作者：Zoya Street

问题

最近，我们在ARPPU页面上添加了有关鲸鱼玩家，海豚玩家以及小鱼玩家的新标准：

根据Superdata Research，鲸鱼玩家为最顶端的15%的消费用户，而海豚玩家则为接下来25%至40%的消费用户。鲸鱼玩家能够生成50%的收益，而通常只会投入1至5美元的小鱼玩家则只能生成15%的游戏收益。

Teut Weidemann批评了我们的设定，他说道：

“这种数据说明鲸鱼玩家非常重要。但是当这15%的玩家的投入不足5美元时，我们便很难想象其余的收益是由剩下的玩家所生成的。所以更准确的说法应该是，50%的收益是来自鲸鱼玩家，而另外50%的收益则是来自于其余玩家，其中有15%的玩家投入不到5美元。那么鲸鱼玩家的存在有何意义？对于那些专注于鲸鱼玩家的公司来说，它们将面临极具风险的挑战。如Zynga。”

专注于鲸鱼玩家是否会带来巨大的风险？免费游戏开发者应该如何制定鲸鱼玩家策略？

whales(from sfoxstudio)

答案：

Minimonos创始人Melissa Clark-Reynolds

我们专注于提高付费用户的比例，每活跃用户的c/p比例以及用户留存。

这就意味着我们既需要重视鲸鱼玩家，同时也需要创造出更多具有吸引力的内容，从而提高愿意掏钱的玩家比例。每个月付费玩家数量的微小转变累计起来就会对我们的整体收益带来巨大的影响。

如果经验法则没错的话——也就是50%的收益是来自鲸鱼玩家，我们又怎能忽视剩下50%的收益群体呢？

Applifier的Oscar Clark

我开始觉得专注于少数玩家的消费习惯将阻碍我们做出正确的设计选择以及有效的盈利选择。

对于我来说，我更重视玩家的用户粘性以及如何构建游戏的终身价值。我一直在思考如何将游戏的用户生命周期映射在技术采用模型上（我将其呈现在产品的市场营销文本上）。这就像是一面清晰的透视镜，推动着我去思考如何让用户从发现游戏转变为学习游戏。我们需要先让用户感到舒适，并慢慢将玩游戏当成是一种习惯；这类似于Nocholas所提出的“Get to $1”规则。而当用户进入收益阶段时他们的需求也将发生改变，同时他们花钱的意愿也将随之提高（假设最初的体验很棒），所以这时候我们便可以开始延伸产品和事件，力图最大限度地挽留住他们的注意力。

让我们将鲸鱼玩家，海豚玩家，小鱼玩家以及龙虾玩家当成一些静态的对象，我认为他们分别标志着游戏生命周期的不同阶段，所以我们就需要想办法推动着他们不断进化。

Bigpoint总经理Philip Reisberger

我总是将收益当成是一种结果，即作为各种重要元素的结果。优秀的服务（游戏邦注：也就是一款好游戏）将包含最有趣的游戏玩法以及良好的基础设施（规格，轨迹和技术等）。如果能够掌握所有元素，我们便能够获得最有效的收益流。

HeldHand顾问Harry Holmwood

在日本，最高性能游戏的存在已经有段时间了（2年多前）。随着时间的发展，这些游戏也在不断完善，并添加了更多新内容，与此同时，他们的用户留存率，特别是ARPPU一直都在稳定增长着。当然了，如果你一开始不能提供给玩家具有吸引力的游戏体验，他们便不会继续游戏；同时你还需要保持足够的耐心，不断完善你的游戏，从而推动着鲸鱼玩家变成真正热爱游戏而不只是一时兴起投入大量金钱的玩家。

nDreams首席执行官Patrick O’Luanaigh

并不是所有玩家都会变成鲸鱼玩家；开发者应该专注于为每个玩家呈现出最棒的游戏体验，并牢记，那些从未为游戏投入一分钱的玩家也有可能成为游戏世界中最重要的玩家（通过添加声音，推广游戏，壮大社区，运行粉丝网站等帮助游戏到达一个临界点）。

What Games Are的顾问Tadhg Kelly Consultant

尽管基于一般原理去划分玩家非常棒，但是开发者是否能够面对一个更有抱负的目标而不只是专注于实际的划分。因为我们总是很难去平衡位居两个极端的元素。

大多数多人游戏都曾遇到过这一问题。就像在《魔兽世界》中，面向高投入玩家制作游戏与为新玩家制作一款优秀的游戏是两种完全不同的任务，而前者也总是能够推动着后者的发展。同样地，高风险的扑克游戏（涉及上百万美元）与一般的桌面游戏（或免费扑克游戏）也完全不同。

Spilt Milk Studio开发者Andrew Smith

让玩家根据自己的想法决定投入额度才是最安全的做法。

基于这一理念去设计游戏系统非常困难，我们不能在一个高端的游戏玩法中强行冠上一些人为元素。

最有效的方法便是创造一款非常优秀的游戏，并确保在设置盈利元素的同时不会放弃游戏乐趣。

乐趣能够吸引所有玩家的注意，让那些不愿意花钱的玩家也能够愉快地玩游戏，与此同时鲸鱼玩家也能够得到满足，因为你并未添加无意义的系统去阻止他们花钱。

（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）

Is it dangerous to focus on whales?

Zoya Street

Question:

On our ARPPU page, we recently added a new benchmark for the whales-dolphins-minnows split:

Superdata research has whales as the top 15% of spending users and dolphins as the next 25-40%. Whales generate 50% of the revenue, while minnows – users who spend between $1 and $5 – generate 15% of a game’s revenue.

Teut Weidemann has criticised the way that we present the data, saying:

“This suggests whales is everything. But you simply don’t tell that 50% of the revenue is done by the rest of the users, no you even LOWER expectations by telling that 15% of users spend less than $5. Correctly you could have said 50% is from whales, and 50% is from the rest of the users while 15% spend less than $5. Whats the purpose on this whale thing? Its VERY dangerous for business to focus on whales. Check Zynga.”

Is a focus on whales misleading? Dangerous? How do you recommend F2P devs develop their whale strategy?

Answers:

Melissa Clark-Reynolds Founder of Minimonos

We focus on getting the % paying increasing, along with the c/p per active user.  Plus increasing retention.

That means putting some emphasis on the whales – but also on getting enough compelling content so that a higher percentage of ALL players/users want to pay anything at all.  Small shifts in the number paying every month can make big differences to the total revenue.

If the rule of thumb is accurate – that 50% of revenue comes form the whales, why would we ignore the other 50% of our revenue base?

Oscar Clark Evangelist at Applifier

I’m starting to feel that the focus on just the spending habits of the few could well distract us from making good design choices as well as good monetisation choices.

For me I’d rather focus on the engagement level of the player and from that build lifetime value.  I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can map game user lifecycle to the technology adoption model outlined in my favourite product marketing text (Crossing the Chasm – Geoffrey A. Moore).  This to me provides a better lens to apply because it requires us to consider how to move users from Discovering our game to Learning how to play it. Then once they are comfortable and have made it a habit how we transition them to start paying; similar to Nicholas’ rule ‘Get to $1′. Once users are in this Earning stage their needs change, but also their willingness to spend increases (provided the first experience was good) and from there we look for product extension and events to maintain their interest before they start Churning.

Looking at Whales, Dolphins, Minnows and Lobsters (I made that last one up!) assumes that these are static people, when instead I believe they are just markers of different stages of the lifecycle of different players and we should focus on helping them all evolve.

Philip Reisberger Managing Director at Bigpoint

I always imagine revenue as a consequence. A consequence of many eqally important factor. A good service offering (which a good game is) includes foremost a fun gameplay. Plus a well executed infrastructure (cm, loca, tech, …). If all that is mastered, the ‘optimized revenue streams can be a focus…

Harry Holmwood Consultant at Heldhand

Certainly in Japan the best performing games we have are now very mature (2 years+).  Over time they’ve been tweaked and added to continuously, and their retention rate and, particularly, ARPPU has increased steadily throughout.  Of course, if you don’t start with compelling experience then people won’t play, but it’s important to be patient, and keep on refining and improving the game so that whales emerge as those who love the game the most, rather than the people you can get to spend large amounts quickly on a whim.

Patrick O’Luanaigh CEO of nDreams

Just don’t forget that not everyone can evolve upwards and become a whale; focus on delivering a fantastic experience for everyone and remember that players who never spend a cent can be some of the most important players in your game world (in terms of being vocal, promoting your game, rallying the community, running fan sites and helping your game reach a tipping point).

Tadhg Kelly Consultant at What Games Are

While the general principle of addressing all your customers is a good one, I wonder whether that’s more of an aspirational position for many developers rather than a real one. My reason is that it’s incredibly difficult to balance for both ends of any spectrum.

In massive multiplayer games they’ve had this problem for years. Making a good game for the high rollers (by which I mean high level players) in World of Warcraft is not necessarily the same task as making a great game for neophytes, and the presence of the former often pushes out the latter over time. In the same vein, high stakes Poker (million dollar events) is a completely different game to dollar-tables (or even free-to-play Poker).

Andrew Smith Developer at Spilt Milk Studio

Allowing players who want to spend as much as they can is the safest way.

Designing systems that support this is not hard, you just don’t put artificial caps on the high-end play.

The safest thing to do is make a great game, and make sure the monetisation aspect doesn’t compromise the fun (or player’s perceptions thereof).

The fun caters for all players, makes sure the non-spenders just plain enjoy themselves, and the ‘whales’ can entertain their whims because you’ve not introduced any pointless systems that prevent them spending lots.

Or is this too simple/idealistic a view?(source:gamesbrief)