1) Game patterns can significantly improve user acquisition, engagement, and retention - potentially doubling or increasing 10 times for each.
2) User acquisition relies on positive first impressions - designing for an excellent first 5 seconds and first session. Interface is also important to engage users and drive virality.
3) Engagement benefits from identity/profile building, badges/achievements, numbers/stats, social features, and challenging but achievable goals. User-generated content increases engagement for some users.
3) Retention is improved through parallel long-term and short-term goals, resource management, constraints, content updates, virtual assets, social structures like guilds, and pre-announcing future features or
7. First Five Seconds
“I am smart—this is what I expected.” 1
Acquire
“First” Matters
First Session
“This is fun—what I expected, only better.”
“I know what I am doing—and I like it.”
8. 1
Acquire
“First” Rules
• Win first, win fast
• Give them a reason to return
• Send invites (if you love it)
9. 1
Acquire
The Original “Touch”
Pinball Construction Set 1983
34. 2
Engage
Yearning for Recognition
Sim City: 20,000 uploaded cities
“They all look the same!”
35. “Aileen City is such a great place to live. The parks are
beautiful and the highways are never jammed.
Come to Aileen City!”
2
Engage
UGC Text #1
1% upload | 25% download
“Joe City is a towering spectacle of glass and concrete. It is not just a
city, it is an economic dynamo!”
“You have to watch the citizens to understand Jennville. They shop,
they bustle, their houses are perfect.”
38. 2
Engage
Party of 5
20 - 30% productivity gains
39. Design Principles
• Value what you make, value what you earn
2
Engage
• Golf courses should look hard, play easy
• 90% of players are 90% of the way
• Constraints are fun
• Experts fail fast; everyone else wins fast, wins first
40. Take Aways
2x Great second session
2
Engage
Viewable profiles
Badges, achievements
Numbers, stats for 10-25%
4x “Invest” and avoid “wither”
UGC for 25% of players
Social obligation for 25% of players
46. 3
Retain
Pre-Announcements Huge
World of Warcraft -- 0% churn
from level 35-40, 55-60 (mount,
elder game)
Pre-register at retail -- 10-20% of
first week sales
47. 3
Retain
Content Updates Sell
Correlated to quality
48. Madden Football
• 70% repeat if “game of the year”
• 30% repeat purchase if “liquid AI is
what’s running down their legs”
3Retain
Content Updates Sell
The Sims expansions
• 16 expansions, 50M units
• 60% ARPU increase
49. 3
Retain
Social Obligations Lock-In
• Madden
– “You can’t convert the whole fraternity.”
• Guilds
– Appointment gaming
– Peer pressure and privileges
– Marriages (and divorce)
• Asynchronous: 4x more than simultaneous
55. 3
• 4x: Pinch and “look ahead” game mechanics
Retain
• 100%: Pre-announce (for a month)
• 50%: New content, if same quality as original
Take Aways
• 20%: Social structures:
– 90% less churn for players who are “well-guilded”
• 15%: Virtual assets
– 67% less churn for players who are “well-castled”
56. New Media, New Rules
“The best way to keep someone playing
forever is to have them play today.”
-- Bing