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分析付费-免费增值模式转变的权衡过程

发布时间:2012-06-08 13:48:23 Tags:,,,

作者:Tyler York

快速浏览App Store高创收榜单后你会发现,其中包括几款免费增值模式游戏。你还会发现,当《Cut the Rope: Experiments》之类的老牌作品将其价格由99美分降至0时,下载量迅速蹿升至前列。Flurry甚至还发布报告称,免费增值模式应用如今占据约65%的iOS应用收益。你不禁会开始好奇,如果你将付费游戏转变成免费模式会出现什么情况?这是否是个明智的商业决策?我总结如下3个步骤,帮你合理分析具体情况,得出正确游戏分析结论。

Experiments转变成免费模式2天后排名由31变成1 from gamasutra.com

Experiments转变成免费模式2天后排名由31变成第一 from gamasutra.com

1.进行商业论证

在将应用价格降至0前,你需要准备一个商业论证。潜在增长率和转化率预测将是决定是否切换至免费商业模式的关键要素。开始前, 你需要基于3个关键变量进行若干情况分析:日活跃用户(DAU)、转化率(从免费到付费)及付费用户的平均收益(ARPPU)。

dau conversion arppu from gamasutra.com

dau conversion arppu from gamasutra.com

DAU

降低应用价格背后的想法是,希望能够显著提高安装数量。应用安装数量的增长情况主要取决于若干变量,例如当前在应用商店的排名、当前售价、营销、促销和潜在交叉推广。基于这些变量,将应用转变成免费增值模式将对你的发展产生显著影响。要试试效果,你可以将应用投放至“free app a day” 网站,看看这一促销活动会给你的下载率带来什么影响(游戏邦注:查看如下图2,看看应用转变成免费增值模式后,安装量出现什么变化)。

此外,你还应该追踪及留意DAU/总用户比例。这能够让你了解游戏的粘性情况,及有多少用户可能会在免费增值模式游戏中付费。这就引出下个变量,转换率。

app store downloads from gamasutra.com

app store downloads from gamasutra.com

转换率

付费用户数量因游戏而异,通常游走在1%-5%之间。我之所以让你特别留意DAU是因为,只有用户富有粘性,你才有可能促使他们发生转换。在将玩家由免费用户转换成付费用户时,你需要避免采取过快步伐,急于实现留存率最大化,进而获得长期转换率。这样,你就不会出现牺牲未来粘性换取当前收益的情况。

通过提供庞大捆绑内容提高ARPPU from gamasutra.com

通过提供庞大捆绑内容提高ARPPU from gamasutra.com

付费用户的平均收益(ARPPU)

公式的最后一个变量是ARPPU,这和应用的虚拟商品存在密切关系。要实现ARPPU最大化,你需要提供高价值的高价位捆绑内容,因为根据我的经验,高价位商品的需求通常缺乏价格弹性。

此外,应在游戏及促销活动中引入消耗性道具而非永久性道具。这些对富有粘性的玩家来说更有价值,因为他们会在玩法中运用道具,它们的消耗性质会提高重复购买几率。

2. 供求关系

在你将游戏转变成免费增值模式前,你需要制作供给内容(游戏邦注:虚拟商品和购买货币),然后确保供给品存在需求。创造虚拟商品需求性的方式有两种:限制条件和成就。

限制条件

限制玩法会促使玩家产生购买虚拟商品的强烈动机。但在限制性玩法方面,有几条原则需要遵守。

* 首先,不要混淆限制条件和障碍。这里我的意思是,玩家应能够在无需付费的情况下在游戏中前进,限制条件只是为了放缓这一进展过程。你出售的是捷径,而非玩法本身,这能够避免玩家产生沮丧情绪。

* 其次,从轻微限制条件着手,然后慢慢、稳步提高限制性。这样,你就不会一开始就吓跑玩家,只要玩家富有粘性,他们或转变成付费用户,或等待复杂限制条件消失。

* 最后,提供至少2个跳过限制条件的付费选择。例如,一个选择是少量付费货币及大量免费货币,而另一选择是大量付费货币。这旨在让低价位内容变得毫无吸引力,促使玩家购买高价位内容。

限制机制范例:

游戏X是款谜题游戏,玩家需要通过各种关卡。关卡被制作成关卡包,每个关卡包有10个关卡。为限制前进过程,你需要添加定时机制,这样每当玩家完成一个关卡包时,他们就需要等待特定时间,方能继续探险。玩家可以通过购买单个解锁内容(它会解锁下个关卡包,其中包含10个关卡),或是投入更多资金,解锁所有关卡包(100个关卡),跳过等待时间。完成各关卡包之后的等待时间会越来越久,这让付费购买所有关卡解锁包变得越来越诱人。

Restriction example from gamasutra.com

Restriction example from gamasutra.com

成就

除限制玩家进程外,你还可以添加成就元素,奖励出色完成关卡的玩家。这样要出色完成关卡,玩家就需要进行更多体验,完善自己的策略,这就带来用户粘性。首个成就应要能够轻松实现,但随着玩家的逐步前进,成就应变得越来越难获得(因此需要更多体验回合)。这就让助推器和强化道具变得必不可少,这能够帮助玩家出色完成关卡,获得成就。

成就机制范例:

游戏X是款赛车游戏。在各关卡中,首个完成比赛的玩家将获得3颗星。在关卡选择页面中,5个关卡之后的第6个关卡总是处于加锁状态,第6个关卡通常包含更有趣或独特的设计。要进入加锁关卡,玩家需要在前5个关卡中都取得第一。玩家可以通过购买消耗性助推器提高获胜把握,或者可以选择购买立即打开关卡的技能。

achievement example from gamasutra.com

achievement example from gamasutra.com

3. 追踪和调整

现在你有具体的商业案例,这让你得以把握具体目标,顺利将游戏转变成免费增值模式。你制作出虚拟商品,鼓励玩家在游戏中进行消费。现在,为成功从付费模式转变成免费增值模式,你需要追踪关键参数。当应用在商店中由付费模式转变成免费模式后,开发和营销团队需要根据所获数据优化游戏。

确保在展开追踪活动时牢记上述限制条件和成就。追踪和分析数据非常关键,不仅出于提高创收水平和用户粘性的目的,还能够把握你的商业案例的运作情况。把握自己的立场后,我们就能够轻松优化随后的更新内容,实现你设定的商业目标。

所以现在,你的游戏已变成免费增值模式,所获成绩颇令人沮丧,你要如何进行调整?下面是几点建议:

DAU

在将应用由付费模式转变成免费模式时应开展相应的营销和PR活动。确保游戏获得FreeAppADay及系列博客和微博的推荐,以提高曝光度。如果你还有其他作品,积极进行交叉推广。如果这是你的唯一作品,那么考虑付费进行交叉推广(游戏邦注:只针对在Android平台)。谷歌或苹果的推荐也非常值得争取。

ARPPU

低ARPPU通常意味着,你的商品价位过低(这有违直觉,但记住只有1-5%的玩家会进行消费),或是高价位商品没有呈现出对应的高价值。仔细查看数据,查看玩家在哪个游戏节点展开消费,购买的物品是什么。把握这些信息后,你就可以重新安排你的供给品,这样它们就能够在游戏的转换阶段更好适应玩家。同时,确保错综设置商品价格,这样更高价位的商品就能够提供低价位商品所没有的价值。此外,由于只有1-5%的玩家会在多数游戏中进行消费,所以你定希望能够积极促使他们购买大量商品。

转换率

转换率是最难完善的变量。当此变量较低时,说明你所创造的需求还不够强烈,或者你的虚拟商品无法迎合需求。如果你觉得自己遇到其中一种情况,那么你就需要回到步骤2,分析玩家如何体验你的游戏。

但确保不要错过设计和用户体验中“唾手可得的果实”。我发现,有些游戏的消费内容过于隐蔽,很难引起玩家的注意,因为设计师担心这会吓跑玩家。不要害怕!虽然你不希望自己表现得太过惹人讨厌,但多数玩家如今已习惯免费模式的游戏,多半不会对提示购买虚拟商品的弹出窗口心生厌烦。检查你的数据,看看有多少比例的DAU浏览消费消息。如果这低于20%,那么你就需要充分利用游戏的各种窗口(游戏邦注:例如Level Failed、Level Selector和Welcome Screen)。值得一提的是,Level Failed是推销虚拟商品的绝佳地点,这里玩家正积极探索完善体验的方式。

Hambo在暂停画面中植入若干付费选择 from gamasutra.com

Hambo在暂停画面中植入若干付费选择 from gamasutra.com

总结

最后主要是关于把握付费模式和免费增值模式之间的差异,分析付费游戏转变成免费增值模式的成功几率。这里的关键在于,创造需求,制造机会,让玩家通过虚拟商品满足需求。我想提的最后一点是:不要指望游戏能够立即转变成免费增值模式。你需要追踪和调整游戏,完善你的数据和收益。由付费模式转变成免费增值模式是个复杂挑战,但若你把握得当,一切将非常值得。(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

Three Steps from Paid to Freemium

by Tyler York

This is a guest post by Michail Katkoff, who works on Monetization at Rovio Entertainment. He writes about his experiences with social and mobile game monetization regularly on his Deconstructor of Fun blog. You should also follow him on Twitter.

A quick glimpse on the top grossing games list in App Store and you’ll spot several freemium titles on the top. You see year old titles such as Cut the Rope: Experiments skyrocket on the top of the download ranks once they cut their price from $0.99 to plain just 0. Flurry has even released reports saying that freemium apps now account for over 65% of iOS app revenue. You start to wonder… what if you turned your paid game into a free one? Would this be a good business decision? I put together the following three steps to help you analyse this situation logically and come to the right conclusion for your game.

1. Make the Business Case

Before cutting the price of your app to zero, you need to have a business case ready. Projections of potential growth rates and conversion expectations will be key factors in your decision to go freemium. To get started, you need to construct several scenario analyses based on three key variables: daily active users (DAU), conversion rate (from free to paying), and average revenue per paying user (ARPPU).

Daily Active Users

The whole idea behind cutting away the price of the app is to significantly increase the amount of installs. The increase in installs your app will be getting depends on several variables, such as the current rank in app store, current price, marketing, promotion, and potential cross promotion. Based on these variables, cutting your price to freemium could have a huge impact on your growth. To try this out, you can list your app on a “free app a day” site to see what the combination of promotion and price does to your download rate. (See Picture 2 below to see what kind of installs difference you might see from making your app freemium.)

Also, you should be tracking and aware of the ratio of daily active users to your total users. This will give you an idea of how engaging your game is, and how many of your users will be likely to pay in a freemium game. This leads to our next variable, Conversion.

Conversion

The amount of paying users is very game specific issue and varies typically between 1% and 5%. The reason why I want you to look at your DAUs specifically is because you’ll likely only convert your players once they are engaged. When converting players from free to paying, avoid aggressive offers and steep progression curves to maximize retention, and thus the long-term conversion (read more: Primed Spend).  That way, you won’t be sacrificing engagement later for revenue now.

Average Revenue Per Paying User (ARPPU)

The final variable of the formula is the ARPPU, which is tied to the in-app purchase offering of your app. To maximize ARPPU, you should always try to offer high-value high-price bundles as according to my experience the demand tends to be quite price-inflexible when it comes to high purchase points.

Also, favor consumable items instead of permanent items both in your game and in your promotions. These are more valuable to engaged players because they will use the items during gameplay, and their consumable nature increases re-purchases (read more:Monetizing Free-to-Play Games).

2. Create Demand & Offering

Before you transition your game to freemium, you need to create offerings (in-app purchases and purchase points), and then ensure that there is demand for those offerings. There are two ways you can create demand for in-app purchases: Restrictions and Achievements.

Restrictions

Restricting gameplay creates a strong incentive for in-app purchases. However, there are few rules you should remember when restricting players’ gameplay.

* First, don’t confuse restrictions with walls. By this I mean that players should be able to progress without paying, and restrictions are there only to slow this progress. You are selling a shortcut, not the gameplay itself, which will prevent players from being frustrated.

* Secondly, start with light restrictions, and then increase them slowly and steadily. This way, you won’t scare away players in the beginning, and once player are engaged they will either convert to paying or wait out even the toughest restrictions.

* Lastly, always offer at least two purchase options to bypass the restriction. An example of this would be a smaller amount of paid currency and a significant amount of free currency, while the other option would be a larger amount of paid currency. The intention is to make the small price point offer look extremely unattractive and thus incentivize players to make the reasonable purchase with the higher price point.

Example of Restriction Mechanism:

Title X is a puzzle game, which has players passing various levels. Levels are made into level packs with each pack containing 10 levels.  To restrict the progression, you have added a timer mechanic so that every time players complete a level pack they have to wait for a specific time until they can continue the adventure. Players can skip the waiting period by either purchasing a single unlock, which unlocks the next level pack (10 levels), or by unlocking all the level packs (100 levels) with a slightly larger purchase. The waiting period grows after each completed level pack, making the all levels unlock purchase more and more attractive.

Achievements

In place of or in addition to restricting the player’s progress, you can also add achievements, which reward players for perfecting each level. Now, to perfect a level a player needs to usually play more and refine their strategy, which drives engagement. The first achievements should be pretty easy, but as players progress the achievements should become harder and harder to reach (and therefore demand more play sessions). This leads to demand for boosters and power ups, which assist players in their quest to perfect each level and earn the achievement.

Example of Achievement Mechanism:

Title X is a racing game. For each level, a first place finish earns player 3 stars from that level. Every sixth level is visibly locked in the level selection screen, and the sixth level is typically a more interesting or unique level design. To enter the locked level, a player must get a first place finish in all five previous levels. Players can improve the chances of winning a race by purchasing consumable boosters with in-app purchases, or they can purchase the ability to open the chest outright.

3. Track and Adjust

Now you have a business case, which gives you goals to shoot for in order to make your game a freemium success. You’ve created offers with build-in demand to encourage in-app purchases. Now, in order to successfully make the switch from paid to freemium, you need to implement tracking around your key metrics. Once the app transitions from paid to free in the app stores, the development and marketing teams should be looking to optimize the game based on the data they get.

Be sure to keep the above Restrictions and Achievements in mind when setting up your tracking. Tracking and analyzing the data is essential, both for improving your monetization and engagement and to know how are you doing with regard to the business case you’ve made. Once you know where you stand, it’s much easier to prioritize following updates and achieve the business goals you’ve set.

So now that your game is freemium and you’ve got disappointing numbers, how do you adjust? Let me give you some suggestions below:

DAU

Going from paid to free should be accompanied with a marketing and PR campaign. Have you game featured on FreeAppADay and various blogs and tweets to ensure exposure. If you have other titles, go hard on cross promotion. If this is your only title than consider buying cross promotion (Android only). And featuring from Google or Apple is naturally worth crawling for…

ARPPU

Low ARPPU means usually that either your prices are too low (counterintuitive, but remember only 1-5% of your players are buying) or that your larger price points fail to offer the perceived higher value. Take a closer look at the data and see at which point in the game users are making purchases and what are they purchasing. Once you know this information, you can rearrange you offering so that it better suits players in those converting phases of the game. At the same time, make sure you unbalance the price points so that the higher prices offer unbeatable value compared to the lower ones. Again, because only 1-5% of your players are buying in most games, you want to give them a lot of incentive to make a larger purchase.

Conversion

Conversion is the toughest variable of them all to improve. When it’s low, it implicates that the demand you’ve created isn’t strong enough, or that your in-app offering doesn’t answer to the demand. If you suspect that either of those two cases is true, you need to go back to step two and really analyze how players are playing the game.

However, be sure that you’re not missing the low-hanging fruit in your design and user experience. I’ve seen games where purchasable content is simply too well hidden to be noticed because designers are afraid it might scare players. Don’t be afraid! While you don’t want to be obnoxious about it, most players are now used to freemium games and are not fazed by prompts to buy in-app purchases. From your data, see what percentage of DAUs is seeing the purchase wall. If it’s below 20%, you need make better use of various screens in the game, such as Level Failed, Level Selector and Welcome Screen. In particular, Level Failed is a great place to sell your in-app purchases because players are looking for ways to improve their play.

Conclusion

In the end it’s all about understanding the difference between paid and freemium business models and analysing the potential of your paid game succeeding as a freemium version. The key is in creating demand and giving players the possibility to fulfil the demand with in-app purchases. And one final thing I want to mention: don’t expect to nail the transformation to freemium instantly. You need track and adjust your game to improve your numbers and revenue. Going from paid to freemium is a tough challenge, but if you execute well then it will certainly pay off. Good luck!(Source:gamasutra


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