Methods to Improve the Lifetime of a Game

Introduction

A recent study reveals that only 15% of the games manage to retain around 35% of their new players after their first day of playing the game, which is just about one third of the new players.

For mobile games, it’s even worse. Only 15% of the gamers play a game for a period of more than a week.

Less retention would mean that the game would find it difficult to sustain amongst the competition in the longer run. It would also affect the longevity of the game. 

Game analytics would give you an overall idea on how to retain more users and improve the lifetime of a game.

The following are some of the methods which could improve the lifetime of the game.

Improving User Experience

It is widely accepted that a player’s first impression of a game is important to make them visit again.

More users opt out of a game after their very first session of gameplay due to a very bad user experience.

Improving user experience with respect to player’s expectation and current industry trends could help the game attract more users. 

Things such as communicative interface, quick loading time and easier controls would give a fresh experience to the gamers.

Choosing the Right Game Genre

A research concluded that only 4 to 5 genres of game makes up to around 80% of games in the industry. Most popular genres include the following genres,

• Arcade
• Simulation
• Puzzle
• Adventure
• Action

One needs to choose the right genre with the help of data such as; number of players playing a particular genre and what difference the developers could bring in that genre.

This could prove effective when it comes to retaining players. Also, some of the above mentioned gaming genres are said have twice the retention rate when compared to other genres.

Boosting Player’s Psychological Investment in the Game

In order to increase the lifetime of a game, you would need players to spend more time in the game.

Motivating the player indirectly in the form of Game Rewards could make them more interested towards the game. More rewards would mean you can expect the players to return and play your game often. 

For example, in PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) you get rewarded for logging in every day & also you get rewarded for completing side quests every day in the form of Royale Pass. 

This kind of motivation would significantly boost player’s psychological involvement towards your game.

More Investment would mean more engagement. Engagement would result in improved lifetime of your game.

Increasing Player Engagement

There are plenty of methods to make your players return to your game often. External triggers are something which are very effective in bringing your players back into the game.

What could be these triggers? Right from a simple CTA (Call to Action) to giving offers to players, all of them could bring a player back into the game.

Giving the actively engaged users some advantage in the game progression could also motivate them to return and play the game.

Also, giving negative progression to inactive users could also make them revisit the game often thus improving the engagement.

Improving Player’s Session Length

Player’s should find reasons to spend more time in your game during a session. Considerable player progress, reasonably challenging levels and player satisfaction are some of the important factors which could improve a session length.

Making it social and competitive among real world players could also result in prolonged sessions.

Letting the players create their own clans or teams and making them compete among other clans or teams would keep them more actively engaged with the game.

Updating the game to meet current trends

No player would like to play outdated games. Necessary updates and tweaks are often required to keep up with current trends.

Also bringing in new features, in-demand characters, new unlockables & new quests – all in the form of updates will also keep your game up to date with the current trends. Regular updates are inevitable when it comes to improving a game.