mentioned, limited time mechanics. This includes limited time events, but also limited time boosts and limited time offers.

When you force a player to make a decision within a finite time window, you’ll create a sense of urgency that compels spend to achieve the desired result.

One simple but great example of this is actually in Netmarble’s Seven Knights, a Korean battle card game on Kakao that offers limited-time discounts on gacha pulls upon a user not getting the chase prize when pulling the gacha.

This is done through emergent UI within the gacha itself, in a way that offers the player a discount if they want to ‘give it another go’ – but only if they pull the gacha again right now.

I thought this was a great and elegant tactic that would lead to increased indexed gacha pulls per player, and hence direct sinking of hard currency, which is what monetisation is all about in F2P.（source：pocketgamer.biz ）