     |
 |
 |
 | | | | |
 |
|||
 |
||||||
          |
 |
 |
||||
|
Beyond Conversion Rate: Further Numbers to Improve Casual Game Sales
Using data which was released very close to the dates that the conversion rates were released, we can estimate the January 13th Penetration rate for Geometry Wars. Penetration is the number of downloads, which was given by Microsoft to be 200,000, divided by the number of customers. Customers we can estimate at 450,000 by multiplying the known number of sold Xbox 360 consoles (1,500,000) by the percentage of owners that were connected to Live (50%) and then by the number connected to Live that had tried Live Arcade (60%). This gives us 44% Penetration. The March 31st numbers are a little more difficult to complete. Though we know the 39% conversion rate and can estimate customers the same way we did for the January 13th numbers, we don't know either sales or downloads, thus requiring that we estimate them. To get a good range we'll use two estimations, a simple doubling of the units sold to 90,000 and a large increase of units sold to 150,000. Since we know the Conversion Rate, estimating the sales provides a specific number for downloads as well. Both estimations show a decrease in Penetration Rate. A key reason that Conversion Rate went up was a decrease in downloads per customer which is likely due to purchases made directly (i.e. without downloading the demo). The decrease in Penetration Rate could also indicate an overall decrease in sales/customer. Without the penetration rate (or some raw numbers) we wouldn't know if the increase in Conversion Rate actually signified a more successful game in terms of sales per customer. While conversion rate gives a piece of the story, penetration can complete the storyline. Due to the popularity of Geometry Wars we would assume the higher sales numbers are more likely. However, in situations where we aren't dealing with a runaway hit, the Penetration rate can be used to gain insight into the real meaning of the numbers and help identify areas for improvement. What Penetration Tells Us A decreasing Penetration Rate can indicate various things such as market saturation, channel/website navigation issues, poor promotion, lack of interest in a game type or genre, or, as in the case of the example above, a higher percentage of customers who are simply purchasing a product without downloading the demo first. Improving Penetration can be done in a variety of ways such as increasing promotion of a game or modifying existing navigation and recommendation systems. As in the case of Conversion Rate, a low Penetration Rate doesn't define a single area of improvement but instead gives direction in a general area and leaves the specific solution to our creative analysis of the situation. Splitting Penetration Into Proficiency and Reach Penetration is useful and certainly gives us more information, but for the many large game websites such as Real Arcade, Yahoo Games and Reflexive Arcade there are further opportunities for optimization by splitting Penetration (Downloads/Customer) into two separate numbers, Proficiency and Reach. What Is Proficiency? (Downloads/Customer) Proficiency focuses on how proficient a page on a website is at driving the customer (unique visitor) to download the game. So, while conversion rate measures the sales per download of a specific game, proficiency measures the number of downloads per unique visitor to the game's page on the website. The sales numbers are then broken into two component parts:
Where Proficiency Succeeds Proficiency is typically best used in comparing two similar games. For example, looking at two breakout-styled games that each have a 1% Conversion Rate, but have Proficiency Rates of 90% and 40% offers insight into how we can improve sales. The low Proficiency Rate tells us that the webpage for the second game is doing a poor job of convincing people to download the game. Even though the two games are converting at the same rate, the second game will be less than half as successful overall unless the Proficiency Rate can be raised. Usage of Proficiency Poor proficiency can be caused by any one thing on the webpage, or more commonly by a combination of factors including the game description text, screenshots, game reviews, download size, system information, ease of download, or even alternative products or ads on the page that distract the customer from downloading the game. Conversely, improving the webpage in each of these areas can increase the Proficiency Rate by driving more customers to try the demo, thereby increasing sales. Where Proficiency Falls Short Proficiency can be misleading when comparing games of different genres. For example, comparing a Chess game to Big Kahuna Reef might show that the Chess game has a higher conversion rate of 3%, compared to 2% for Big Kahuna Reef, and a higher proficiency rate of 90% to Big Kahuna Reef's 45%. As both numbers are likely driven by the effect of specialized players looking for a specific game, you would be mistaken if you looked at the Conversion and Proficiency rates of these two dissimilar games and decided to feature and develop only Chess games. While Proficiency provides useful information in comparing games of similar types, Reach expands the usefulness of Proficiency to different genres.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Features
Calculating Penetration
|
|
|