作者：Ze’ev Rozov

（本文作者是Iconicfuture首席执行官及联合创始人。Iconicfuture是一个为游戏开发商或其他组织、品牌、名人等提供在游戏中加入授权虚拟道具服务的网站。）

授权和品牌在游戏开发中一直起着重要作用。但随着游戏开发从主机转向微交易时代，授权领域还未能充分利用这个持续发展中的市场的机遇。

授权领域的变化

过去，利用品牌授权获利的方法有两种：条幅广告和插页式广告。这两种方法与玩家都没有直接联系，但都会干扰玩家的游戏体验。近来年出现了三种新的方法，能够有效地增强品牌对玩家的吸引力，即：游戏内的品牌赞助式广告、激励性品牌商信息和销售品牌授权虚拟物品。如果能够妥当使用以上三个方法，就可以增加玩家的满足感、ARPU（每用户平均收益）和沉浸感。

授权往往是一个复杂、耗时且资源密集的过程。Betable网站上有许多关于授权游戏的内容。许多版权持有人并不具备基本设施或者不了解如何满足专注于手机和社交游戏的现代、活跃游戏开发者的需求。

在本文中，我会提出授权过程中会遇到的一些主要难题、授权给游戏带来的益处，以及通过授权虚拟物品盈利的方法。

为什么要为授权投资？

我们先看看授权的有利方面。授权为什么值得你投资？答案很简单：许多玩家都会对品牌授权道具作出积极的响应。EA成功地获得老虎伍兹的PGA（美国职业高尔夫球协会）的专营权。如果你是个托尔金迷，那么在玩MMORPG时，你所熟悉的《指环王》一定会给你带来极佳的游戏体验。

品牌授权给游戏带来声誉，与目标受众快速建立联系，为游戏创造了重要的市场优势。

相对一般虚拟物品，我们还发现玩家更乐意在自己所知品牌的授权虚拟物品上花更多钱。例如，在《会说话的汤姆猫 2》这款非常流行的手机应用中，玩家可以购买到他们最喜欢的足球队的成套服装。这款正式装备的价格是非品牌道具的十倍。

outfit7_talking_tom_football(from adhugger.net)

授权的缺点在于需要投入大量资源来鉴别最佳授权方式以达成授权协议。鲜有游戏公司拥有足够的内部资源来完成这一操作。在大部分情况下，版权持有者希望获得预付款和长期的财务承诺，而这二者与在线游戏/手机游戏的快速开发周期是有冲突的。

当使用授权品牌时，请考虑以下三点：

*授权品牌在游戏中的展示方式，版权持有者对授权虚拟物品在游戏中的使用做出什么限制。

*版权持有者也希望得到一定程度的申报和帐户管理权，这可能超过了小游戏公司所能承担的资源范围。

*最重要（并且不确定）的是——游戏的盈利情况如何。比如，并非每一款由蓝精灵动画改编而来的游戏都获得了成功。

使用授权品牌的新思路

随着游戏制作商业模式的改变，我们看到游戏利用品牌授权的新方法。游戏公司不再根据某个特定的品牌开发新游戏，而是想办法将其融入现成的游戏中。

Bigpoint曾成功地发行了几款品牌授权游戏。他们在最成功的一款授权游戏《疯狂农场》（Farmerama）中，将动画《Loony Tunes》中的角色作为虚拟商品出售。玩家可以在游戏中租用兔八哥、Roadrunner和Tweety等角色。

Goalunited2012是由Travian公司开发的一款足球管理游戏。玩家的管理能力将在游戏中举行的欧洲2012锦标赛中得到检验，为此，玩家将受到来自不同国家的足球队的挑战。

我们从中学到的是，游戏公司在围绕某品牌开发游戏时，要善于通过发布高级虚拟物品的方法而获利（同时要避免与过去使用相关授权的游戏产生法律冲突）。那些以贩售虚拟商品为主的游戏，都可以利用这一机会，分析游戏玩法，加入可强化游戏玩法的虚拟物品，同时提升游戏盈利性，为游戏宣传打造声势。

在游戏使用授权品牌时，请确保考虑以下情况：

*玩家能从授权项目中获得什么？最成功的授权虚拟物品是集品牌的自我表现和游戏内优势于一体。

*确保保持免费和高价之间的平衡。如果有一个任务要求玩家雇佣Chuck Norris（美国武术家、动作演员）虚拟形象才能完成，那就会使其他玩家产生不满情绪。确保玩家即使没有高价道具仍然可以玩游戏（即使他们可以从高价道具中获得优势）。

*考虑在市场营销中运用授权品牌的力量，并且确保可以从品牌授权中获取更多支持。品牌一般都拥有活跃的支持用户，他们聚积在Facebook或其他粉丝网站上。比如，AC米兰在YouTube上放出一段视频，让汤姆猫唱该球队的队歌，这一视频的浏览量突破了10万次。

*成功地植入一件高价授权虚拟道具后，确保制定出更长远的计划，为随后而来的附加道具作准备。

*你将面临的挑战在于如何辨别最适合游戏的授权对象、协商授权经营和处理与版权持有者的关系。

我们相信明智地使用授权虚拟物品将在游戏的营销与推广中发挥重要作用。你可能已经知道自己的游戏需要什么时候与版权持有人进行直接合作。我希望本文提出的几个点子能帮助你更好地理解如何使用品牌授权，增加游戏的成功机率。（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）

How Licensing is impacting the Virtual Goods Economy

Ze’ev Rozov

This is a guest post from Ze’ev Rozov, CEO and Co-Founder of Iconicfuture, a marketplace for licensing of IP for use in computer games.

Rights and brands have always played an important part in the business of making games. Many of us have played EA FIFA, The New Republic or just in time for the Olympics, one of the official Olympic Games.

Yet as the business of making games has moved beyond console games to micro transactions, the world of licensing has yet to adapt to take full advantage of the opportunities in this growing market.

How licensing is changing

In the past, there were two ways to monetize users with brands: annoying banner ads and interstitials. Neither was directly related to the user, and both detracted from the game experience. Three new methods have appeared in recent years that positively leverage players’ affinity to brands: in-game brand sponsorships, incentivized brand offers and branded virtual items for sale. Done well, leveraging brands increases user satisfaction, ARPUs and engagement.

Licensing is often a complicated, time-consuming and resource-intensive process. Betable has a great presentation about licensing rights in games. Many rightsholders do not have the infrastructure or the know how to support the needs of modern, agile game developers that are focused on the mobile and social space.

In my post, I will point out some of the main challenges when looking at licensing, highlight the advantages rights can offer a game, and present several ways to use rights as premium virtual items.

Why licensing is worth the spend

First let’s focus on the advantages. Why should you spend any resources on licensing? The answer is simple; many users respond positively to the use of rights. EA has built a successful golf franchise with Tiger Woods PGA. If you are a Tolkien fan, then Lord of the Rings offers a great MMORPG experience to express and immerse yourself in a narrative with which you are familiar.

Rights provide credibility for the game, an instant connection with a target audience and a significant marketing edge.

In the world of virtual items, we have also found that users are willing to spend a lot more money on a premium item based on rights they recognize than on a generic item. For the popular mobile app Talking Tom 2, users can buy many items including the kit of their favourite football team. The official kit is sold at 10 times the price of non-branded items. (Disclosure:

The drawbacks to incorporating rights is the amount of resources required to identify the best rights to negotiate a licensing deal. Few game companies have the in house rescores to manage this process. In most cases, rightsholders expect a significant upfront payment and long term financial commitments both of which clash with the rapid development cycle of online and mobile games.

When integrating rights, consider:

how they are presented in your game and what restrictions will the right holder place on the use of premium virtual items in the game.

The rightsholders also expect a level of reporting and account management that could be beyond the resources of a small game company.

And most of all, the unknown; how the game will perform….will it monetize well? For every successful Smurf game launched there can be a dozen games based on rights that fail.

A new way to use rights

As the business model behind creating games has changed, we are seeing a new way of using rights in games. Instead of developing games that are built around a specific rights, game companies are looking at ways to integrate compelling rights into their existing game play.

Bigpoint has successfully launched branded games in the past. Yet with one of its most successful games, Farmerama, they chose to integrated Loony Tunes characters in the game monetized as virtual goods. Users could rent characters such as Bugs Bunny, Roadrunner and Tweety in the game.

goalunited2012, which is a successful football management game from Travian ran a campaign during the Euro 2012 tournament allowing the players in the game to test their management skills by challenging the German or the French Football teams for a match (in full disclosure this campaign was licensed through Iconicfuture).

What we are learning is that game companies can leverage the key value from rights by launching Premium Virtual Items while limiting some of the risks that has been associated with the use of rights in the past when a fully branded game is developed. For games where the sale of virtual items is a key part of your business model, there is an opportunity to analyze the game play and find ways that adding rights can enhance game play whilst improving monetization and providing a significant marketing push.

When considering the use of rights in a game, make sure to consider the following:

What value will the user get from the rights? The most successful premium virtual items are ones that offer a combination of self expression and in-game advantage.

Make sure to keep the balance between free and premium rights. A mission that can only be completed if the player hires Chuck Norris for help will cause a lot of negative feelings in the player base. Make sure that users can still play even if they don’t have the premium item (although they do get an advantage from it).

Think about leveraging the rights in your marketing, and make sure you can get as much support from the brand as possible. In some cases the rightsholders have an active community, such as on Facebook or a fansite…. When AC Milan posted a YouTube clip of Talking Tom singing the team song it reached over 100,000 views.

Once you have successfully integrated the first Premium Virtual Items, make sure you have a longer term plan as to what kind of additional items will follow.

The challenges you will face include how to identify the most suitable rights for your game, negotiating the licensing deal and managing the relationship with the rightsholders.

We at Iconicfuture believe that a key part of the future monetization and marketing of games is with the clever integration of premium virtual items. We have created a service that enables game companies to easily discover and integrate rights into their games. In some cases, you might already know what you need for your game and have the ability to work directly with the rightsholders. I hope that the tips in this article have offered you a better understanding of how to leverage rights and increase the success of your game.（source:gamesbrief）