作者：Doug Dyer

我认为手机游戏的未来与目前的手机游戏并无多大关联。当然，尽管手机电子游戏仍将在手机游戏世界中占据一席之地，但它们并非主要盈利驱动者。事实上，在不久的将来，手机游戏的主要盈利驱动者将是控制器游戏、网游和PC游戏。并非将控制器游戏、网游和PC游戏重新定位并重新将其设计成适合移动设备的类型，我所指的是那些在Xbox系统和Alienware手提电脑上运行的真正的控制器游戏、网游和PC游戏。我将向你详尽阐述现代手机游戏如何在手机游戏行业中一步步退居二线。

mobile-games(from thechallengebase.com)

第一步：单人游戏将迅速消失，所有平台上的新游戏将分属以下几种类型：

1、多人或大型多人游戏。高分竞争、聊天系统和论坛上的交谈或增加小型社交互动功能都会让游戏转变为多人游戏。如果游戏卖出了100万套，那就会成为大型多人游戏。

2、持续性或半持续性。正如社交网络游戏那样，越来越多的控制器和PC游戏逐渐将持续性纳入游戏体验中。从本质上来说，就是玩家不玩游戏时，游戏世界仍然保持运转。从某种程度上来说，这种情况已经在基于成就的多人游戏中发生。当你不玩游戏时，别人可以继续游戏。因而当你们再次在多人场景中相遇时，你会看到他们在你下线后继续升级。

3、需要长期投入时间和金钱。多种发布版本、补丁和可下载内容等是目前所有游戏欲占领市场所采取的手段。“系列游戏”成了游戏的代名词，需要玩家不断与系列中各款游戏互动（游戏邦注：即便玩家并没有直接玩游戏）。

4、PC和控制器上的免费大型多人在线游戏（MMOG）。社交网络游戏将会进化发展成为真正的游戏。想要获得大量用户和可观盈利的硬核单人动作游戏将会改变以适应这种状况，提供更多社交化功能。控制器和PC上首款免费高预算MMOG将成为巨作，整个世界将会追随这种潮流。

5、真正的跨平台。很快我就可以用我的小矮人参加团队活动（游戏邦注：指游戏《魔兽世界》）或者管理农场和黑道家族，而实现这些目标可以选择Xbox、PS3、PC和Android设备。

换句话说，游戏正迅速往大型多人在线方向发展。逐渐增加用户参与度，也能增加盈利。

第二步：手机配套应用将得到显著发展。此刻，应用商店中有少量手机游戏和应用模仿或从某种程度上重新定位某些游戏（游戏邦注：主要是网游）的功能和内容。有许多模仿《魔兽世界》的游戏，Riot Games的《League of Legends》也有一些。尽管这些应用与上述游戏类似，但并没有给玩家最真实的体验。

但事情正渐渐发生改变。《魔兽世界》iPhone应用最初只提供相关信息，现在已增加拍卖行功能，玩家可以在iPhone上登录使用所有的拍卖行功能。ArenaNet宣称其将开发《激战2》的手机应用，向玩家提供大量功能，包括聊天、邮件、角色概况、军械库和地图。去年，AFK Interactive与Icarus Studios紧密合作，制作和发布可用于iOS、Android和Blackberry设备上的《堕落星球》配套应用。《堕落星球》手机应用让用户可以直接登录自己的游戏内账户，这样玩家便可以聊天、发送带附件的邮件、在拍卖行购买和出售商品，甚至像他们真正在游戏中那样在移动设备上制作道具。这是因为，当他们登录《堕落星球》手机应用时，他们就如同登录游戏一般。

同样的例子还有很多，用手机配套应用让玩家在自己的移动设备上使用网游、PC游戏甚至控制器游戏的功能是个趋势。

第三步：每种游戏都将趋于手机化。以上两步将迅速诞生某个时代，所有的控制器、网游和PC游戏都将含有手机组件。尤其是那些多人、持续性游戏，为用户提供在真实游戏外参与的体验。这种情况会出现，我们的生活需要这种事实出现。

2011年1月的PC Gamer对AFK的《堕落星球》应用的评论如下：无论你在何处，都可以享受你最喜爱的MMO。PC Gamer相信这是基本的人权。《魔兽世界》和《永恒之塔》都通过手机应用让你可以将游戏随身携带，但《堕落星球》的应用是目前表现最好的。

这就是手机游戏的未来。《愤怒的小鸟》之类的游戏会在不久之后回到它们休闲娱乐游戏的位置，玩家每次玩3分钟，每天玩5次。这些价值1.99美元的游戏根本无法与成百上千的拥有数亿粉丝的MMO、网游和控制器游戏相比。我们根据现有手机用户数据和搜集到的当前产品用户度量数值，对游戏在手机上的盈利保守估计如下：

1、假设Bob的MMOG有100万的用户。

2、假设这些用户中有75%付费，也就是75万人。

3、假设这些用户中有80%的人有可下载Bob的MMOG配套应用免费版的设备。在此数据基础上，假设有75%的人确实这么做。那么免费的手机配套应用下载量将达到45万次，也就是所有活跃用户的45%。

5、在免费用户中，假设有50%愿意使用手机应用，其功能包括实时访问道具商店、地图、军械库、生产和其他许多功能，可以使用应用来完成有价值的任务。

6、每月订阅费用是1.99美元，这会给用户带来显著的好处。

7、这相当于22.5万用户每月支付2美元，Bob每月可获得的额外盈利超过45万美元。扣除应用商店的费用，每年的盈利是500万美元。

保守估计，手机配套应用每年能给Bob带来400万美元的额外收入，而他用来制作和维护这个产品的成本还不到盈利总额的10%。这是个巨大的商机。而且，Bob无需像手机游戏那样做广告，因为他可以通过MMOG世界中的世界聊天、新闻和邮件与现有用户接触。对MMOG能否占据下载排行榜和上升最快榜单也没有压力。而且，随着Bob不断向已安装的用户做营销，手机应用的用户会逐渐增加。75%的订阅用户数会轻易增长至80%甚至90%，付费获得额外功能的用户比例也会增加至60%或70%。现在这已经成为重要的盈利渠道。

明年及近两年间，手机游戏将主宰手机游戏世界。但将来智能手机无疑将成为控制器游戏、网游和PC游戏的天下。但短期内甚至直至这个时代到来前，这些产品只能让你与在线游戏的朋友交谈、查看你的角色、让角色为晚上的战斗做好准备或进行贸易。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Mobile Gaming’s Future: Not Mobile Games

Doug Dyer

I’ve seen the future of mobile gaming and I’m sorry to say that it has nothing to do with mobile games. Oh sure, while mobile video games will always have a place in the mobile gaming world, they will not be the primary revenue driver. Not by a long shot. In fact, in the not-too-distant future the primary revenue drivers in mobile gaming will actually be console, online, and PC games. Not console, online and PC games repurposed and redeveloped for mobile devices, but actual console, online and PC games played on Xbox systems and Alienware laptops. Before the incredulous among you begin to write nasty comments, let me give you the play-by-play on how the time is fast approaching when mobile games take a backseat in the mobile gaming industry.

Step One: Single player games will quickly disappear and all new games on all platforms will be one or more of the following:

Multiplayer or massively multiplayer. Even competing for high scores, trash talking via chat and forums, or adding small social interaction features turns a game into a multiplayer affair. If the game sells a million units, then it’s a massively multiplayer experience.

Persistent or semi-persistent. Like the phenoms that are social network games, more and more console and PC games are going to offer up persistency as part of the experience. Basically, when you stop playing, the game world you’re playing in keeps right on rolling along. To a degree, it’s already happening now in multiplayer, achievement-based gaming – when you stop playing, others don’t. So when you meet up again in a multiplayer session, they’ve continued to level up while you haven’t.

Require a long-term commitment of time and investment of money. Multiple releases, patches, downloadable content, and more will be status quo for all games that want to make “hit” status. “Franchise” is the name of the game and requiring users to commit to constantly interact with the franchise – even though not directly playing the game – is necessary to keep that property on every gamer’s radar.

Free-to-play MMOGs on PC and Console. It’ll happen, soon. Social network games will evolve and grow up to become real games. Hardcore single-player action games that want larger audiences and incremental revenue will change and adapt, offering more social features. The first freemium, big-budget MMOG for console and PC will be huge and, when it is, the world will follow.

Truly cross-platform. The time is quickly approaching when I can raid with my dwarf, put a beat down on the hapless Raiders, and manage a farm and crime family from my Xbox, PS3, PC, and Android. Hell, maybe even via Netflix through my DVR.

In other words, gaming is quickly evolving to the point where all games will be some form of massively multiplayer online experience. It’s all about increasing user engagement which, in turn, increases revenue.

Step Two: There will be a marked increase in the development of the connected mobile companion app. At the moment, app stores are populated with a small variety of mobile games and apps that mimic, supplement or, in most cases, simply repurpose some features and content of games – primarily online games – on mobile devices. There are several for World of Warcraft. League of Legends from Riot Games has a few as well. These ‘companion apps’ are almost always fan-developed and comprised primarily of scraped website data and contain publicly available content in the form of high scores, maps, loot tables, and whatnot, providing users with sometimes excellent, but most often questionable, value. None, however, actually give users access to their own game accounts nor actually connect them into the live game which must occur for even the most basic of valuable features, such as chat, to be available.

But things are slowly changing. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft iPhone app, which was originally a non-connected information-only affair, was expanded to include Auction House, which allows WoW players to log in and access all of AH features from their iPhone (other smartphone users are outta luck.) ArenaNet announced the development of their Guild Wars 2 mobile app which promises to deliver a great many in-game features from chat and email to character profile, armory, and maps. Last year, my company, AFK Interactive, worked closely with Icarus Studios to produce and launch the Fallen Earth mobile companion app across iOS, Android and Blackberry devices. The Fallen Earth mobile app gives users direct access to their own in-game account and lets them chat, send email with attachments, buy and sell on the auction house, and even craft items right from their mobile device just as if they’re actually in the game. Well, that’s because they are actually in the game when they log into the Fallen Earth mobile app.

There are a few other examples, particularly non-gaming (Facebook mobile for starters) that make a tremendous case for the development of the connected mobile companion app as a way to provide access to many features of an online, PC or even console game to players from their mobile device.

Step Three: Every game goes mobile. Steps One and Two will quickly bring about a time when all console, online and PC games will have a mobile component. Especially if they’re multiplayer, persistent in any way, or offer up an experience for user engagement outside of actual game play. It will be expected. Our lifestyles simply demand it.

The January 2011 issue of PC Gamer contained a review of AFK’s Fallen Earth app. In it, the review stated, “No matter where you are, you should be able to admire, tweak and gloat over all the shiny loot you’ve amassed in your favorite MMO. PC Gamer believes this is a fundamental human right. MMOs including World of Warcraft and Aion have taken up the call with apps that let you take your game with you- but Fallen Earth’s is the best of the lot so far.”

Folks, this is the future of mobile gaming. With all due respect to Angry Birds and such, those games will soon go back to being what we always expected them to be – time filling casual entertainment meant to be played 3 minutes at a time, 5 times per day. They’ll compete for the same consumer eyeballs as the pit bulls and ‘nad shots from kids’ birthday parties on YouTube. These $1.99 time wasters are no match for the hundreds of MMOs, online games and soon-to-be-connected console games that have built-in fan bases collectively numbering in the hundreds of millions. Here’s a very conservative estimate of mobile revenue for one of those games based upon known mobile ownership data and our own gathered usage metrics from current products:

Assume Bob’s MMOG has 1 million users.

Assume 75% of those users spend money = 750,000.

Say 80% of those users have a device that can download a free version of the Bob’s MMOG companion app. Out of that number, assume 75% actually do. This amounts to 450,000 downloads of the free Bob’s MMOG mobile companion app or 45% of all active users.

Of the free users, let’s assume 50% decide to subscribe to the ‘premium’ mobile app features which include real-time access to the item store, maps, armory, crafting, and a whole lot more features that can be accessed with valuable tasks completed without actually being on the PC.

This subscription is $1.99/mo and provides an enormous benefit to users.

This equals 225,000 users paying $2/mo = over $450,000 per month in incremental revenue to Bob. That’s $5 million (minus app store fees) per year.

Bottom line, a mobile companion app for Bob’s MMOG, in the fairly conservative scenario could net Bob another $4m or so per year while costing him less than 10% of that amount to build and maintain the product. That’s a great margin. Plus, Bob doesn’t have to advertise the way mobile games do since he’s already in touch with his current user base through world chat, news items, etc within the MMOG world itself and email. No stressing about whether or not the Bob’s MMOG app is in the Top Download or Highest Grossing lists. Also, as Bob’s mobile user-base grows due to his continued marketing of the app to his installed base, that 75% subscriber number could easily grow to be 80% or even 90% of his users downloading the free app with 60% or 70% paying for the premium features. This, now, starts to become significant revenue, particularly when you take into account it’s basically icing on the cake with very low cost and huge margin.

So for the next year or so, mobile games rule the mobile gaming world. And, inevitably, smartphones with the on-board horsepower of a PS3 and fold-out 30-inch screens will someday rule the world and then, well, you’ll see mega-blockbusters like Call of Duty: Angry Birds or Grand Theft Auto: Bejeweled’s Revenge or whatnot. That’s when true mobile gaming will rule the world of mobile games. But very soon, and until that day comes, those products that provide let you chat with all your online game friends, look in on your characters, prepare them for battle that night or make trades for your team that Sunday, buy virtual weapons and armor, download levels remotely to your PC or console, maybe do some long-distance cross-server traveling or make a little money crafting and working the auction house, all from your mobile phone, will be the killer mobile apps. (Source: Game Theory)