Case Study: June Gaming — Build retention features

Devil Amongst Us

This is a social mystery game that is played amongst real-world players that requires them to collaborate together in real-time to solve a puzzle to win the game.

Build Retention Solutions

Clarifying assumptions:

1. Is it a free app for all or does it include in-app purchases? Allows in-app purchases.
2. Are we tracking retention among freemium users or paying users? Freemium users.
3. So goal to increase retention is to improve user engagement? Yes.

User Segments

Gaming users can be divided into segments depending upon their age groups, frequency of usage, level of competitiveness, etc. For this discussion, let’s pick a segment of users who fall in the age group 20–35 and have a moderate level of usage frequency and competitiveness. To boost engagement, our goal is to make users come back to have more sessions of gaming.

User Problems

Why they play games → Why they don't

• I enjoy digital gaming → I don't quite enjoy playing virtual games OR I have gotten bored with the game.
• Gives me an escape from reality → I’m content with my current state
• I’ve spent many hours perfecting my skills (heavily invested > hooked to the game) → I don’t spend much time as I cant seem to get better
• Great way to spend time with friends/family → I don't have much of social life.
• Play daily as there is tons of time to kill (during college & early job-years) → Too occupied to play games (Work stress; family responsibilities)

Possible Solutions

1. Introduce variety: Add new environments with new rules/concepts to fight boredom setting in active users.
2. Free play trial room: For users who wants to hone their skills in a penalty-free game, they can enter “Trial room” to play against the computer while the game educates them with guiding tips and tricks.
3. Add Social hooks: Devil Among Us has all the attributes for a group to come together on a weekend and employ their brain chops to solve mystery games. It could be the virtual equivalent of board games in times of lockdown.
   - Host a game: Make it easy for the user to host a game and add their friends to it by sharing a single link like one invites attendees to a Google-Meet call. This feature could help tap users who are busy during the week but free on a Saturday to meet and socialize with their friends/family.
   - Enable socializing on the app: Enable users to follow/connect with other fellow gamers to build relationships. This would be needed among active users who have grown familiar with other popular accounts and would like to connect and share learnings to grow better together.
4. Introduce Leaderboard: Active and power users of the game would like to see how are they performing against the competition.
   - To enable growing competition among users, rewards users with in-game currency “coins” for achieving certain milestones in the game and award points for each game won. Use the leaderboard to show where do they stand against other players by ranking them using their total points won.
   - To enhance the gameplay, enable users to purchase accessories or powers with direct cash or collected “coins” that provide them with an edge over other players. This ensures users who can’t afford to buy accessories with direct cash can do so instead with “coins” earned through playing more games and winning more milestones. This forms a classic engagement hook that ensures a surplus supply of real-world users available 24*7 for a paying user to play against.

Metrics

1. DAU & MAU
2. Number of users who play a particular game (or environment); Avg time spent per user per game
3. Number of users who host a game; Avg time spent in a hosted games.
4. Number of users who purchase any kind of accessory.
5. Number of users sending a connection request; Number of users initiating chats.