Social games seemingly miserable behind

Cumulative download volume exceeded 1 million!

The monthly sales of a game to reach XX billion yen!

......

It is almost always possible to see the news that the mobile gaming market is a thriving scene, with every game company making pots and pans, but it is only a handful of lucky ones, more of a game of desperation that is struggling on the verge of dying.

This article is an article shared by a Japanese game developer that will tell about the miserable life of one of the many not-so-favored games, with light and shadow, and how the games that curl up in the dark struggle through their lives.

This article will be based on the following data as a prerequisite, many for the assumption, for reference only.

Development Fee: iOS Application "gamecast" development cost 50 million yen

Labor costs: 500,000 yen/person/month, 10 people operating

Advertising fee: Initial advertising fee 2 million yen

Server: 500,000 yen/month

Pay Rate: 5%

Payment: 10,000 yen

Sales 30% to App Store application platform

First, it is necessary to create a game development fee, if you can not earn the cost of development, it will be a loss, so, before the development has been given to at least the obligation to earn the cost of development, so the game "Gamecast" in the birth of the 50 million yen has been carrying the cross.

Then, start making! The game is done! But who's going to play?

It's time to advertise. Additional cost of 2 million yen advertising.

So the money spent is 52 million yen, can the game respond to the expectations of the producers?

After advertising, "Gamecast" the first month of good momentum, download reached 50,000 times, the actual core players reached 20,000 people. Paid users in 5% to calculate, a total of 1000 people, each monthly pay 10,000 yen, the game monthly sales of 10 million yen. In this case, 5 months will be able to earn back the development costs? NO, it's naïve!

First, 30% of the sales need to be paid to the App Store platform, so there's only 7 million yen left. Moreover, mobile games are not like host games, do a good job selling even if finished, mobile games must also hold a variety of game activities, in order to keep the players continue to maintain freshness. Running a game in the best state requires a minimum of 10 people, 500,000 yen per person per month, plus a 500,000-yen server, which has to deduct 5.5 million yen from sales, with 1.5 million yen left. Minus 2 million yen for advertising costs, with a loss of 500,000 yen in the first month.

If the second month stop advertising, you can profit 1.5 million yen, in the case of no reduction in the number of players, it will take 34 months (about 3 years) to recover the development costs. Therefore, only 10 million yen per month sales can not be sustained.

Because there is no loss, so not too much failure, but the operation is too hard, at this time there are two ways. The first is to reduce the number of operators to increase profitability, once the loss of the game immediately. Although in the final analysis is only the assumption, but the SAP system enterprises are more powerful enterprises, most of them are using this method, if the game performance is not good immediately off the shelf, redevelopment of other games.

Another way is to increase the advertising investment, and actively improve the game experience, improve profitability. Because if the game's sales increase to 15 million yen, at least can survive. However, lost in the starting line of the game, even if the lucky remnants, after a large area of improvement, still need to advertise again to revive. In which, only a part of the investment, the operation of a good game to stabilize. If it's not going well, and the money is all run out ... means the end.

Some people say that the company is unwilling to pay the money, from the user can not get it?! This is called "Squeeze operation" at the end of social games. But even if it increases the rate of game pay, can it mitigate the crisis? The answer is still no!.

Without money can not improve the game experience, as a last resort to squeeze, from the user's hands, if nothing to do will be sitting ducks. So, many companies will gamble on everything for this last glimmer of hope.

Just, if the price increases too much, will cause the user to leave, in order to maintain the game to lose the user base, and eventually have to put the game out of the example is not a few.

And this last-dying self-explosive means, if not effective to increase sales, most of the game will choose to slowly die. As for why to "slowly" die out, is to thank the players who have been supporting to the last, because the game company, these users are very valuable, to the end of the loyal users to leave a good impression, hope that the next work will be able to get their support.

In this state, presumably developers must feel very unwilling. It was also true that "social gaming is a gamble". For game developers, work is like a child. His work failed to respond to the expectations of paying loyal players, so he felt unwilling.

"Social gaming is a cash cow!" ”

"It's easy to make money. ”

......

There are still many people who say these words innocently. Just, I hope you can understand that under the halo of this cash cow, there are game developers who silently regret in the dark.