《愤怒的小鸟》收益危机回目录
在今年3月6日，移动应用行业目睹了一个自2010年4月以来从未发生的状况。芬兰公司Rovio旗下没有一款游戏进入美国iPhone应用收益榜单前90名。据Appshopper报道，《愤怒的小鸟：星球大战》已经跌至第91名，《Bad Piggies》跌至第100名，但这两者在下载量榜单上仍然位居第8和第13名。
在过去两年中，应用领域发生了不少有趣的变化。下载量与盈利性之间不再产生必然联系。数年之前，原版《愤怒的小鸟》曾连续22个月稳居美国收益榜单前20名。而最新版《愤怒的小鸟》在前20名榜单中的名次却难以维持2个月。
Bad-Piggies(from mactrast.com)
应用领域目前的收益主要来自免费增值模式（游戏邦注：即让用户免费下载应用，付费购买其中内容）。当前在美国iPhone应用收益榜单排名第一的《Clash of Clans》在下载量榜单仅位居第70名。有趣的是，这是另一家芬兰公司Supercell所开创了一个新纪元，这家公司正好位于诺基亚总部旧址，与Rovio总部相隔不过50英尺。
移动应用领域两极分化的情况只会愈演愈烈。《Rage of Bahamut》这款极具成瘾性的卡牌战斗游戏，虽然已经跌出iPhone应用下载量榜单前1000名，但却仍然位居美国应用收益榜单第14名，收益远高于最近下载量排名第一的游戏《Temple Run:OZ》。极少人下载《Rage of Bahamut》，但有行业传闻称这款游戏的日活跃用户日均收益高达80-90美分。就算它仅获得0.5%的《愤怒的小鸟》下载量，最终实现的收益也必将是一个惊人数字。
苹果iOS和Google Play生态圈都已经见证了类似的现象。这在美国、欧洲和亚洲市场都不例外。下载量与收益增长相挂钩的时代已经终结。这一现象导致《愤怒的小鸟》这种老牌热作只剩下增长强劲的下载量，但直接收益却快速缩水。这或许是因为Rovio忙于与KISS、NASA等展开大规模的营销合作，却疏于发展基本游戏机制有关。
当然，Rovio的棋子还没走完。它将发布新动画系列片，筹备一部完整版的动画电影；其打造的娱乐主题公园、桌游、台历、糖果和汽水等周边项目的帝国正迅速扩张。Rovio在2013年的收益增长可能极为惊人，但在此期间，它那下载量已达10亿次的游戏品牌所产生的直接收益，已无法再与一些规模远不如Rovio的竞争对手相比。曾经至高无上的Rovio在收益榜单上已经被那些仅有1-3人的小团队所击败。Zynga和EA这两家大公司也曾遭遇类似境况——这两者都没有事先想出有效的应用内部盈利策略。
目前占据收益榜单前列的游戏，多半是让用户建设农场、村庄、城镇、部落和帝国。《Clash of Clans》、《Hay Day》、《Minecraft》、《Rage of Bahamut》以及其他收益冠军都有一个共性：它们为用户提供了一个创建复杂、富有生机的奇幻世界的机会。用户并不想为短暂的东西花钱，但他们却并不吝于为那些对游戏世界具有永久影响力的事物掏钱。Rovio在数年前本该创建一个用永久建设项目粘住玩家的《愤怒的小鸟》游戏世界，现在亡羊补牢为时不晚，但Rovio已经错失成为IAP收益革命先驱的机会。它必须尽快挽回局面，至少要能够跟上潮流。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，作者：Tero Kuittinen）
Rovio’s Revenue Crisis and the App Market Evolution
Tero Kuittinen
On March 6, the mobile app industry witnessed something that it had not seen since April 2010. No Rovio games in the US Top 90 chart of iPhone apps generating most revenue. According to Appshopper, Angry Birds Star Wars has dropped to #91 and Bad Piggies to #100 when it comes to making money. Both still fare well in the download charts at #8 and #13.
Something fascinating has happened in the app industry over the past two years; download volume performance has decoupled from revenue performance almost entirely. A few years ago, the original Angry Birds spent 22 months in the Top 20 chart of biggest revenue generating apps in America. The latest Angry Birds game struggled to stay 2 months in the Top 20.
The app industry revenue generation is now utterly dominated by free downloads that lure consumers into paying for in-game features month after month. The top-grossing iPhone app in America, Clash of Clans, is merely #70 on the download chart. Ironically enough, this emblem of the new era of mobile gaming was created by Supercell, a Finnish company now located in the old Nokia headquarters. Just 50 feet from the Rovio HQ.
The extremes in the mobile app market are only growing more pronounced. Rage of Bahamut, an addictive card battle game, no longer makes it to the Top 1’000 of iPhone apps. Yet it remains the #14 app in America when it comes to revenue generation, far above the new #1 download app, Temple Run: Oz. Very, very few people download the Rage of Bahamut. But those that do end up enslaved by it. Industry rumors peg the daily average revenue per active user of this game to be as high as 80 to 90 cents. That is an amount of money that translates a free download to a massive cash cow even if it gets only 0.5% of the Angry Birds download base.
Both Apple‘s iOS and Google Play ecosystems are witnessing the same phenomenon. It cuts across Americas, Europe and Asia. The age of download-driven revenue generation is over. This has left old mega-franchises like Angry Birds with strong ongoing download performances, but rapidly shrinking share of direct game revenue. It is possible that Rovio has been so busy chasing down glamorous marketing partners from KISS to NASA that it simply forgot to focus on developing basic game mechanics.
Of course, Rovio has plenty of fish to fry. It is about to launch a major new animated series; it is prepping a full-length animated movie; its amusement park, board game, calendar, candy and soda empires are growing rapidly. Rovio’s franchise revenue growth could be quite spectacular in 2013. But at the same time, it is stunning that the game brand that has hit 1 billion downloads globally can no longer compete with far smaller rivals in direct revenue generation. The mighty Rovio is being beaten by dozens of 1-3 man development teams in the revenue charts across the world. Both Zynga and the mighty Electronic Arts suffer from a similar affliction: neither really figured out effective in-app revenue strategies early.
Will Rovio’s new Croods game feature improved in-game purchasing mechanics?
This lost opportunity is particularly galling when you consider how easily Rovio could have attempted a deeper monetization drive. Those games that currently rule the revenue charts help consumers build permanent fantasy farms, villages, towns, tribes and empires. Clash of Clans, Hay Day, Minecraft, Rage of Bahamut and other current revenue champions all have the same common feature: they give consumers the chance to build something permanent in a complex, vivid fantasy world. Consumers don’t like paying for ephemeral things; they don’t mind paying for something that has a permanent impact on the game universe. It would have been so easy for Rovio to build an Angry Birds world that would bind its fans into permanent construction projects years ago. It may still not be too late to do that. But Rovio has lost a huge opportunity to be one of the leaders of the in-app revenue revolution. It must soon find a way to be at least a competent follower.（source：forbes）
