作者：Bryan Stealey

我们发布《Mad Skills Motocross 2》这款游戏不久之后，就实现了将近700万次下载量，日活跃用户（DAU）为41万，它在许多地区的榜单名列第一。但我们意识到还有一个问题：我们虽然用户数量庞大，但却并没有充分优化游戏的盈利策略。

我们工作室Turborilla开发的这款横向卷轴游戏颇具吸引力（其iPhone版本在2014年2月份位居榜单第二），它怪诞的摩托车物理机制，快速的玩法加上极端成瘾性的特点令玩家为之所迷。我们在这款游戏的像素美术、音频设计等方面中倾注了一切心血，直到自己感觉一切都完美为止。但这是我们首次试水F2P游戏领域，也是我们初次接触手机游戏中的内置广告。所以就不免犯了些错误。

我认为我们的失误在于，经验不足加上苛求用户体验。我们并不想单纯为了赚钱而剥削用户。但随着时间发展，我们开始意识到自己完全可以在不损害玩家利益的情况下采用明智而有效的广告策略。事实上，明智的广告策略甚至可以产生更良好的玩家体验。为什么？因为你只有创造了收益才可能继续迭代和优化游戏体验，为玩家带来更棒的游戏，而广告与IAP选项和其他游戏内置盈利模式一样，可以创造多数多益。

那么我们究竟哪里做错了？问题就在于广告的投放位置。

插页式广告出现在玩家进入或退出主菜单的时候，而不是嵌入自然的游戏流程中。这并不能创造多少收益——该游戏针对每名DAU呈现的广告不足一次。这也对用户体验产生了消极影响。

我们如何解决这个问题呢？我们与自己主要的广告合作伙伴AppLovin联手调整了广告位置。首先，我们会考虑哪种广告形式最适合放在哪里。我们选择了插页广告和视频广告，因为我们认为它们在盈利表现上最有效，也因为它们最适合我们游戏类型的流程（游戏邦注：其渡具有玩家可完成的关卡），所以也最适合我们的玩家。在现在的《Mad Motocross 2》中，插页广告会以非干扰性的方式出现于玩家投入最多时间的地方，也就是他们完成比赛之后。

ads(from gamasutra)

这种相对直观的修改提升了每活跃用户的广告展示量。在iOS平台上每DAU的展示广告量增加了50%，在Android平台则增加了70%。我们还看到iOS和Android两个平台的eCPM增加了15%，并且由于玩家更能接受这种新的设置，我们也得以呈现更多视频广告，从而再度提升了eCPM。我们的广告收益在这两个手机平台增加了50%以上，而DAU却并没有受到影响。用户差评实际上却减少了！

我们由此得到的经验就是，仔细思考你的广告盈利策略并利用富媒体广告形式。在用户投入时间的地方投放广告。要设置能够接近所有用户从而最大化覆盖率，确保用户获得一致体验的广告。永远不要忘了在游戏中自然停顿的地方设置广告。更优良的用户体验总能产生更好的eCPM和更高的广告收益，并且也更符合游戏玩家的利益。（本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao）

Don’t Leave Money on the Table: Ad Monetization Can’t Be An Afterthought in Game Production

by Bryan Stealey

Not long after we launched Mad Skills Motocross 2 — a game nearly 7 million people have downloaded, has 410,000 daily active users, and has been a #1 game in many countries — we realized we had a problem: We had an embarrassment of riches in terms of popularity, but we were not fully optimizing every aspect of our monetization strategy.

Let me take a step back. At our gaming studio, Turborilla, our side-scrolling Mad Skills Motocross 2 title had great traction (our iPhone version hit #2 overall in February of 2014). Players loved this racing game for its fantastic motorcycle physics, its fast-paced gameplay and its extremely addicting nature. We poured our blood, sweat and tears into nailing everything about this title — the pixel art, the gameplay, the sound design — and we felt everything was top-notch. But this was our first foray into F2P gaming, and thus our first real experience with in-game mobile advertising. And we made some mistakes.

I think our missteps were a result of general inexperience combined with a desire to be respectful of the user experience. We didn’t want to abuse players just to make a buck. But over time, we’ve come to discover that you can have a smart, effective advertising strategy without abusing players. In fact, a smart strategy can even lead to a better player experience. Why? Because only with money coming in can you continue to iterate and improve the game experience and deliver great games to your players, and much of that revenue can come from ads, as it does from in-app purchase and other forms of in-game monetization.

So where did we go wrong? Turns out it was in the placement of the ads.

Interstitial ads were served when a player entered or exited the main menu as opposed to embedded in natural game flow. This made for less-than-stellar ad monetization — the game was serving less than one ad per DAU. This also negatively affected user experience.

What did we do to fix it? We worked with our primary ad partner AppLovin to adjust the placement of our ads. First we considered which of the many available ad formats would fit best and where. We settled on interstitials and video ads because we thought they would be the most productive in terms of monetization, and because they worked best with the flow of our type of game (which has levels that the players complete) and were therefore best for our players. In Mad Motocross 2, interstitials now appear in a non-disruptive way where players spend most of their time, which is after they complete an action — a race.

This relatively straightforward fix in the ad set-up resulted in increased ads per DAU. Specifically, there was a 50 percent increase in ads per DAU on iOS and a 70 percent increase on Android. We also saw a 15 percent increase in eCPM across both platforms, and because the players were more receptive to the new setup, we were able to serve more video ads that further boosted the eCPMs. Our ad revenue increased by over 50 percent across both platforms, and DAU was unaffected. Negative user reviews actually declined.

The lessons learned here were pretty clear. Slow down and be thoughtful about your ad monetization strategy, and take advantage of rich ad formats. Focus ads where users spend their time. Set up ad triggers that will reach all users in order to maximize reach and to ensure a consistent experience across your user base. And never forget to place ads at natural pauses in your game. A better user experience will always have a positive impact on higher eCPMs and your ad revenue, and is in the best interest of your most important constituent: those playing your game.（source：gamasutra）