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分析Android与亚洲手机游戏市场机遇

发布时间:2013-12-04 16:17:33 Tags:,,,

作者:David McCarthy

App Annie最近发布的2013年第三季度报告显示,Google Play虽然在下载量上最为领先,但收益仍然远逊于苹果App Store。

对于打算专注于Android开发领域的开发者来说,该报告的其他数据似乎呈现了乐观的发展机遇。

Android market share(from App Annie)

Android market share(from App Annie)

临界点

一轮又一轮的手机销量数据显示,Android正在华丽丽地逆袭,在许多市场的收益正在赶超iOS。

Android应用在日本创造的收益就超过了iOSA,在韩国这一趋势更明显,Android已经将iOS甩在身后,在台湾Android收益也与iOS相当。

从每款应用所创造的收益情况来看,日韩的Android或iOS的前100名热门应用所创造收益均超过了美国的对应产品。

App Revenue-Japan data(from App Annie)

App Revenue-Japan data(from App Annie)

所以,如果你具有真正的全球视野,就会发现美国应用市场正逐渐失势。

东方市场

看看App Annie发布的其他数据,可以发现有不少西方发行商的下载量甚为可观,例如EA、Gameloft、Glu Mobile、Storm8以及迪士尼。

但看看那些收益发现较为突出的发行商榜单,就会发现亚洲公司和专注于亚洲市场的西方公司表现更胜一筹,例如GungHo、CJ E&M、LINE、King、Colopl以及Kabam。

Top Publishers(from App Annie)

Top Publishers(from App Annie)

从以上图表中可见,如果你是Android开发者,最好瞄准亚洲市场。

从收益来看,日本和韩国是世界上盈利性最高的Android市场,台湾则仅次于美国和德国,排名第五。

韩国每10台手机中就有9台是Android设备,Android手机在台湾比例高达80%,许多成功的游戏每月收益高达上百万美元,但即使只取得一般成功的游戏每月也可能创收30万美元。

Taiwan Coogle Play revenue(from App Annie)

Taiwan Coogle Play revenue(from App Annie)

合作伙伴

西方开发者似乎也注意到了这种情况。King和Supercell等公司已经将旗下的成功游戏针对海外市场转换成不同语言版本,值得一提的是他们所采用的方式。

手机游戏开发的一个好处就在于其市场可真正实现全球化——但要获得真正的成功,就要敢于突破边界。

collaborations(from App Annie)

collaborations(from App Annie)

King和Supercell在亚洲都采用了付费获取用户的方式,在本土化操作之后,两者在日本的游戏排名均实现突飞猛进的发展。

值得注意的是,他们都选择了关键的合作伙伴——Supecell在日本与GungHo联手,King则在韩国与Kakao合作。

合作的优势

找到一个关键的合作伙伴助你了解当地市场的微妙之处,这是一个巨大的优势。

如今行业中几乎所有人都知晚LINE崛起的情况(例如,它在日本用户达4900万,在台湾用户为1700万),但只有观察入微的人才会理解像《PokoPang》和《LINE POP》这类游戏的成功如何令日本市场从传统的成功卡牌战斗游戏转向更为休闲、通俗的游戏体验。

而King则在韩国发现,要在该市场获得成功的唯一可靠途径就是借助Kakao的力量,Kakao平台上的游戏几乎囊括了该国游戏高收益榜单前10名的席位,这个社交平台的崛起也令这些热门游戏的收益翻了十倍左右。

开发者需要借由本地专家了解何时及何地进行本土化,以及哪些题材在当地市场更受欢迎,无论你的项目大小和规模,都要请他们来完善你的用户获取战略。

如果你有足够的资金运行付费推广活动,那么就可借助本土合作伙伴来代理相关事务,这样你就可以在新应用排行榜中获得额外的曝光度。如果你资金预算略为不足,他们也可以为你带来一些安装源,以便你最大化维持应用商店排名。

migrating users(from pocketgamer)

migrating users(from pocketgamer)

如果你根本就没有什么预算,那就借他们之手找到免费或低成本的交叉推广策略,从而增加游戏的传播率。

毫无疑问,当今手机游戏开发者的日子比App Store刚诞生之时更加艰难了,但对于志在进军更广阔市场的开发者来说,Android和亚洲市场仍存在大量机遇。(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 to make the most of Android’s dramatic rise in Asia

by David McCarthy

David McCarthy is the director, platform division business alliance team at Metaps.

It recently opened access to its zero commission pay-per-click advertising network DirectTAP.

As ever, the latest Q3 2013 numbers released by App Annie make for interesting reading.

They tell a story that has been apparent for some time now: while Android is leading the way in terms of downloads, Apple remains far ahead in terms of revenue.

But that story gets a little more interesting when you look a little more deeply at the numbers. What it shows is that there is an increasingly attractive opportunity for developers who are willing to focus on Android development.

A tipping point?

It’s revealing enough that round after round of handset sales figures show a repeated shift away from Apple towards Android. But on top of that, in many markets, Android revenues are catching up and overtaking iOS.

It has now reached the point, in Japan, where Android apps generate more revenue than iOS; in Korea the difference is even more pronounced, with Android outpacing iOS by quite a distance, and in Taiwan Android revenues are comparable to iOS.

If you look at the revenues generated by individual apps, the top hundred or so grossing apps on Google Play in Japan and Korea outpace their counterparts in the US, whether those US apps are on Android or iOS.

So if you take a truly global view of the major app stores, the US is increasingly looking like an outlier

Go east, young man

That growing discrepancy between the US and the rest of the world is another interesting story.

If you look at some of the other data released recently by App Annie, it shows that there are a lot of western publishers doing well in terms of downloads: companies like Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Glu Mobile, Storm8, and Disney.

But when you look at those publishers who are doing well in terms of revenue, it is, again, Asian companies and western companies who are focusing on Asian markets: companies like GungHo, CJ E&M, LINE, King, COLOPL, and Kabam.

So what the numbers show is that if you’re going after Android, you’d better be going after Asia.

In terms of revenue, Japan and South Korea are the most lucrative Google Play markets in the world, with Taiwan close behind in fifth place (after the US and Germany).

More than 9 out of 10 handsets in Korea are Android; it’s about 80 percent in Taiwan, where the most successful games are making upwards of a million dollars a month, and where even outside the upper echelons of the revenue charts, moderately successful games can expect to make $300,000 a month.

With Friends

And it seems that western developers are beginning to take note. It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that companies like King and Supercell have managed to translate their success into a whole lot of different languages, but it might be worth thinking about exactly how they managed it.

One of the beauties of mobile development is that the market is truly global – but to be truly successful takes more than just ticking a checkbox.

In the case of King and Supercell, both have employed keenly focused paid promotion to acquire users across Asia, and both enjoyed a surge in their Japanese rankings after localizing.

Crucially, they also engaged in key collaborations – Supercell with GungHo in Japan, and King with Kakao in Korea.

Better together

Having a key partner who can help you understand the nuances of local markets is a huge advantage.

Anybody with their ear to the ground should be aware of LINE’s surge to prominence (eg. 49 million users in Japan; 17 million in Taiwan); but only someone who has been paying careful attention will understand how the success of games like PokoPang and LINE POP has opened up the Japanese market away from the traditionally successful card battle games and towards a more casual, accessible experience.

In Korea, meanwhile, as King has discovered, just about the only reliable route to success is via Kakao, whose name is currently attached to most or all of the top 10 grossing games there and whose emergence as a social platform has driven up the revenues of top grossing games tenfold.

It needs a local expert to understand when and where you need to localize (probably yes in Japan and Korea; maybe not in Taiwan and Hong Kong) and to help you understand what genres are popular where. It takes a local expert to help you refine your user acquisition strategy, whatever your size and scale.

If you have the money to run paid promotion, then a local partner can help you factor Asia and Android in from the start so that you’ll benefit from the additional visibility on the New App ranking. If you have a slightly lower budget, they can help you utilize a mix of install sources so that you can maximize, and sustain, your app store rankings without wasting it.

And if you have no meaningful budget at all then they can help you find free or low-cost cross-promotion strategies and ways to enhance the virality of your game.

There’s no doubt that things are tougher now for mobile developers than they were in the heady early days of the App Store, when pay-to-play thrived and user acquisition strategies sounded like something out of Dope Wars.

But for developers who are willing to cast their ambitions a little wider – willing to look beyond the iPhone, and to look across to Asia – there are still a lot of opportunities around.(source:pocketgamer


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