live game ops academy: user engagement
TRANSCRIPT
A live game operations company
Live Game Ops Academy: User EngagementThom Robbins (@trobbins)
[email protected]@playfabnetwork
05/03/2023 2
Welcome to the Live Game Ops AcademyEveryone who attended all three introductory sessions receives the PlayFab Live Game Ops 101 Certificate by email!
Beta testers needed!Live Game Ops Academy 101 Certificate (beta)
We are finalizing a public release of the certificate and need beta testers help!
Contact: [email protected] for more information
05/03/2023 3
Live Game Ops Academy: User Engagement
User engagement is an assessment of an individual's response to some type of offering
05/03/2023 4
Customer engagement cycleAwareness: Basic branding and positioning of your game. You can’t progress people through the cycle before they’ve even heard of you.Acquisition: I’ve always thought of this as getting someone into your game. It’s a major step, but it’s not yet profitable.Satisfaction: Satisfaction is simply the foundation, and the minimum requirement, for a continuing relationship with your player.Conversion: This one is simply defined as making a sale. It may or may not be a profitable, but it’s still a significant stage in the cycle.Retention: We get them to shop with us again. Excellent! Repeat sales tend to be more profitable and almost certainly have lower marketing costs than first purchases.Referral: Getting players to engage their friends
05/03/2023 5
Measuring user engagementAn individual's degree of engagement may be determined directly through interaction or may be assessed through observation of the user's behaviors.
• DAU, WAU and MAU. These abbreviations stand for Daily-, Weekly-, and Monthly Active Users respectively. It shows the unique amount of users within a given amount of time.
• New users (downloads) are the people that just downloaded an app and have used it for the first time. • Time in app means the total amount of minutes users spend using your app in a given time period.• Uninstalls are an important sign of your app’s performance. • Feature usage indicates if your app is used to its full potential. • LTV stands for Lifetime (Customer) Value and is defined as the total value of an app user over the app’s or user’s lifetime• Retention is defined as the percentage of users that use your app again in a given time period after they have
downloaded and launched it for the first time. • Session length indicates the number of minutes a user spends using the app per interaction. • Recency reflects how much time expires between two sessions. • Reviews are a valuable resource to uncover explicit thoughts of users. • Conversion tracking is a good way of keeping track of what users are doing.• eCPM is a fundamental metric for apps that are monetized through showing ads. • ARPU means Average Revenue Per User and is ideal to measure whether your updates are having a positive effect on
users’ spending.
05/03/2023 6
Design patterns for 1st time users
• Visual story telling – avoid long explanations and complexity
• Visual Cues – The power of three • Tutorials – Onboard as easy as possible• Reward schedule – “You can’t
over-reward the player in the first ten minutes” Sid Meier, designer of the game Civilization
05/03/2023 7
Design patterns for a community
• Social feedback (sharing milestones) – Make sharing easy (thank you, voting, likes and re-tweets)
• Reputation – Enables social status• Connect community site into game• (idea) Gated trial – Form a team to get started
05/03/2023 8
Best practices: Pre-launch
• Recommend 4+ weeks in multiple countries• Test and tune First Time User Experience (FTUE),
economy, monetization, and messaging• Make this time valuable and actionable• Set KPI benchmarks (Red, Yellow, Green)• Identify key experiments (balance, pricing, UI, etc.)• Setup reporting tools and framework
• After soft launch, revise load testing based on observed play patterns
05/03/2023 9
Best practices: Onboarding
• Interactive tutorial that quickly exposes best features/play• Let them play: minimize reading, number of clicks, or forced actions• Shower with reward and delight during onboarding
• Don’t force non-core features into the FTUE, additional lessons can surface when needed
• Include store/purchase tutorial• Incentivize tutorial completion and immediate follow-on play
• Allow returning or experienced players to skip
05/03/2023 10
Best practices: Content updates• 60-90 days of content at launch• Aim for 4-6 week update cadence after launch• Roadmap at least one year of content• Monitor progress and churn to determine correct rate of content release• Show content and depth: coming soon, NEW, etc.• Message updates heavily• Big updates and new features can get featured placement with publishing partners• Message client updates in-app and via push with incentive for users to update (>60% will update within 2 weeks)• After two weeks, force update • Make sure servers can support multiple clients simultaneously
05/03/2023 11
Best practices: Long term players
• Design enough long-term content and evergreen play loops to keep veterans and spenders engaged• PvP• Leaderboards & Tourneys• World/Saga maps• Crafting, collecting, breeding
• Evergreen meta game allows value from replaying core content• Veterans can be 50%+ of spend, must keep them playing• Introduce monetization components to elder game modes
05/03/2023 12
Best practices: User Tracking
Guest Mode• Don’t force login before users experience the game• Can increase first session start by 90%
Login• Incentivize social login• Never force social login before users experience core fun
Cross-Device Saved State• Ideally, fully-synchronous with server• Use platforms’ tools for saved game state• Purchases, inventory, level-data, friends, etc. should all come with.• Requires persistent server-side player accounts
05/03/2023 13
Best practices: Communication – Push
Permission• Wait until after a moment of
in-game delight• Use pre-permission interstitial
to qualify receptive users• Make a clear value prop
relative to recent in-game experience
05/03/2023 14
Best practices: Communication – Push
Game-Generated• Allows for automatic, customized re-engagement
• Transactional events:• Energy refill• Build complete• Freebie available
• Social events:• Turn notification• PvP challenges, etc• Leaderboard position changes
• Gift send/receive
• Prioritize and group PMs to avoid spamming
• Create auto-campaign for lapsed users with progressive incentives (3, 7, 14, 30 days lapsed)
• Monitor CTR and adjust cadence/content• Messages triggered by user behavior and including friend’s name have higher CTR
05/03/2023 15
Communication – Push
Custom• Notify users of important game
changes and events• Sales & Promotions• Updates and new content• Re-activation campaigns
05/03/2023 16
Communication – Email
• Supplements other out-of app channels (Push, Facebook)• Good for re-engagement and announcements:• User-to-user invites• Lapsed user campaigns• Transactional receipts• Marketing notifications
• Include incentive offers whenever possible to improve CTR• Obtain email permission and address via FB• Monitor CTR to optimize cadence and content• Use deep link vanity URLs so email links can open directly
into app
05/03/2023 17
Best practices: Badges & Switching
Badges (Apple)• Icon counters that notify users of outstanding push notes • Indicate in-game what incremented counter• Cap counter at 5-10 to avoid overwhelming users
Fast App Switching• Game should NOT reload when user gets a call, text, email, etc. and leaves app
briefly• If you must reload, welcome user back and let them know you had to reload• Return to exact gameplay state as when they left
05/03/2023 18
Best practices: Communication – In-Game
Several formats:• Interstitials/Overlays• Banners• Heads-Up Display (HUD) indicators• Custom display zones (in-store, etc.)
Deep link interstitials and banners directly to offers/purchaseTime interstitials at launch and between key transitions/loading moments• Loading/launch good for game issues, updates, or big promotions
05/03/2023 19
Best practices: Events
Timed Events• 7-14 day events with deep incentives• Clearly surface details about event before and during
• Include unique rewards only available during event
• Make winning hard (target 15-20% for top rewards)
• All users should have access• Repeat purchases or event-specific currency can help drive spend
05/03/2023 20
Best practices: Events
Quests• Help direct gameplay toward desired activities, improve mid-term engagement
• Tutorializes gameplay and incentivizes engagement with key play elements
• Use interstitials, HUD, and counters to surface quests• Timed or multi-step quests can improve retention and monetization between content updates
• Make rewards meaningful and clearly surface them
05/03/2023 21
Best practices: Events
Achievements & Collections• Rewards engagement with core loop• Mastery encourages replay• Don’t bury achievements, surface and celebrate them• Consider tiering to make achievements repeatable at increased difficulty/reward
• Adding new achievements/collections on a regular basis increases elder game engagement
• Adding premium-only elements to some achievements can increase conversion
05/03/2023 22
Best practices: Events
Return Mechanics• Fun, but brief, daily bonus event• Login rewards are boring, make it fun• Include purchase options:• Extra plays• Better rewards• Press your luck• Etc.
• Optimal cadence may not be daily (could be every few hours)• Include Push Note when new bonus attempt is available
05/03/2023 23
Best practices: Customer Support
• Proactively message planned or significant outages
• Have tools to provide entitlements for problems
• Use forums and social channels to provide direct communication with users and community managers
• Expose CS email address in-game
05/03/2023 24
Additional Resources
Getting started with Live game operations E-bookhttp://bit.ly/playfabebook
Live Game Operations Resource Centerhttp://bit.ly/playfabresources
05/03/2023 25
Welcome to the Live Game Ops AcademyEveryone who attended all three introductory sessions receives the PlayFab Live Game Ops 101 Certificate by email!
Beta testers needed!Live Game Ops Academy 101 Certificate (beta)
We are finalizing a public release of the certificate and need beta testers help!
Contact: [email protected] for more information
05/03/2023 26
Live Ops Training: User Engagement
For more information: http://www.playfab.com
Twitter: @playfabnetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/playfabnetwork