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开发者分享游戏在Mac App Store的市场表现

发布时间:2014-02-19 15:34:42 Tags:,,,,

作者:Mike Hergaarden

Mac App Store是个很棒的商店,我很喜欢所有的Mac用户的更新和软件都集中在一个地方的设置。这能够引导他们注意到我们的游戏。回到2011年,这对于独立开发者来说就像是一个全新的金矿,因为这里没有多少竞争对手。然而,我发现现在这种情况发生了改变,这也是我为何要在此分享自己的销售数据的原因。关于圣诞期间位于排行榜首位的游戏却只创造出少量的收益真的算得上是一个悲哀的故事。

一些历史

当Mac App Store出现时,我们便想要将游戏带到那里而充分利用它的发行窗口。我们在那里所发行的第一款游戏是《疯狂驾驶1》,这是移植自网页和手机的游戏。

CD1_sales(from gamasutra)

《疯狂驾驶1》在Mac App Store的销售(from gamasutra)

《疯狂驾驶》的销售数据非常“原始”,因为它是只基于每周的报告。《疯狂驾驶》一开始的售价是4.99美元,并在之后降至2.99美元。需要注意糟糕的评级:我们添加了太多奇幻相机效果而破坏了游戏在Mac上的呈现。我们并未进行任何市场营销活动。所以这7800欧元的利润值得推出移植版本。

HWR_sales(from gamasutra)

《公路拉力赛》的销售数据(from gamasutra)

拥有了《疯狂驾驶1》的经验,我们决定在《公路拉力赛》(2013年5月)中使用付费销售模式。售价大约3至5美元,且不再出售其它内容。在半年后我们决定将其变成免费游戏并通过IAP而运行。将《公路拉力赛》变成免费游戏为我们赚取了10倍的利益,我认为我们将获得更大的盈利。

CD_appannie(from gamasutra)

《疯狂驾驶2》——Mac App Store的排名(from gamasutra)

比起《疯狂驾驶1》(甚至是《公路拉力赛》),《疯狂驾驶2》在各方面来说都更优秀,所以我们对于这款游戏的期待便更高。通过《公路拉力赛》的经验,我们决定不再尝试付费模式,而是在发行时便完全基于免费模式。游戏发行于12月13日,并获得了很不错的排名,它也轻松地在圣诞节期间冲上了第一位。因为在那段期间iTunesConnect是停止运行,所以我不能检查数据的变化,并对结果充满好奇。而就像你所期待的那样,我们获得了许多下载量。

CD2_downloads(from gamasutra)

《疯狂驾驶2》的下载(from gamasutra)

在Mac App Store上,圣诞期间美国游戏排行第一的位置每天为你创造了5千至7千的下载量。现在在发行后2个月内我们共获得了12.5万的下载。但是暂时先别为我们欢呼。

CD2_sales(from gamasutra)

《疯狂驾驶2》的销售统计数据(from gamasutra)

就像上图所示,通过12.5万的下载量而获得2250欧元的《疯狂驾驶2》在Mac App Store的每次下载智能赚取0.05欧元。尽管我们已经证实了自己学会如何创造一款在公众面前表现出色的游戏,但我们的下一个挑战是优化盈利。幸运的是《疯狂驾驶2》在手机上的盈利还不错,而这也是这款游戏的主要目标平台。

注:

除了发送tweet并将其刊登在我们的公司Facebook页面上,我们从未主动去推广任何一款游戏。所有的这些游戏都是发行于网页,iOS,Android以及Mac App Store上,并且都是以手机作为主要平台。

结论

付费市场并不允许“发行后便不再管理”的做法(游戏邦注:在《疯狂驾驶1》上可行但却不再适用于《公路拉力赛》)。

免费市场仍然存在机遇帮助开发者们获取稳定盈利(如《公路拉力赛》和《疯狂驾驶2》)。

Mac Store排行第一的免费游戏可以推动每天5千至1万的下载(基于《疯狂驾驶2》)。

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

Mac App Store download numbers and sales figures

by Mike Hergaarden

The Mac App Store is a great store, I love how all of Macs users are pointed to one location for their updates and software. This helps direct their attention to our games. Back in 2011 it looked like a new gold mine for indie developers since there was so little competition. However, I experienced this has changed which is why I’m sharing our sales figures. This is also the sad story of how a game on the #1 games spot during christmas generated only very little revenue.

A little history

As soon as the Mac App store (MAS) launched we wanted to get our games on there to make the most of its launch window. One of the first games we launched there was Crash Drive (1), it was ported from the web&mobile game.

Crash Drive 1 (CD1) – https://itunes.apple.com/app/id419911872

Crash Drive 1 Mac App store sales (click to enlarge)

The CD1 sales data is so “raw” since it is based on weekly reports only. CD1 was sold at 4.99 USD first, and the price was lowered to 2.99 USD later. Do note the bad rating: We added way too many fancy camera effects which ruined performance on some Macs. We didn’t do any marketing (we haven’t done so for any of the Mac App Store games mentioned in this blog post actually). So this 7.8k EUR profit was easily worth the port for sure.

Highway Rally (HWR) – https://itunes.apple.com/app/id638277644

Highway Rally sales stats (click to enlarge)

With the experience of CD1 in mind we decided to go for a premium sales model with Highway Rally (May 2013). It was sold for about 3 – 5 USD and didn’t sell AT ALL. About half a year later we decided to make it freemium and let it run via the IAPs. Switching HWR to freemium made 10 times more revenue and I think the monetization could’ve been implemented much, much better.

Crash Drive 2 -  MAS ranking (click to enlarge)

Crash Drive 2 (CD2) – https://itunes.apple.com/app/id765099329

Compared to Crash Drive 1 (and even Highway Rally), CD2 is a better game on ALL fronts so naturally our expectations were higher for this title. With the lessons learned from Highway Rally we decided not to try premium first and instead went full freemium right at the launch. The game  launched December 13 and received excellent ratings, it easily held the #1 games spot during Christmas. Since iTunesConnect is offline during these days I could not check the stats and was very curious about the results. As you’d expect, we moved quite some downloads…

Crash Drive 2 downloads (click to enlarge)

A #1 US-Games spot during Christmas gets you 5 – 10k downloads per day on the MAS. We now have a total of 125k downloads in 2 months. Now don’t cheer for us just yet …

Crash Drive 2 sales stats (click to enlarge)

As shown in the image above, at 2250 EUR over 125,000  downloads CD2 is making only 0,05 EUR per MAS download!  While we’ve proven we learned to create a great game that does very well with the public, our next challenge is optimizing the monetization. Luckily the CD2 monetization works far better on mobile, which is the main target platform of the game.

Notes:

We never actively promoted any of these games except tweeting & posting it on our company facebook a few times. (We were always way too busy with the web+mobile launches of these games)

All of these games were launched on Web + iOS + Android + Mac App store and the games were designed with mobile as main platform

Conclusions:

The paid market doesn’t allow “launch and forget” anymore (For CD1 it worked, but that no longer worked with Highway Rally).

The free market is still open for opportunities, however, get solid monetization in place (based on Highway Rally and Crash Drive 2)

Mac Store #1 free spot can drives 5 – 10k  downloads per day (based on Crash Drive 2)

Follow our adventures! We share both the good and the bad ones: @MikeHergaarden / @M2Hgames / facebook.com/M2HGames

Are our findings in line with your experiences of the MAS? Let me know!(source:gamasutra)


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