据国际市场调研公司Parks Associate报告所称，在通过升级和其他数字奖品来扩大用户留存率的免费在线游戏领域，每5名玩家中就有1人会付费购买虚拟商品。

这种让用户免费下载游戏程序，通过虚拟商品或其他高级服务交易来创造营收的模式，在电子游戏行业大受欢迎。Zynga公司旗下的两款免费模式游戏《FarmVille》和《Mafia Wars》成功领跑了这种商业模式。

这种游戏模式在手机应用领域也同样非常奏效，苹果App Store排名靠前的产品中，就有三分之一左右是这种免费应用。另外值得注意的是，这种免费模式的成功，还从侧面反映了电子游戏行业的付费下载模式正在走向式微。

freemium games makes more money

在2008年，在线游戏的每月付费玩家占总用户的35%，但在今年，这类玩家比重已经下降至28%。

《魔兽世界》（World of Warcraft）目前每月向用户收费15美元，游戏用户约1200万人，即每月经常性收入约1.8亿美元，它是采用付费下载的在线游戏中唯一最为成功的典范，它的成功并不能复制。可以说，《魔兽世界》的创造者，动视暴雪（Activision Blizzard）公司蚕食了其他付费下载在线游戏的营收份额。MMORPG游戏的开发商Turbine公司（代表作：《 Lord of the Rings Online》），最初也采用付费下载模式，但后来转向了免费模式，这种转变策略果然管用，该公司的游戏营收也因而开始双倍增长。

数码传媒公司确实应该好好掂量一番，重新审视付费下载模式的有效性，尽管它曾在2008年为电子游戏产业大幅创收，但现在似乎已经到了变革的时候了。游戏发行商是否应该考虑让虚拟商品交易模式取而代之？（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Free-to-play games creep closer to killing monthly subscriptions

The free-to-play model has all but taken over the online game industry. Next stop: everything else.

Free online games, which make money through upgrades and other digital bonuses which help speed play along, continues to grow in popularity. Nearly one in five gamers now pay for virtual goods, up from 15 percent in 2008, according to a report by international research firm Parks Associates.

The freemium model, which lets users download applications for free and then makes money through the sale of virtual goods or other premium services within the application, was basically popularized by video games. The runaway success of Zynga, the largest producer of freemium games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, has made it the de facto business model for casual games.

Now that the free-to-play model has pretty much taken over games, it’s circling back to the rest of the app economy. It’s served iPhone applications well — seeing as about a third of the top-grossing applications of all types on the Apple App Store are free to download and make their money through virtual goods. If the success of the freemium model in video games is any indicator of how successful it will be for all apps, the subscription economy may well be on its way out.

Meanwhile, the subscription model, which powers online games like World of Warcraft and the soon-to-be-released Star Wars: The Old Republic, is still to losing momentum. In 2008, 35 percent of all gamers playing online games paid a monthly fee to access the game. Only 28 percent of people playing games online paid some kind of a subscription fee this year.

World of Warcraft, one of the most successful games of all time, currently charges users $15 per month to access a persistent world. The game currently has around 12 million subscribers — which would amount to around $180 million each month in recurring revenue. It’s the most successful example of an online game that’s using online subscriptions as a recurring revenue model.

But it’s pretty much the only one. Activision Blizzard, the creator of World of Warcraft, has eaten the lunch of just about every other online game that’s attempted to use subscriptions as a revenue source. Turbine, a producer of massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like Lord of the Rings Online started with a subscription model for its games but has since made them free-to-play. After changing its games from a subscription-based revenue model to free-to-play, Turbine’s revenue from its games doubled.

As media companies dive into apps and contemplate charging subscriptions, it’s something to consider. The video-games business, which saw subscriptions turn into a billion-dollar business by 2008, is now turning away from the model. Should publishers look at virtual-goods sales instead?（source:venturebeat）