Important Metrics Developers Miss When Making Games

If you’ve been into mobile game development, you would understand that User Engagement and User Retention are s not just common marketing gimmicks. In this modern digital marketing world, it has become a survival approach to take good care of these two factors.

We see new apps being launched every day. While some look too good, but they vanish without any reason. This pop and fizzle happen just because the game developers forget the importance of user engagement and user retention while working on the outsource game development. This makes user engagement and user retention crucial factors of mobile game development.

However, the fact here is that most game developers have these important metrics, which is why it is vital to understand user engagement and user retention and why they are important for any web or mobile apps.

What Is User Engagement?

This is a simple way to know how much of the users are engaged with your mobile game over a given period. The user engagement metrics measure if the target users find the game useful or not. This proves to be a significant factor in business success or failure.

What Is User Retention?

This is another important factor for game development, but a bit of a subjective term. This helps track the success of gaming apps. User retention means the number of people (users) currently playing the game after a certain time from their first session date. This can be used to determine the size of game’s audience.

Why Is User Engagement Important?

If users don’t find the game engaging, they are likely to forget the game too son. Investing in user engagement is important not just to retain new users but also to hold them. Here are some amazing reasons why user engagement is important.

• Increases Satisfaction – One of the most important reasons behind investing in user engagement is that it helps increase customer satisfaction because they know that the developer cares about their experience post-sale. In a recent survey conducted on the post-sale service, over 63% of users claimed that the quality of post-sale service matters very much when they need to decide whether they will purchase anything in the first place. 
• Reduces User Churn Rate – We have all gone through the phases when we downloaded a game, but deleted it just after a few minutes. The reasons may be anything, but the fact is that it results in bounce rate. According to the statistics, over 8 in 10 users delete the games as they have no idea how to use them. They just don’t want to spend their time on trying to understand that is not designed according to their taste. So, when the user engagement part is increased, this means users will enjoy the game for longer.
• Positive Feedback And Referrals – Although we all know but, but still sometimes game developers miss this part. When users find the game to be engaging and useful, there are chances of getting favorable referrals and feedback. This all results in creating a social proof about how attractive the game is and helps attract new customers. 

Strategies To Follow For Increased Game Engagement

User acquisition is a very important factor in a game’s success. When the app is famous, it is likely to attract new users. But as a game developer, one must understand that maintaining user acquisition does not imply that the app should have more users. Having more users needs good user engagement and user retention factor in the game. While user acquisition is a critical factor, but the work does not end once you get more users. Implementing successful techniques is very important to retain the users. 

Let’s have a look at the top 4 user retention strategies that will increase app engagement.

Simplify The Onboarding Process – One of the most important things to make the journey seamless to the users is to make the onboarding process simple and intuitive. This is just like giving the first impression of your game to someone. When you make it more complex, users are likely to dislike it right at the first glance. This will result in abandoned users.

Push Notifications – Push notifications play a vital role in increased user engagement. Game developers use them to provide required updates, which results in the retention rate. This is also a way to encourage the users to visit the game regularly. In case users don’t open the app daily, there are chances that the app will be easily forgotten and installed.

Two-Way Communication 

For every game developer, it is important to ensure that the game interacts with the user as they want to form bonds with the game. This is the way to make users feel appreciated and valued. This makes it important to ensure having two-way communication through feedback, resolving issues, and improving the quality of the game.

Offer Rewards And Incentives – If, in case the game involves offering paid subscriptions or products to the players, offering free rewards and incentives can be a great choice to keep users hooked. It has been found to be one of the most efficient ways to increase user engagement. This can be done by offering game users by offering free incentives for daily visits. It’s simple when they know they will be rewarded for a visit, they are sure to open the game once every day.

Regular Updates – Is your game doing well and do you need a new way to keep users engaged for longer? You should try to offer something new regularly. It is a fact that players usually remain unaware of new content when it is released. You can try to send in-game notifications regarding the game updates to make users feel excited about the new content, update, or anything else.

Wrap Up

It is simply that no game can make it a bit in this competitive digital world without having good user engagement and user retention factors. The players who are more active are likely to create a personal connection with your brand, which means they become long-term users. So, follow the user engagement and user retention strategies to improve customer loyalty.