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"Game Developers"
The best arcade games engaged players in less than two minutes. If not, there were plenty of other games in the arcade. For mobile games today, early engagement is just as important. Games used to cost $.25 per play. Now, nearly all are free to play. An average game room used to hold […]
Is it just me, or do some App Store game descriptions just plain suck? They don’t tell me jack about the game. Just a bunch of marketing mumbo jumbo. Some are so bad they convince me not to download the game.
Nowadays, creating a great game is no guarantee of success. As of […]
Zynga’s most successful games are built around a solid and repeatable core loop. Leaving nothing to chance, they hold the players hand step-by-step through the tutorial. Zynga teaches players how to play, and how they want them to play. And to […]
It’s the single most important part of a video game. The engine to which the rest of a game is built around. So central to a game, the core loop is how players will describe a game to friends.
The core game loop is a base action or series of actions that are repeated over and over […]
We’re all familiar with the expression, “you only have one chance to make a first impression.” This especially applies to today’s free-to-play (FTP) world because in the App Store, installs are like fleeting chance meetings. The impression your game makes in this meeting will determine if and when a player will play again or decide […]
Two serious problems surround mobile game monetization. Less than 1% of players become paying players and mobile advertisements can’t prove they’re effective.
Less than 1% Pay to Play
A Playnomics, Q1 2013 Engagement Report examined 1.7 million domestic and international game players on PC, tablet and smart phones. In reading this […]
Are engagement and monetization in mobile games at opposite ends of the spectrum? At times it seems that they have opposite goals. Game designers work tirelessly to create a user experience that immerses players so much, they lose their sense of time. Monetization designers, especially those who work with advertising, work at disrupting and […]
“Deja Vu” is an expression used to describe a current experience that feels as though it happened before. The phrase used to define this often eerie experience is “deja vu.”
Back in the 80’s arcade games had a very unique set of characteristics to them. Games were social and brought […]
The Straw that Stirs the Drink
Engagement is the heartbeat of a game. It can be the difference between a few hundred and a few million players. Often engagement and retention are used synonymously and misused in my opinion.
It’s the most important metric and both retention and conversion do not exist without it. Retention […]
