a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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Player retention relies solely on the players themselves, they decide whether or not they wanna stick it out in the end, and no amount of hand-holding or bartering is gonna change that.
No, new player retention depends heavily on in-game factors, like the presence/absence of a tutorial, user-friendly controls, visual appeal, and how much they enjoy the first hour or two. You want them to try your game, get excited and want to play again. First impressions are hugely important for player retention. Popular games don't get incredibly popular because they make playing the game as complicated to understand as possible with no hand-holding or ramp-up in challenge level over time. You want new players to feel engaged in the game. You want them to be eager to keep playing so they can learn and do more things. You do NOT want them to feel so overwhelmed and confused that they stand around and starve to death in the middle of a busy town.
You don't just push your new players into the deep end of the pool and figure the strong ones will survive and the weak swimmers wouldn't have contributed enough to deserve to play anyways. That is BAD game design and it does not encourage the player base to grow in size and remain healthy over the longterm.
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Crumpaloo wrote:Player retention relies solely on the players themselves, they decide whether or not they wanna stick it out in the end, and no amount of hand-holding or bartering is gonna change that.
No, new player retention depends heavily on in-game factors, like the presence/absence of a tutorial, user-friendly controls, visual appeal, and how much they enjoy the first hour or two. You want them to try your game, get excited and want to play again. First impressions are hugely important for player retention. Popular games don't get incredibly popular because they make playing the game as complicated to understand as possible with no hand-holding or ramp-up in challenge level over time. You want new players to feel engaged in the game. You want them to be eager to keep playing so they can learn and do more things. You do NOT want them to feel so overwhelmed and confused that they stand around and starve to death in the middle of a busy town.
You don't just push your new players into the deep end of the pool and figure the strong ones will survive and the weak swimmers wouldn't have contributed enough to deserve to play anyways. That is BAD game design and it does not encourage the player base to grow in size and remain healthy over the longterm.
And this is one of those things that I referred to as Jason denying as a problem in the recent update thread.
Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.
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