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从会计学角度分析虚拟商品运营和“租赁”模式

发布时间:2011-05-28 17:25:10 Tags:,,

作者:Bill Gurley

美国媒体和公司高管已逐渐开始欣赏虚拟商品运营模式的美妙、光鲜和对消费者的诱惑力。这种想法并非凭空而来,以此运营模式为基础,中国萌生出大量市值达数十亿美元的公司。但许多勒德分子(游戏邦注:指害怕或厌恶新技术的人)预测,这种“东方化”魅力永不会在西方世界中盛行,这只能说明他们的了解还不够透彻。

正因为存在上述任性的否定想法,过去我时常在考虑何种证据将最终让我深信西方已完全接受虚拟商品运营模式这个现实。上周(游戏邦注:本篇文章发稿时间为2010年2月,下文数据及信息均以此为基准)我终于得到了答案。来自Ernst and Young的Jeff Grabow邀请我和同伴Mitch Lasky与审计合伙人Mick Bobroff商谈,他专攻虚拟道具的盈利领域。我迫不及待地想深入了解这方面的信息,而不只是想听别人确认这些新模式的合法性。世界三大会计公司审计合伙人专家的言论肯定能指明正确的方向。

Virtual-Goods(from mobilemarketingwatch.com)

Virtual-Goods(from mobilemarketingwatch.com)

Mick准备了一份非常简明但信息丰富的报告。浏览这份报告时我感到异常兴奋,这种兴奋感不亚于任何人讨论会计准则时的感受。以下概括了Mick题为“虚拟商品销售的盈利实现调查”的报告:

1、首先是免责声明。Michael清楚指出这份文件所述的是普遍调查结果,不可当成专门的会计建议来使用。我理解他的想法,也同意上述观点。你的账目应该同自己的会计师核实。

2、目前已有许多使用虚拟商品模式和遵循一般通用会计准则(游戏邦注:下文简称GAAP)的公司在美国两大股票市场上交易。准确地说,这些公司全部来自中国,比如畅游(CYOU)、巨人(GA)、网易(NTES)、完美世界(PWRD)、九城(NCTY)、盛大游戏(GAME)。(游戏邦注:腾讯公司是在香港上市)当前GAAP盈利实现政策由这些公司来决定。

3、公司销售虚拟货币的行为并非盈利事件,尽管这可能明显属于现金交易事件。虚拟货币购买后未曾使用,那么久仍然处在资产负债表上,可以看做是客户的押金或延期盈利(游戏邦注:即债务)。

4、当消费者使用虚拟货币购买虚拟商品时,盈利实现开始。“开始”的具体细节将在下文说明。

5、虚拟商品有两个类别:用一次就消失的消耗型道具和在某段时间内发挥作用的持续型道具。

6、对“消耗型道具”而言,使用道具时盈利便得以实现。

7、对持续型道具(游戏邦注:此类道具数量众多)而言,盈利实现更为复杂。你需要随着商品使用寿命或用户实际平均寿命分期偿还债务(游戏邦注:指用户的付费)。当你理解衡量“用户寿命”的难度之后,就会知道这是个很复杂的问题,因为某些用户从不付费,还有些人随意进出游戏,毫无规律可循。而且,你的“用户平均寿命”可能随时间改变,使其变得更为复杂。

8、底线:要正确掌握此类数据需要少许数据公司帮助追踪数字世界中出售的每种虚拟商品的销售和使用情况,而且还要掌握每个虚拟货币账户的供应和使用情况以及每个用户的活跃等级,这样才能估算出平均寿命。

上述方针并非特别令人惊奇之物。当我听到“持续型道具”盈利统计的复杂性时,想起从Nexon之类创新型韩国公司等虚拟道具鼻祖处学得的经验。

“租赁”模式

四五年前,LindenLab团队(游戏邦注:《第二人生》制作者)在他们的工作室举办晚宴,希望能够了解更多在韩国广受欢迎的虚拟道具游戏的相关内容。我们邀请了两名双语玩家安装并试玩《劲舞团》、《跑跑卡丁车》和《街头篮球》这三款游戏。当晚我获得的最大收获是,这些游戏并非真正“出售”虚拟商品,每件虚拟道具都只能被“租用”。用户可以选择1天、7天或30天的租期。我萌生好奇的念头,急切地想知道为何虚拟商品的“租用”可以比完全拥有发展得更好。

1、游戏世界商品供过于求。随着虚拟世界的成熟,通常都会面临游戏中商品供过于求的局面。此前对新手很有帮助的道具对更高级的用户来说不具吸引力,这些道具确实会损害游戏世界及其经济体系。租赁好似免费的垃圾回收站,每件东西都会慢慢消失。

2、用户商品混乱。高级用户通常都会遇到管理大量道具的问题,而且许多道具不可循环使用。使用租赁模式,用户就无需考虑“两个月前我为什么要买这个道具,我现在能用它来做什么?”和“为什么我会买这些道具?”之类的问题。租赁模式为用户免去管理商品的烦恼。

3、更多的营销机会。某件道具销售到期后,过段时间可能会重新上市,新品可以是当前商品的强化版,也可以更新鲜和更有趣。

4、价格分割。本质上来说,通过提供1天、7天和30天的租赁期,商家将市场商品的价格进行分割。从理论上来说,比起单一的较高价格,这种方法可以让更多用户尝试商品。

5、良好的盈利。如果你可以用让用户自然地以再次购买的形式销售商品,那么为什么还要将商品设置为永久有效呢?

6、统计简单。直到上周与Mick见面后,我才认识到这一点。租赁模式商品过期后,就不存在“持续型”虚拟商品的概念。而且,你实现盈利的时间框架被固定在1天、7天或30天。这大大降低了统计的复杂性。

对来自E&Y的Michael和Jeff与我们会谈,我再次表示感谢。认识到虚拟商品业务最终成为北美主流而且这些方式甚至有适合自身的统计方法,这真得很棒。我也很感激能够有机会再次探讨虚拟道具的“租赁”与“销售”。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Virtual Goods, Accounting, And The Power Of The “Rental” Model

Bill Gurley

American journalists and corporate executives have been slow to appreciate the beauty, brilliance, and consumer allure of the virtual goods business model. It’s not that they did not have data points – China is chock full of multi-US$billion market capitalization companies that are based on this business model. That said, many luddites predicted it was an “Eastern” fascination that would never spread to the West. They never fully understood it.

As a result of this headstrong denial, I have often wondered what data point would finally convince me that the West had fully accepted the reality of the virtual goods business model. Last week I received my answer. Jeff Grabow from Ernst and Young asked my partner Mitch Lasky and I to sit down with Mick Bobroff, an audit partner developing an expertise in virtual item based revenue recognition. Now I wasn’t exactly waiting for a sign from God or anything – rather just a small signal that confirmed this new model was legit. Having an audit partner at a top three accounting firm become an expert certainly qualifies as a step in the right direction.

Mick had prepared a remarkably succinct and information rich presentation (they are working on a white paper I can post later). I was fairly excited to go through it – at least as excited as anyone should get when discussing accounting principles. Here is a summary of what Mick had to say in his presentation titled “Revenue Recognition Considerations for the Sale of Virtual Goods”.

[Legal Point First] Michael made it clear that this document represented general observations and should not be used specifically as accounting advice. I understand and concur with regards to this post also. For your own books verify with your own accountant.

There are already a ton of companies that trade on American stock exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ) that use virtual goods models and adhere to GAAP. To the point above, they are all in China. Examples: ChangYou (CYOU), Giant (GA), NetEase (NTES), Perfect World (PWRD), The 9 (NCTY), Shanda Games (GAME). [For the record, TenCent is Hong Kong listed.] The current GAAP revenue recognition policies were honed with these companies.

When a company sells virtual currency, this is not a revenue event (even though it may clearly be a cash event). When purchased but not yet used, virtual currency sits on the balance sheet as a customer deposit or deferred revenue (i.e. a liability).

Revenue recognition commences when virtual goods are bought with virtual currency by the consumer. Exactly how it “commences” depends on the following.

There are two categories of virtual goods – (1) consumable items that are used once and gone, and (2) durable items that “work” over an extended period of time.

For “consumable items” you can recognize revenue when it is consumed.

For durable items (which many are), things are much trickier. You need to amortize the revenue (linearly) over the useful life of the good, or the average life of the actual user (i.e. – what is the average customer life of your customer?). This is a messy problem, especially when you understand how difficult it is to measure “customer life” when some customers never pay and others come and go in fairly random patterns. Also, your “average customer life” may change over time creating very complex accruals.

The bottom line: getting this right requires quite a few database entries for tracking the sale and usage of every single virtual good sold in your digital world, in addition to the supply and usage of each virtual currency account, and the activity levels of each user (to estimate average life).

These policies were not particularly surprising. That said, when I was listening to the complications of the “durable item” revenue accounting, it reminded me of something I learned for the early leaders in the virtual items space — innovative Korean companies such as Nexon.

The “Rental” Model

About four to five years ago, the team at LindenLab (SecondLife) held a pizza night at their offices with the goal of learning more about the virtual item games that were wildly popular in Korea. We invited two bilingual gamers to install and play Audition, Kartrider, and FreeStyle. My big takeaway from that night was that not one of these titles actual allowed for the “sale” of virtual goods. Rather, each virtual item could only be “rented.” In each case, the user was given the option of one, seven, or thirty-day rental. I assumed this was Darwinian, and immediately began to wonder why “renting” might be better than outright ownership when it comes to virtual goods.

In world inventory gluts. As virtual worlds mature, they often suffer from game-wide inventory glut. Items that were once useful to newbies become throw-aways for the more advanced user, and can literally pollute the world and compromise the in-world economy. Allowing rental is like having free garbage collection. Everything eventually goes away.

User inventory clutter. More advanced users typically have a huge problem managing large inventories of items. Also, many items are trend-oriented and trends change. With the rental model, no user sits around thinking “wow, why did I really buy that two months ago and what do I do with it now?,” and “why am I buying all this stuff?” The rental model simplifies inventory management for the user.

More marketing opportunities. When an item expires, it offers a unique time to re-market to the user for either an extension of the current good, to a trade to a newer, fresher, and perhaps more interesting item.

Price segmentation. By offering 1, 7, and 30 day rentals, the merchant has basically price-segmented the market. This theoretically allows more users to experience the good than may have with a single, and arguably higher, price point.

Good business. Why sell something that lasts forever if you can sell something that has to be naturally repurchased?

Simpler accounting. I didn’t think of this sixth point until my meeting last week. The rental model does away with the notion of a “durable” virtual good, as they all expire. What’s more the time frame over which you recognize the revenue is now fixed at 1, 7, or 30 days. This dramatically reduces the accounting complexity.

Thanks again to Michael and Jeff at E&Y for reaching out and setting up the meeting. It’s great to recognize that virtual goods businesses are finally mainstream here in North America, and that they even have their own appropriate accounting policies. I also appreciate having one more reason to favor “rentals” vs “sales” when it comes to virtual items. (Source: Inside Social Games)


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