In-game events are special activities or challenges that occur within a game for a limited time. They can be a powerful tool to keep players engaged, motivated, and loyal to your game. In this article, you will learn how to use in-game events effectively to boost your game's retention, monetization, and community.
In-game events can be tailored to your game's genre, audience, and goals. Seasonal events are a great way to create a festive atmosphere and offer themed rewards, while competitive events can increase the challenge and excitement of your game. Narrative events can advance the story or lore, deepen the immersion, and introduce new characters, locations, or mechanics. All of these types of events can help attract new or returning players, encourage them to spend more time and money in your game, and create a more social and interactive experience.
In-game events are essential for maintaining high audience interest and engagement. A simple way to define in-game events is to divide them by the key game mechanic they pursue. Is it about fighting a big evil boss together (more concurrent players), achieving a certain in-game goal (number of gaming sessions/time spent in game), or about receiving a legendary merch (high in-game spending)?
The best in-game events follow real life events. Things such as Halloween or Winter Holidays are a classic; this year we had the olympics, and the best games out there take advantage of things such as movie releases or current social media trends to create engaging and fun in-game events! Just make sure the reward for participating is something the player can keep and show off, something that says "I was there"!
In-game events can bring multiple advantages for your game development and business, such as improved retention, monetization, and community. Retention can be increased by creating a sense of urgency, variety, and progression in the game. Monetization can be achieved through offering exclusive or discounted items, currency, or subscriptions that may motivate players to spend more. Community can be fostered by creating shared experiences, goals, and rewards that may also encourage word-of-mouth, feedback, and user-generated content to enhance your game's visibility and reputation.
To create successful in-game events, you should follow some best practices. Align events with the game's core loop and value proposition to complement and enhance the main gameplay. Balance the frequency and duration of events to maintain player interest without losing novelty or becoming stale. Segment and personalize events for different player types and behaviors, using data and analytics to tailor difficulty, rewards, and communication. Test and measure the performance and feedback of events to ensure quality, functionality, and compatibility. Analyze the impact of events on key metrics such as retention, monetization, and engagement. Collect and respond to player feedback and suggestions to improve future events.
In-game events are a great way to keep players engaged and inspired. For example, Animal Crossing: New Horizons features seasonal events that match the real-world calendar, such as Bunny Day, Halloween, and Toy Day. These events add new items, activities, and characters to the game and change the island's appearance and weather. Fortnite has competitive events that offer various modes, rules, and prizes such as Solo Cash Cup, Fortnite Champion Series, and Marvel Knockout Super Series. These events challenge players' skills, strategies, and teamwork as well as provide collaborations with other brands and franchises. Genshin Impact includes narrative events that expand the game's story and world. These events introduce new quests, cutscenes, dialogues, characters, regions, and enemies.
If you want to learn more about in-game events, you can check out these resources:
- GameAnalytics: How to Design Live Events for Your Mobile Game : This is a blog post that covers the basics of live events, such as their types, benefits, and best practices.
- GDC Vault: Designing Engaging Live Events for Mobile Games : This is a video presentation that shares the insights and experiences of designing live events for games such as Marvel Contest of Champions and Transformers: Forged to Fight.
- Unity: How to create engaging in-game events with Firebase and Remote Config : This is a tutorial that shows how to use Firebase and Remote Config to create and manage in-game events for Unity games.