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开发者分析iOS平台降价行为对销量的影响

作者:Dave Kalina

我们最近刚分享了自己的所有销售数据

当天,我们降低所有产品的价格。

我们的策略是,通过同时植入若干有价值的事件制造新闻话题,吸引大众眼球。我们的《火星漫步》更新内容融入新的喷气飞行器供玩家收集和互动,同时强化对iPad Retina Display的支持。

我们发布新闻稿,亲自和数位媒体人士联系,请求他们报道我们的作品。我们撰写博客,旨在让游戏获得更多关注。

我们在Bandcamp降低原声配乐的价格。我们长时间以来首次降低了两款《Spider》的售价。此外,我们还首次将《火星漫步》的价格由4.99美元降至2.99美元。

Waking Mars from ewtang.com

Waking Mars from ewtang.com

距离现在已过去两周时间,到底结果如何?

《火星漫步》的销售情况(由4.99美元降至2.99美元)

下图15天前的销售情况:

Image 1 from gamasutra.com

Image 1 from gamasutra.com

我们在这一阶段的总收益是1万2946美元。销售数据在4/24-25达到高峰水平——我们认为这是因为雅虎游戏博客“Plugged In” 推荐了我们(游戏邦注:网站的484则评论充分说明,大家有阅读这篇报道)。通常单个报道无法带来显著影响,但有些大型平台就可以做到。连同高峰水平在内,我们在之前售价4.99美元的15天里的日均收益约是863美元。

下图是15天之后的销售情况:

Image 2 from gamasutra.com

Image 2 from gamasutra.com

我们获得的总收益是2万5733美元,总共多售出1万2622份。此收益是15天前的2倍,但正逐步降至最低点。如图所示,我们的单日最高收益是6201美元,而昨天我们的收益只有其中的1/10(647美元)。这依然好过我们在前面两个周一的销售水平(564美元和497美元),但我们即将步入收入中立状态,所以打算今晚结束此促销活动。

你可以从图表中看到这一趋势。我们最好的成绩是在iPad游戏排行榜中荣登第18的位置,随后整周都维持在不错的榜单位置(游戏邦注:这要归功于苹果的推荐),接着排名开始急剧下滑,但还没有降至最低水平。

Image 3 from gamasutra.com

Image 3 from gamasutra.com

有趣的是,iPhone榜单出现小幅上升,随后呈平坦走势。我们没有在iPhone商店发布横幅广告,这是部分原因所在,但我觉得这是因为用户认为我们的游戏并非“针对”iPhone平台。潜在用户看到我们的游戏后,很容易联想到3.5英寸的屏幕,他们认为游戏主要“针对”iPad平台。

Image 4 from gamasutra.com

Image 4 from gamasutra.com

《SPIDER》的销售情况(2.99美元降至99美分)

至于《SPIDER》,我们只降价一个礼拜,所获成绩并不突出。高清版本(游戏邦注:这采用retina技术)创造约900美元的收益。对于日均收益30-40美元的游戏而言,这显然是个不错的成绩,但头3天之后,销量又回到最初水平。

Image 5 from gamasutra.com

Image 5 from gamasutra.com

iPhone版表现得更是糟糕,相比促销前和促销后的周末销售水平,在价格调至99美分的那个周末,收益反而减少。从最初的销售高峰以来,我们获得300-400美元的收益,但其实当前2.99美元售价创造的收益更多。

Image 6 from gamasutra.com

Image 6 from gamasutra.com

从整体来看,这一活动非常成功——我们获得相当多的新用户,有效提高产品的认知价值,而且还获得丰厚的额外收益。就长远来看,我们很难预测这些举措所起到的作用。我曾担心,促销会分散潜在用户——有多少以2.99美元购买《火星漫步》的用户最后会接受4.99美元的价位?这无从知晓。显然,iOS让人们知道,如果他们能够多等一会,所有产品都会进行促销。

这是我们这次愿意调整产品定价的一个原因所在。市场怀有这些的期许,而且有些玩家虽然喜欢我们的游戏,但他们无论如何也不会掏出4.99美元进行购买。我们每天都在获得新用户,我们有更多的机会制造新闻,让用户知晓我们的作品。在我看来,保持活跃是iOS作品成败的一个关键。

游戏邦注:原文发布于2012年5月15日,文章叙述以当时为背景。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Tiger Style outlines how iOS price drops affect overall sales data

by Dave Kalina

We recently shared our lifetime sales numbers.

The same day, we dropped price on all of our products.

Our strategy was to try and create news and attention by coordinating several newsworthy events simultaneously. Our Waking Mars update had new jetpacks to collect and play with, and enhanced support for the iPad Retina Display.

We issued a press release and personally reached out to a number of folks in the press, asking for coverage. We wrote blog posts to attract attention to our games.

We dropped the price of the soundtrack on Bandcamp. We dropped the price of both Spider SKUs for the first time in a long time. And we dropped the price of Waking Mars from 4.99 to 2.99 for the first time ever.

It’s been two weeks, so how’d we do?

WAKING MARS SALE ($4.99 -> $2.99)

Here are the 15 days before the sale:

We earned $12,946 in revenue during that period. There was a blip in the data on 4/24-25 where we spiked upwards — we believe this was due to a piece on a Yahoo! Games blog called “Plugged In” that featured us nicely (484 comments on that piece indicate to me that people are reading this blog!). Normally single press events don’t seem to make a tangible difference, but some of the bigger ones do. Even accounting for that spike, we were earning approximately $863 a day for the last 15 days at $4.99.

Here are the 15 days post-sale:

We earned $25,733 on sale, selling an additional 12,622 copies. That’s nearly double what we were earning over the previous 15 day window, but the trends are indicating a bottoming out. You can see that we had one amazing day at $6,201 earned, and then yesterday, we earned about 1/10 of that ($647). That’s a bit better than the two Mondays pre-sale ($564 and $497) but we’re approaching a state of being revenue neutral, so we’re going to end the sale tonight.

You can see this trend on the charts as well. We got as high as the number 18 iPad game, hung out at a nice chart position all week (thanks in large part to another Apple feature) … and then the rank started collapsing, and hasn’t bottomed out quite yet.

Interestingly the iPhone charts show a much gentler bump and then a flatter curve. We didn’t have a banner in the iPhone store, so that’s probably part of it, but I think our game is just not perceived as being “for” the iPhone. Potential consumers see our product and can probably pretty easily imagine playing it on a 3.5 inch screen, and they (correctly) perceive that it’s “for” the iPad. (Of course, it plays great in both places and you should still buy it! My point is more that I think consumers are looking for something a bit more approachable on the iPhone, in most cases)

SPIDER SALE ($2.99 -> $0.99)

As for Spider… we only put it on sale for a week, and the results were not amazing. The HD version — which received a retina update — did pull in approximately an extra $900. For a game that has been earning $30-40 a day, this is certainly welcome, but after the first 3 days, sales numbers were very close to where they started.

The iPhone version fared even worse, actually earning less money at $0.99 the weekend following the sale versus the weekends before and after the sale period. We still probably came out ahead $300-400 dollars from the initial spike in attention, but it actually seems to be the case that we are better off at $2.99 for now.

All things considered, this effort was successful — we reached a significant number of new users, (hopefully) increased the perceived value of the product, and pocketed a nice chunk of extra revenue. Long term, it’s harder to predict how much these efforts help. I used to fear that sales would serve to cannibalize your potential user base — how many of the people who just bought Waking Mars at $2.99 would have eventually bought it at $4.99? It’s impossible to know. iOS has definitely taught people that, if they wait just a little bit, practically everything goes on sale.

This is one reason we’re more willing to play with our pricing this time around (Spider did not go on sale for over a year after its release). The market expects it, and there are gamers who may love our stuff who, for whatever reason, won’t buy it at $4.99. We’re reaching new players every day, and hopefully we’ll have plenty more reasons to make news in the coming year and keep the product on people’s minds. Staying relevant over a long period of time is, in my opinion, one of the core tricks to success on iOS.(Source:gamasutra


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