作者：Nicholas Lovell

若你的用户获取成本是1美元，那么游戏定价99美分，你就无法从中获利。

关键是要改变思维方式。想象游戏处在销售金字塔顶部，而非底部。那么获取成本就非常高。

若游戏售价40美元，问题就迎刃而解（虽然我不赞同一次性付费模式，这只适用那些大制作）。

Infinity Blade from toucharcade.com

若你打算采取低售价策略（游戏邦注：即介于99美分和2.99美元之间），就需进行仔细思考。你先高价获取用户，然后再试图推动他们进行消费。若用户获取成本很高，那么你就要确保产品：

* 尽可能定高价，让游戏具有经济可行性（传统发行商的一次性付费模式）。面对《无尽之剑》这样斥资200万美元的大制作都只售价5.99美元，我们不免存有低价定位压力（游戏邦注：很多独立作品都奋力突破1.99美元）。

* 鼓励玩家邀请好友参与游戏，以降低你的实际CPA（用户获取成本，这是Zynga惯有的策略）。记住如今的病毒式传播要比以往困难很多，如今我们通常把游戏邀请视作垃圾信息。

* 视每款游戏为其他游戏的营销机会（交叉推广策略）。独立开发商Appy在此就取得显著成绩，虽然这也是Zynga的核心策略。诸如Applifier之类的服务能够帮助独立开发商扩宽用户覆盖面。

* 嵌入内置付费功能，让游戏忠实粉丝能够进行消费。

我是上述最后一个策略的忠实粉丝。让鲸鱼用户（即在游戏中挥金如土的玩家）在游戏中挥洒金钱意味着你的用户获取成本能获得较高投资回报。

iOS独立开发商Nimblebits和Snappy Touch就从中受益良多。Epic的《无尽之剑》也是采用该策略，并取得显著成绩。Zynga、Bigpoint和Playfish亦是该方案推崇者，而我自己也是其中一员。

这对你也适用。

我的建议是摆脱单一定价，着力提高游戏忠实粉丝价值，推动他们消费。

这样你就会发现CPA小于LTV（终身价值），打破在线游戏原有基本方程式。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

If it costs you $1 to acquire a customer, how can you make money charging $0.99 for a game

By Nicholas Lovell

If your customer acquisition cost is $1, you can’t make money charging $0.99 for your game.

The key is to change your thinking. Think of your game as the top of your sales funnel, not the bottom. It is expensive to get people into your funnel.

That’s OK if you are charging $40 per game (although I think that the pay-once model is in trouble and will only work for the biggest blockbusters).

If you plan to charge a small amount ($0.99, $2.99), think about what you are doing. You are acquiring customers (which is expensive and difficult), and then finding a way to charge them. If acquiring players is so expensive, you need to make your business work by:

* Charging more for your game, to make the game financially viable (the traditional publisher, pay-once route). There is downwards pressure on pricing, when a game like Infinity Blade, with a $2 million development budget, sells at only $5.99, and most indie game struggle to get over $1.99

* Encouraging each of your customers to invite their friends, hence reducing your effective CPA (the Zynga strategy). Bear in mind that virality is harder than it used to be now that we have been trained to think of many game invites as spam.

* Viewing each game as a marketing opportunity for other games (the cross-promotion strategy). Independent developer Appy has used this strategy very successfully, while it is also the core strategy of Zynga. Services such as Applifier bring this strategy into reach for independent developers

* Offering In-App Purchases to enable your biggest fans to spend a lot of money (dare I call this the GAMESbrief-recommended strategy?)

I am a big fan of the last strategy. Enabling your whales to spend tens, hundreds, even thousands of dollars on your game means that it becomes cost-effective – in aggregate – to acquire customers.

It works for indie iOS developers Nimblebits and Snappy Touch. It works for Epic with Infinity Blade. It works for Zynga and Bigpoint and Playfish. It works for my clients.

It could work for you.

My recommendation to you is to end the limitation of the single price point. Find ways to offer more value to your biggest fans. Let them spend more if they wish to.

That way, you may find that CPA < LTV. And you have cracked the basic equation of online games.（Source：gamesbrief）