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用户获取大战将扼杀整个手机游戏行业?

发布时间:2012-08-31 09:46:08 Tags:,,

作者:Jon Jordan

手机游戏业能在2011年和2012年繁荣发展,多亏了用户获取手段的支持。

假期开始后,用户获取大战打得更加火热。

然而对于许多涉足买进和卖出下载量生意的公司来说,这种策略就像把短期有效的膏药贴在已经感染的伤口上,治标不治本。

acquisition-banners(from adknowledge.com)

acquisition-banners(from adknowledge.com)

我们什么时候能收费

在App Store“只卖99美分”的时代,提供数天的免费下载,足够让大多数的游戏冲上排行榜,也许在免费下载结束后定价回到正常水平时,开发者甚至还能拿回一定的投资回报。

真是简单的技俩,所有人都使用它,大部分公司很快迷上免费排行榜带来的丰厚利润和大量的下载数字。长此以往,他们越来越把注意力放在这些指标上,而不是游戏的品质。

这些快速的“成功”来得更快去得也更快,因为不断有新游戏采取“今日免费”的战术。

从来没有这么多游戏被下载,从来没有这么少游戏真正被用户玩过。

固守零阻力的世界

这种形势是不可能维持太久的,最终被免费模式的崛起压倒了。但免费游戏的用户获取方式走了相同的道路。

开展新用户获取活动,你可能得破费10万美元,极少有开发商有这样的财力参与战役。他们只好将自己的角色由开发商转变成供应商,把游戏内商品卖给出价最高的竞标者。

而行业的注意力已经转向风险投资,这么做的通常是规模大一点的手机社交游戏发行商。

他们较早进入免费手机游戏领域,积累了庞大的用户和稳定的收益。通常,在这类游戏的背后都有Facebook式的社交机制,只是没有社交粘性。

但随着这些游戏的品质提升,发行商发现竞争越来越困难,特别是新兴开发者的加入。新兴开发者往往有主机游戏开发经历,因此大大提高了图像、声音和玩法的质量门槛。

重组你的工作室成本太高,也很费时间。花钱买用户更简单,大多数时候成本也不高,即使买来的用户的游戏时间比较短,长期的消费潜力也比较低。

冲击

扫视一下营收排行榜,你很快就知道今天这个世界变化得有多快。

诚然,有些打不倒的老游戏品牌如Beeline的《Smurfs’ Village》和Backflip的《DragonVale》,已经积累了大量忠实的玩家,基本上不可能被挤出前二十名。

现在,有不少博彩“游戏”悄然潜入排行榜。即使你的游戏也是这种类型,我也只能祝你在与它们的竞争中交好运。

更有趣的是,新一波游戏,如NaturalMotion的《CSR Racing》和Supercell的《Clash of Clans》的排名展现了高端画面的力量。

CSR Racing(from inentertainment.co.uk)

CSR Racing(from inentertainment.co.uk)

特别是,当一个月总收益达到1200万美元时,NaturalMotion却高调宣布它没有为获取用户而花钱,是游戏的品质拉动了下载量,以及App Store的推广增加了游戏的覆盖面。

可疑的效力

然而,我最关注的是,当前的用户获取战争是行不通的。如果说它管用,那也只适用于某一类型的公司。并且,它正是导致整个游戏生态系统失衡的原因。

我们之前已经多次提到,构建全球性的手机社交游戏网络是把所有筹码押在统治世界上。

因此,对于GREE和DeNA这类公司,用户获取手段是他们高风险的商业模式中的重要部分。他们有钱,也有野心实现终极目标。

这就是为什么GREE会同Chartboost合作,它为在iOS和Android上推广其游戏的开发者提供高达3.5美元/次的安装费,且不设定总收益上限。

它这么做不是因为能挣钱,而是因为它必须控制用户获取市场,它想向其他开发商证明,它就是唯一的社交手机游戏平台,他们应该注册这个平台。

DeNA的做法也类似。它对用户获取计划没有这么公开,但从卡牌战半游戏《Rage of Bahamut》高居iOS和Android排行榜之首这一点来看,它在这个计划里一定下了不少血本。

恶性竞争

这种局面意味着Zynga和Glu Mobile这类直接竞争对手也会加入用户获取的争夺大战中;如果没有,他们也必须防止自己的受众“被获取”。

然后,扩散效应就起作用了,应该着眼于其他推广领域的公司也被卷入这场竞争中,不得不花钱买用户,因为这就是这种竞争的本质。

这种局面的讽刺之处在于,用户获取的恶战已经影响了整个行业,从不断炮制游戏以保证有存货可卖的小开发者,到宁可花钱保证不流失用户数量的大发行商均是如此。

但最重要的是,我们都在游戏行业。

只在乎收买用户而不关心娱乐玩家的公司,是该认真地反思一下它的商业模式了。(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

Opinion: User acquisition is a waste of money, and will eventually kill the mobile games industry

by Jon Jordan

User acquisition has been the key trend underpining the mobile games business throughout 2011 and 2012.

And as we move into the holiday season, it’s only becoming more dominant.

Yet for many companies who are engaged in the business of buying and selling downloads, the practise is nothing more than a short-term plaster hiding an infected wound.

When we could charge

Back in the days of the ‘ App Store’s dash to 99c’, setting your game free for a couple of days was enough for most titles to gain chart position, and perhaps even a reasonable return on investment when the price returned to ‘normal’ a couple of days later.

A simple trick, everyone used it and most companies quickly became addicted to the heady rush of free chart position and massive download numbers. Over time, they ended up more focused on this than the quality of their games.

Hence, these quick ‘successes’ became ever quicker as gamers were seduced away the following day when the new selection of games ‘went free for a day’.

Never were so many games downloaded and so few played.

Grip in a frictionless world

The situation was untenable and it was finally killed off by the rise of free-to-play games. But user acquisition in the world of free games has developed much the same.

With an entry-level user acquisition campaign likely to set you back $100,000, few developers have the financial firepower to get involved in this battle. They’ve switched roles from creators to suppliers, selling their in-game inventory to the highest bidder.

Instead the industry’s focus has shifted to venture capital-funded outfits; generally the larger social-mobile publishers.

They were early to the free-to-play mobile space and built up big audiences and solid organic revenues, often on the back of games which aped Facebook casual mechanics, albeit without the social glue.

But as the quality levels of these games has risen over the months, these publishers have found it harder to compete, especially with new entrants, who often have console development experience, raising the quality bar in terms of graphics, audio and gameplay.

Retooling your studio is expensive and time consuming. It’s simpler – and in many cases cheaper – to spend money buying users, even though their in-game sessions become shorter and less lucrative over time.

All shock up

A quick look at the top grossing chart today demonstrates how quickly things have changed.

Sure, there are some well worn brands such as Beeline’s Smurfs’ Village and Backflip’s DragonVale, which have built up a committed audience over time and are now almost impossible to shift out the top 20.

There are a lot of casino ‘games’ now stalking the charts. That’s an opinion piece in-and-of-itself. Good luck competing with them, even if you have a casino game.

More interesting is the position of a new wave of games such as NaturalMotion’s CSR Racing and Supercell’s Clash of Clans, which demonstrate the power of high-end graphics.

In particular, when revealing it had grossed $12 million in a month, NaturalMotion loudly proclaimed it hadn’t spent any money on user acquisition. Instead, it was the quality of the game that drove downloads, as well as blanket coverage from Apple in terms of App Store promotion.

Doubtful efficacy

However, my biggest concern about the current user acquisition war isn’t that it doesn’t work. It’s that it works imperfectly only for a certain type of company, and it’s this which is unbalancing the entire ecosystem.

As we’ve discussed many times before, building a global mobile social gaming network is an all-in gamble for world domination.

Hence for companies such as GREE and DeNA, user acquisition is a crucial part of their high risk business model. They have the cash to spend and they have the commitment to an end goal.

That’s why GREE can agree to deals such as its recent Chartboost direct deal. In this, it’s offering up to $3.50 per install with no revenue cap for developers who promote its games on iOS and Android.

It’s not doing this because it will make money. It’s doing this because it needs to control the user acquisition market and it wants to prove to other developers it’s the only social mobile gaming platform they should sign up with.

Similarly, with DeNA. It’s not been so open about its user acquisition plans but the position of obscure card-battler Rage of Bahamut at the top of the iOS and Android top grossing charts demonstrates how much cash it’s hosing at the situation.

Keeping up with the Joneses

Such moves mean direct competitors such as Zynga and Glu Mobile are drawn into the user acquisition game; if nothing else, they need to protect their audiences from being acquired away.

Then we have a trickle down effect as companies that should be looking at other areas of promotion are drawn into spending money because that’s what their competition is doing.

The irony of the situation is the user acquisition frenzy has impacted the entire industry from the smallest developer, who’s now churning out titles to ensure it has inventory to sell, to the largest publishers, who are spending to ensure their quarterly financials don’t highlight dropping user numbers.

But the bottomline is we’re in the games industry.

Any company that’s about buying users not about entertaining gamers should seriously rethink its business model.(source:pocketgamer)


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