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5 Points to Manage Your Game to Maximize User Retention and Engagement

Game developers need to understand that generating curiosity is the best way to keep gamer coming back to your game.

Dylan Moran, Blogger

May 14, 2018

3 Min Read

Most mobile game developers will tell you it’s not easy to retain users as you can’t copy games from consoles and computers and expect the same level of success. The content you put out has to fit the medium. Game developers who design mobile games do so with a specific goal in mind, continual user retention. For a game to be considered successful and profitable, it needs to be used several numbers of times in a set period of time. When users do this routinely, a game is said to have retained its users.

User retention is an integral metrics used to determine whether a game will continue being active while generating a steady flow of income.  From looking at a big game provider we can clearly see how providing both free to play and paying games has helped them retain their users.

The following is a breakdown of how the company has managed to retain their users.

Launch as Fast as Possible

This game provider ensure that they launch their games as soon as they can. This helps retain users as they get to experience and enjoy their first session. Sourcing information from the first experience helps game providers know what to improve on as gamers are less forgiving and discard games without giving them a second chance.

They offer their users access to their games without making it necessary for them to sign up. Giving user’s access as guest users will make it easier for game developers to engage the users and find out their views on the game.

Fill in User Knowledge Gaps

Game developers need to understand that generating curiosity is the best way to keep gamers coming back to your game. Online slots are rather straightforward in that you press a button and a subsequent action happens in the game. From the game design perspective, it is intuitive to provide feedback right after an action. This will satisfy the gamer's quest for more actions and as a result, form a habit that keeps users intrigued and wanting more.

Reward Progress Investment

For an online slot to keep gamers coming back, the game has to reward or give the illusion of rewarding the time and money that a player has put into the game. This will make it easier for the gamer to keep on playing it. A sense of progress has been proven as a key component of getting gamers to commit to a game.

Make your game social and competitive

A current trend in the online casino game is the ability of a player to communicate with each other as they play. By incorporating this feature into your game, it will be easier for your gamers to form a habit of coming back to the game.

Trigger an Engaged Response

It is very rare to find gamers who organically return to a new game. They often need some convincing. Game developers from Netent Games have incorporated a push notification feature into their games as a means to call users back to a game after they’ve left.

By sticking to these guidelines when designing your game, it will be easy to hooks users who will return to the game time and time again.

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