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《Connectrode》商业思考编辑本段回目录

我在周末推出一款iOS益智游戏《Connectrode》,这款游戏是我利用业余时间制作的。游戏发行对我来说个重要时刻,有关开发始末,我实在有说不尽的内容。但此处我只是利用游戏作为跳板,阐述游戏开发相关话题。今天我主要讲述商业方面内容,尤其是针对iOS App Store现况。

Connectrode from mzstatic.com

Connectrode from mzstatic.com

《Connectrode》定价99美分,虽然这个价格我能够接受,但不表示我对此感到满意。其实是因为当前的App Store境况令我没有选择,只能定价99美分。为何如此,App Store如何促使市场形成此风气?此削价现象是数字产品推广无法避免的趋势,或者有其他机制能够阻止此现象出现?难道我的游戏还不值一包Altoids口香糖?

我认为自己制作的是高质量益智游戏,内容不亚于《俄罗斯方块》、《Dr. Mario》或者《Drop7》(游戏邦注:前二者是经典作品代表,后者是现代作品代表)。我为自己在设计这款抽象、有趣的益智游戏中所取得的成就感到自豪:创造“易上手,难精通”的游戏机制实属不易。我也为自己奥斯汀独立工作室在画面和音效方面所取得的成绩骄傲(我实在很喜欢David Pencil制作的音乐,他曾给《Penny Arcade: The Series》第二季配过乐)。

Dr. Mario from blogspot.com

Dr. Mario from blogspot.com

但事实却是如此:游戏价格还不敌一块玉米煎饼!怎么会这样?

最根本原因是我别无选择,只能定价99美分,我对此很反感,不仅因为这无异于免费提供一款上乘游戏。我看到越来越多开发以99美分出售其优质作品,这不仅有损iOS市场,也会伤及整个游戏市场。任天堂Reggie就曾谈及此内容,我想任天堂此言论不单只是打击其手机游戏竞争者,这也是身处游戏行业多年公司的独到见解,这些商业行为不仅无法持续存在,而且还具有破坏性。

出现此问题的一大原因是很多小公司缺乏商业见地。他们对于经济学的理解不外乎:“若我的价格低于竞争者,那些我就能够售出更多。复制游戏成本很低,所以我很快就能够凭借数量填补缺口。”

这个逻辑存在些许缺陷,其中最致命的是忽略价格是个标签。

* 若A游戏售价5美元,B游戏售价1美元。用户会认为A游戏质量胜过B游戏。

* 即便单独来看,若B游戏售价1美元,用户不会认为其富有价值。我们无法以低于一双袜子价值的价格出售游戏,然后期望用户会认为我们制作的内容极富价值。

我想说的是这种思维已蔓延至手机应用市场以外的领域。当若干小时游戏内容售价还不及一包Kleenex面巾纸时,我们如何期望用户会继续花60美元购买AAA游戏,换得数小时体验?

我们削减的不仅是价格,也是公众对于我们工作的价值认可。

那么若这种价格下滑趋势没有出现,数字产品推广市场又会是一片怎样的光景?

很多人抱怨App Store太过封闭,过度受限于苹果。但我的观点正好相反:苹果应该加大其控制力度,防止“公地悲剧”重演。若苹果没有任由开发商以最低价格发行游戏,今天的市场会更加健康。他们本该:

1. 要求开发商以市场所能接纳的最高价格出售游戏,例如10美元(游戏邦注:取决于游戏覆盖面和属性)。

2. 然后鼓励开发商进行短期促销,例如5美元。帮助开发商以“价值绑定”形式出售游戏。注意这也是促销手段之一,这传递给未贬低作品价值用户的是全然不同的信息。

3. 最后,游戏价格会逐渐下滑,直至降到最低价格99美分。

这是几乎是所有企业采取的定价策略,因为:1)企业能够从中获得最大利润;2)这最大程度提高公众对产品的价值认可。数字产品推广平台Steam在此就取得卓越成就。

不幸的是,每当面对商业决策,我就变成现实主义者,而不是理想主义者。我决定以99美分出售游戏是因为这符合当前App Store市场实况,因为我认为凭借质量,作品能够成为少数幸运者。即使我提高价位也无法改变此行业趋势。我所能做的就是提高大家对此问题的关注度,提供其他定价方案,然后期望未来的数字产品推广市场能够从App Store的错误中吸取教训。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,作者:Shay Pierce)

Why Connectrode costs $.99 (…and why it shouldn’t have to)

by Shay Pierce

Over the weekend I released a game that represents many hours of work, most from my own spare time: an indie puzzle game for iOS titled Connectrode. The release of the game is a big moment for me and I could probably write 1,000 pages about its development…! But instead I’ll restrain myself and just use the game as a springboard to blog about some related game development topics I’ve wanted to blog about. Today I’ll talk about the business side of things… and especially the state of the iOS App Store.

I’m selling Connectrode for $.99… and though that price is a fact I’ve long accepted, that doesn’t mean it’s one I’m happy about. The fact is that the current state of the App Store left me no choice but to sell my game for $.99. Why is that the case, and how did the App Store get that way? Is the price erosion that’s occurred there an inevitable fact of digital distribution, or could another system have prevented that phenomenon? Is my game really worth less than a pack of Altoids?

I absolutely believe that I’ve made a very high-quality puzzle game, worthy of comparison to classics of the genre such as Tetris and Dr. Mario, as well as modern gems like Drop7. I’m also very proud of what I’ve accomplished just in designing a fun abstract puzzle game: creating any type of gameplay that is truly “easy to learn, difficult to master” is a difficult feat. I’m also very proud of the work that my ragtag team of Austin-based indies has done in creating excellent art and audio for the game (I particularly love the music, by David Pencil, who did the soundtrack for Penny Arcade: The Series season two).

Yet the fact remains: I’m selling the game for less than the cost of a burrito! How did things come to this?

The current state of the iPhone market has been described well before, and it’s been this way for a long time: read How to Price Your iPhone App Out of Existence from 2008, or this post from 2009 by Adam Saltsman about Canabalt pricing instead. (Small world: Connectrode uses the Flixel iOS engine that Adam’s company used for Canabalt and which he was kind enough to later open-source.)

But the bottom line is that I have little choice but to release for $.99, and I feel a bit dirty about it… and not just because I’m giving away a quality product virtually for free. I see developers launching quality games at $.99 as increasingly damaging, not just to the iOS market, but to the entire games industry. Reggie of Nintendo raised these concerns, and I think that such statements are more than just Nintendo lashing out at its mobile-game competitors: it’s the perspective of a company that’s been in this business a long time, pointing out business practices that really are not only unsustainable, but actively damaging.

A big part of why this problem came about is simply that many small indie app and game developers are not very business-savvy. Their understanding of economics goes as far as “if I sell my game for less than this other guy, I’ll probably sell more; and since it doesn’t cost me anything more to make each copy, I can easily make up the difference in volume.”

There’s several flaws with this logic, and one of the big ones is that price sends a signal.

* If game A is $5 and game B is $1, customers are going to take this alone as a sign that game A is of higher quality, and worth more, than game B.

* Even taken alone, if game B costs $1, customers just aren’t going to perceive it as valuable. We can’t sell games for less than a pair of socks forever and expect people to treat what we’re producing as works of real value (commercially or otherwise).

My concern (and Nintendo’s) is that this perception is carrying over beyond the mobile app market; when polished games stuffed with dozens of hours of gameplay (such as Angry Birds) are being sold for less than a box of Kleenex, how long can we expect people to continue paying $60 for a AAA that provides dozens of hours of gameplay?

We’re not just eroding prices, we’re eroding the public perception of the value of what we do.

So what would a digital-distribution market look like where this decline wouldn’t have happened?

A lot of people complain about the App Store being too much of a closed platform, and that it is too tightly controlled by Apple. But my contention is the opposite: Apple (who really does know better) should have controlled the market more, to prevent the classic “Tragedy of the Commons” which has run its course. The market could have been healthier for everyone if Apple had not let developers simply release their game for the minimum price. Instead they could have:

1. Required developers to release their games for something close to the maximum price the market would bear, say $10 (depending on the scope and nature of the game).

2. After a while, encourage the developer to put the game on sale for $5 briefly; and help the developer arrange for the game to be sold in “value bundles.” Note that these are always couched as being a sale; this sends a completely different message to consumers that doesn’t degrade perception of the game’s value.

3. Eventually, as time passes, the price on a game could be gradually dropped, until it reaches a “bargain bin” minimum price of $.99.

This is the strategy that 99% of businesses actually follow in pricing products, because 1) it actually captures the most money in the market and leaves the least money on the table; and 2) it maintains maximum public perception of what the products areworth. And guess what, one digital distribution market has done exactly this, to terrific success: Steam.

Unfortunately when it comes to business decisions, I have to be a realist, not an idealist; I decided to release my game for $.99 because that’s the reality of the current App Store market, and because I believed I had a product whose quality gave it a chance of being one of the lucky few. Pricing my game higher wouldn’t accomplish anything to stop this trend… But what I can do is try to draw attention to the problem; point out the alternative pricing strategies we developers could have followed; and hope that future digital distribution markets learn from the mistakes of the App Store.(Source:gamasutra

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