作者：Martin Koppel

微软拥有世界上最强大的开发者社区之一。LinkedIn的调查表明，有超过1000名的“传道者”的责任便是确保开发者在微软平台上始终能够创造出最优秀的内容和工具。但是随着Windows 8和Windows Phone的出现，它的这种优势其实已经变成了一种劣势。

原因很简单——比起谷歌和苹果（早在几年前就发布了自己的平台），微软在应用生态系统领域并未拥有太多经验。而最近他们开始寻找其它可替代的解决方法，如为白领提供订阅式服务。所以开发者（经常能从微软获得各种信息）并未找到一条专业渠道去解决应用盈利的问题。

Windows优先的开发者们的处境也是相同的，他们不清楚该如何通过自己的应用去获得盈利。幸运的是，从平台最初发行算起，如今的Windows开发者们已经拥有了大量的数据和实践能够提高成功的可能性。我将在本文列出能够帮助Windows开发者在编写代码前更好地规划业务模式的几点建议。

广告或虚拟物品？

当iOS刚刚出现时，大多数开发者的收益都是来自广告。对于任何全新的在线产品而言，广告便是它们它们带来收益的最佳选择（特别是当产品本身就是免费的）。但是广告也具有两大缺陷——对于用户来说它是不利的，并且难以进行自由伸缩。

广告将会阻挡屏幕的呈现并会破坏沉浸体验，特别是在出现于游戏中时。即使广告已经明确了目标，这也与用户想要在应用中获得的体验毫无关系。如果开发者想要利用广告，他们也应该帮助其他开发者——就像有些交叉推广广告网站便很有效，如适用于Android和iOS的TapJoy或者适用于Windows的AdDuplex。这将同时提升双方开发者以及其他使用相关网站的开发者的产品的下载量，并让整个生态系统都能受益。而对于伸缩性而言，能够有效适应屏幕的广告并不多。而开发者可以通过将游戏玩法分配到不同的几个屏幕上去加深玩家对广告的印象，但是如果做得太过火的话便会让游戏玩法变得很奇怪。

Flurry的数据显示，在iOS和Android平台上，虚拟产品已经主导着广告领域很长一段时间了。比起寻找简单的方法将广告整合到应用的每个页面上，Windows开发者应该努力思考该如何在游戏中创造经济。从长远角度来看，这么做将能创造出一个有机的生态系统和额外的功能，从而有效吸引更多用户回到应用中。

免费或付费？

就像广告在Android和iOS平台上的作用日趋减弱，我们从App Annie的数据中也可以看出，免费应用在这两个平台生成收益的速度远远快于付费应用。这也是Windows 8开发者们应该牢记于心的一点，以下便是免费应用能够带给应用更多好处的原因：

1.替代选择——如果面前摆着一款免费应用，用户又有什么理由去花钱呢？

2.质量——如果你不是一个知名品牌，用户便不会想去预先付钱。

3.盗版行为——不幸的是，随着收集设备的普及，这一问题将更加猖狂。

当用户在决定是购买一款应用还是免费下载时，上述的任何一点都将引导他们走向免费应用。当然了，有时候付费模式会更加有效——即当开发者拥有一个知名品牌或者当他们不能在应用中创造自己的经济（如你所开发的是一个文档编辑套件）时。但是对于大多数开发者而言，免费模式还是能够带来更多利益。

如果开发者决定选择付费模式，那么他们接下来便需要努力提高用户在最初下载后的花钱几率。这也是谷歌和苹果所忽视的内容，而Windows开发者在这里获得了一个很大的优势——也就是可替代的付费选择。

更多付费选择，更多付费用户？

google wallet(from androidheadlines)

应用付费一直都是谷歌和苹果想要保持严格控制的关卡。尽管苹果已经拥有了4亿多使用信用卡支付的用户，而Google Wallet的使用率也不断提升，但是他们仍然专注于信用卡付费。虽然美国和西欧国家拥有成熟的经济，但却仍有数十亿人未拥有自己的信用卡。而在中国，这个拥有世界上最大智能手机市场的国家，每四个手机拥有者中就有一个拥有自己的信用卡。可以说这是一个被遗漏的商机。

而微软则采取了完全不同的方法去开启付费系统。在支持信用卡的同时他们也接受其它解决方法，如PayPal和手机支付方式。基于可替代的付费选择，Windows 8和Windows Phone的用户市场将大于Android和iOS的用户市场。当然，这也取决于Windows 8和Windows Phone是否能够占领这些新兴市场。而在与用户进行交谈的过程中我们发现，手机付费拥有比信用卡更高的转换率。即使事实并非这样的话，开发者也仍确信所有潜在的用户都愿意为应用掏腰包。

除此之外Windows 8开发者还应该记住什么？

关于应用盈利方面开发者还应该考虑到：先从哪个国家开始发行应用，需要针对哪些内容进行本土化处理，在考虑应用内部内容的定价时需要如何确保资源的平衡。关于Android，我们认为先从新兴市场开始会更加简单，因为这里的竞争比较不那么激烈。但是这也会引起其它挑战——确保它们能够提供本土化的内容（游戏邦注：在那些未将英语当成第二语言的国家）和用户支持。

如果你面向全世界发行应用，并在不同地区设置了相同的价格点，你便不需要对中国市场和美国市场的收益差感到惊讶了。毕竟这两个国家的购买力具有很大的不同。仔细思考盈利策略并检查用户的付费数据便是帮助应用开发者从应用中获得收益的最佳方法。

就像在之前所说的，Windows 8和Windows Phone的开发者拥有许多有关iOS和Android平台的信息：这两个完全不同的操作系统仍然具有相同的盈利趋势。所以比起重新进行创造，我建议开发者们可以基于微软平台进行开发，在此与其它平台的开发者进行交流，也就是在一开始就明确最正确的做法。

（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）

What Windows 8 Developers Should Learn From iOS & Android

by Martin Koppel

Microsoft has one of the strongest developer communities of any IT company in the world. A quick LinkedIn search yields more than 1000 evangelists whose responsibility is to make sure people creating products on Microsoft platforms have the best knowledge and tools available to them. But with Windows 8 and Windows Phone, this strength has actually become a weakness.

The reason is simple – Microsoft itself has little experience in the app ecosystem, compared to Google and Apple who launched their platforms several years earlier. Just recently they have begun looking into alternative monetization solutions such as subscriptions for Office. So developers, who usually get great information from Microsoft, do not really have an expert channel where to turn in the matter of app monetization.

Windows-first developers are now in the same position as their Android and iOS colleagues were some years ago, with no clear understanding of how to monetize their apps. Fortunately for Windows developers there is now a ton of data and best practices available from the previously launched platforms which can be used to inrease probability of success. I have outlined four key points below that should help Windows developers better plan their business model before diving into code.

Advertising Or Virtual Goods?

When iOS first launched, the majority of developer revenue came from advertising. For any new online product, advertising seems to be the go-to choice for revenue when the product itself is given away for free. However, advertising has two drawbacks – it is disruptive to the user and not easily scalable.

Advertisements block some part of the screen and ruin immersion, especially when it comes to games. Even when the advertisement is targeted, it is still unrelated to what the user is trying to experience within the app. If they do want to leverage advertising, they should at least help their fellow developers out as well – there are several cross-promotion ad networks available such as TapJoy for Android and iOS or AdDuplex for Windows. These bring app downloads to both them and other developers using the network, benefitting the whole ecosystem. As for scalability, there is only so much advertisements which you can fit on a screen. You can divide gameplay up into several screens to increase banner impressions but overdoing this will eventually cause the gameplay to become erratic.

However, virtual goods are directly related to the game experience and allow the developer to create their own ecosystem within the game. They can also be scaled (by adding additional goods for purchasing) and used for marketing (by creating volume discounts or running holiday sales). Creating an economy within games needs careful planning – paying customers should not have unfair advantage over non-paying customers. When the disparity becomes too great then there will not be an increase in revenue – instead casual gamers will become frustrated and more likely to quit. They should make sure that the game will not enable people to buy themselves into power.

Flurry’s data shows that virtual goods became dominant over advertising long ago on iOS and the same goes for Android. Instead of going for the simple solution of putting advertisements into every page of the app, Windows developers should instead try to figure out how to create an economy within their game. In the long run, this creates an organic ecosystem and an additional feature which keeps people coming back to the app.

Freemium Or Premium?

Just like advertising has eventually become less relevant on Android and iOS, data by App Annie shows that freemium app revenue is growing at a much faster rate than premium app revenue on both platforms. This is something which should be kept in mind by Windows 8 developers as there are several simple reasons why freemium works better for apps:

1.Alternatives – if there is a free app available which does the same thing, why pay?

2.Quality – if you’re not a well-known brand, why would a user want to pay upfront?

3.Piracy – unfortunately, this issue will be growing as mobile devices spread

When the user is making a choice whether to purchase an app or download it for free, one of the above issues will almost always cause them to go for the freemium option. Of course, premium does sometimes work better – when you already have a well-known and established brand or when you can’t create your own economy within the app (e.g. you are developing a document editing suite). But for most developers, freemium can potentially generate more revenue.

If a developer does decide to go for the freemium model, everything should be done to increase chances that a user can make payments after the initial download. This is something which Google and Apple have pretty much ignored so far and where Windows developers gain a strong upper hand – namely alternative payment options.

More Payment Options, More Paying Customers?

Payments for apps are something which Google and Apple have wanted to keep strict control over. Even though Apple has data on 400 million credit cards and Google Wallet is seeing increased penetration, they are still focusing mainly on credit card payments. Beyond the mature economies of USA and Western Europe, there are billions of people who do not have credit cards. China – now the largest smartphone market in the world – has four mobile phone owners for each credit card owner. This is a missed business opportunity, to say the least.

Microsoft has taken a different approach and completely opened up its payment ecosystem. While supporting credit cards, they also accept alternative solutions such as PayPal and mobile payments. With alternative payment options available, the market for paying Windows 8 and Windows Phone users might actually be larger than that of Android or iOS. This of course depends on how well Windows 8 and Windows Phone are picked up in these emerging markets. But from talks with our own customers we have clearly seen that mobile payments have a higher conversion than credit cards. And even if they didn’t, developers should still make sure that any potential client has the possibility to make a payment.

What Else Should Windows 8 Developers Not Forget?

There are some additional aspects of planning app monetization which should be considered: in which countries to start out publishing their app, how much content should be localized and how to take into account wealth disparity when figuring out pricing for their in-app content. With Android, we have seen that starting within emerging markets is often easier as the competition is less tough. However, this opens up another challenge – making sure they can provide localized content (in countries where people do not speak English as a second language) and customer support.

Local pricing is a different question altogether and would require a separate article, but just to give an idea – if you publish your app globally and set the same price points everywhere, you should not be wondering why you’re not getting as much revenue from China as you are from the USA. After all, the purchasing power of 1 USD is very much different in the two countries. Thinking through the monetization strategy and examining payment data from users is the best feedback which an app developer can receive for their app.

As stated in the beginning, Windows 8 and Windows Phone developers have a huge depository of information based on iOS and Android: two rather different operating systems which still are showing similar trends regarding monetization. So instead of trying to reinvent the wheel I’d rather suggest developers building on Microsoft platforms to talk to their counterparts on other platforms to figure out how to get it right from the get-go.（source：gamasutra）