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探讨移动领域用户获取成本攀升的不利影响

发布时间:2012-10-20 15:00:17 Tags:,,

作者:Kathleen De Vere

目前,开发者要获取手机游戏用户都需斥以巨资。在过去的6个多月内,我们听到不少公司每个用户获取成本高达1.5美元、3美元到6美元不等的费用。

对大多数开发者而言,这是一笔巨大数目。这些公司只有在收入大于投入时才可获利,然而,由于转化手机用户存在难度,而且即使转化成功,这些用户的价值也相对降低,所以我们很难或者根本不可能在这样的价格条件下实现收支均衡。

User-Acquisition(from generalassemb.ly)

User-Acquisition(from generalassemb.ly)

比如,如果一个开发者以3美元的单价获得了100个新用户,并取得10%的用户转化率,那么这些用户一生至少需支付30美元,才能保证该公司回收其广告费用。即便是对中核游戏开发商来说,这一价格也相对昂贵了,尽管它们的游戏盈利性普遍高于多数手机应用。

另外,这些开发商何时才能实现收支平衡也是一个问题。虽然NaturalMotion和Supercell这些公司每月可实现上千万美元的收入,但这属于特例。移动游戏开发商的ARPDAU(每日活跃用户平均盈利)仍然局限于以美分计算的水平。即使一家公司每天可以从每个日活跃用户那获取0.1美元的收益,但如果它是以3美元的单价获取这些用户,若要保持收支相抵,就需要用户长期付费。

那么,用户获取价格为何会上涨到这一水平?

其一,由于今年苹果刚刚推出了iPhone 5,它的发布提升了iOS平台的营销成本。而由于越来越多案例证实Android平台也能够盈利,Android用户获取成本也随之水涨船高。假期季的到来也将加重这一问题,因为将有许多用户在新型设备上体验全新应用,届时开发商也势必在这场用户争夺大战中砸下大量营销资金。

除此以外,日本的两大游戏巨头GREE和DeNA美国子公司Ngmoco的影响也不容忽视。它们悄悄地进行地盘争夺战,为获得安装量投入大量资金,以便锁定存在商机的大型国际市场。

这两家公司均拥有大笔资金(游戏邦注:GREE在上季度获取5亿800万美元收益,DeNA则获取6亿900万美元)用于广告营销活动。同时,它们都将用户获取视为长期投资项目。目前,它们主要投资忠实用户,这样在接下来的几年内,它们将会通过第一方与第三方游戏获得利润。

这是一项明智的举措,作为大型游戏公司,它们依靠兼并策略而取胜。GREE社交游戏高级副总裁Eiji Araki表示,公司预计在2-3年内,移动游戏的生态系统将向传统模式看齐,由2或3家大型游戏公司掌控。高价购买行业位置以确保未来所占据的市场份额,这并非一个新颖的商业策略,因为微软和三星已将这一策略发挥到了极致。这也意味着较小型的公司将越来越难以在竞争中立足并保持独立性身份。

因此,不少公司开始转变自己获取用户的战略。Chartboost这类公司以及6waves、PapayaMobilea甚至是Zynga这些发行商都已选择交叉推广,交易库存的方式,将当前的户基础视为一种游戏下载资源。TinyCo推出的新项目Tiny Partners同样有助于开发商免受用户获取成本上升的影响。TinyCo承诺将向合作伙伴出让75%的收益堪称一项慷慨举措,但要注意的是,TinyCo也可借此在无需预付成本的前提下获得高质量的广告推广。

即使一个Tiny Partners项目用户仅支付10美元,TinyCo仅能从中获得2.5美元,但它实际上是在无需任何投入的情况下获得这2.5美元,所以对TinyCo来说也真是笔划算的交易。

Facebook的新型移动安装广告也能发挥作用。虽然该广告的成本并不低于当前举措,但它能利用Facebook的资料库,基于用户量与他们的兴趣,定位全新的用户群(不包括已体验应用的用户),这样既可提升移动广告的匹配度,又可增加转化率。

然而,用户获取价格攀升仍对整个移动生态系统来说仍然是个坏消息。在移动平台上游戏依旧难以实现曝光度。实现曝光度的最有效方法之一是登上排行榜,但如果没有好运或忠实粉丝的垂青,即使斥之巨资推出大型广告活动,也仍无法保证游戏会热卖。

我们在春季看到不少开发者已从Facebook平台转向移动领域。他们仍在寻找不存在受大型公司支配的平台((游戏邦注:因为这些大型公司能够支付大笔费用,为游戏获取新用户)。也许6个月后,移动平台将重蹈Facebook命运——但目前的问题却是,开发者现在并没有其他平台可作跳板。(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: Why user acquisition prices are going through the roof, and why it’s bad news for the mobile ecosystem

by Kathleen De Vere

It costs a lot of money to acquire users for a mobile game right now. Over the past six months, we’ve heard companies throwing around per-user figures ranging from $1.50 (borderline unaffordable) to $3.00 (insane) to $6 (ludicrous).

For most developers, this is just way too much. Companies are only profitable when they earn more than they spend, and since mobile users are typically hard to convert and not terribly valuable even when they do, it’s either very hard — or mathematically impossible — to break even at these rates.

For example, if a developers buys 100 new users at $3 each, and 10 percent of them convert (which would be a very good rate), then each of those users needs to deliver at least $30 in lifetime value in order for the company to break even on its initial advertising outlay. That figure is high even by the standards of mid-core developers, even though their games typically monetize at a higher rate than most mobile apps.

The amount of time it will take to break even is another issue. While companies like NaturalMotion and Supercell are earning tens of millions of dollars a month, their earnings are special cases, not the norm. Mobile developers measure their average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) in the cents. Even if every single daily active user a company had was generating $0.10 a day in revenue, it would take a long time for those users for them to pay for themselves if they were bought for $3 each.

So how did rates become so unaffordable?

One factor is the time of year. Apple just released the iPhone 5, and the company’s hardware releases typically push up the cost of marketing on iOS. User acquisition costs are rising on Android too, as more and more evidence comes out that there is money to be made on the platform. The upcoming holiday season will also compound the problem, as developers rush to catch users as they try out brand-new apps on their brand-new devices.

But aside from all that, there are two large Japanese elephants in the room. Quietly engaged in a turf war, both GREE and DeNA’s U.S. subsidiary Ngmoco are willing to pay top dollar for installs in order to lock up what they see as relatively uncontested international markets.

Both companies have big bankrolls (GREE earned $508 million in revenue last quarter, DeNA earned $609 million) to fund the outlays. Both also view their user acquisition programs as a long-term investments. They pay now for loyal platform users that will monetize across a variety of first and third-party games over the next several years.

It’s a smart strategy for both companies — as big players they stand to benefit from consolidation. According to Eiji Araki, GREE’s senior vice president of social games, his company expects that in two to three years, the mobile gaming ecosystem will look a lot like the traditional one, dominated by two or three large players. Buying your way into an industry at a loss to ensure a future market share isn’t a new business strategy — both Microsoft and Samsung have used it to great effect. But it does mean smaller companies will have a very hard time competing and staying independent.

All of these factors are the reason so many companies are looking to alternate user acquisition strategies. Cross-promotion inventory trading is more popular than ever, with companies like Chartboost and publishers like 6waves, PapayaMobile and even Zynga choosing to leverage their existing player bases as a resource for downloads. TinyCo’s new Tiny Partners program is also designed to help the company avoid the rising costs of user acquisition. TinyCo’s promise to share as much as 75 percent of the revenue generated with its partners is generous, but the move also ensures TinyCo gets top quality advertising with no up-front cost, since the company only pays out when users spend money. Even if TinyCo only takes home $2.50 of the $10 a Tiny Partners program user spends, it didn’t actually have to spend any money or do any work to earn that $2.50 — a good deal for TinyCo indeed.

Facebook’s new mobile install ads could also help. While the ads aren’t likely to be cheaper than current options, the ability to leverage Facebook’s database to target new users based on demographics and interests (while excluding users that have already connected with an app), could make mobile advertising more precise and raise conversion rates.

Altogether though, rising user acquisition costs are bad news for the entire mobile ecosystem — not just the little guys. Discovery on mobile is still difficult, if not broken. One of the most effective ways to get a game noticed is to get it on the charts, but without luck or a rabid fanbase, there’s little guarantee a game will succeed even if its launch is matched with a big, expensive burst-advertising campaign.

In the spring, we began to see developers abandoning Facebook in favor of mobile. They were looking for a platform that wasn’t dominated by a few large players who could afford to pay handsomely to acquire new users for their games. It seems that six months later mobile is moving in the same direction — the only problem is that now there’s no other platform to jump to.(source:insidemobileapps)


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