What metrics should you track to improve your online game?

Player Retention: Day-N Retention: Measure how many players return on the second day after installation. Week-N Retention: Similar to daily retention, but measured over a longer period, like a week.

When seeking to improve your online game, tracking metrics like Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU) are key. As Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, once stated, "You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down." DAU and MAU metrics offer real-time insights into user engagement and retention, helping you assemble your game's success strategy on the fly. They indicate whether your game is captivating players and whether your updates are making a positive impact. Just as Hoffman's quote emphasizes taking calculated risks and adapting, monitoring these metrics allows you to adjust your game to meet player expectations and ensure its long-term success.

Tracking Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU) provides a clear picture of your game's overall health and user engagement levels. These metrics offer insights into the size of your active player base and its growth or decline over time. For developers, understanding the ratio of DAU to MAU can help gauge player stickiness and daily engagement. In my experience, a high DAU/MAU ratio indicates a highly engaging game that keeps players returning daily, which is essential for sustaining a vibrant online game community.

Session length refers to the duration players spend actively engaged in the game during a single play session. A longer session length typically indicates higher player immersion and enjoyment. On the other hand, session frequency measures how often players return to the game over a specific period. By analyzing both metrics, developers can gain insights into the game's stickiness, identifying whether players find the content compelling enough to return regularly. Balancing session length and frequency is crucial for maintaining a healthy player base and ensuring that the game remains captivating over time. Monitoring these metrics helps developers make informed decisions about content updates, feature improvements.

Session length and frequency give vital clues about how engrossed players are with your game. Longer session lengths can indicate that players are deeply engaged and enjoying the game, while higher frequency suggests a strong habit or compulsion to play regularly. Analyzing these metrics has helped me identify which game elements keep players engaged and which may need improvement to boost playtime. Optimizing for session length and frequency can directly impact player retention and overall game success.

Consider analyzing difficulty levels, content variety, social features, and monetization methods to enhance the player experience. Utilize cohort analysis to compare retention rates among groups starting at different times, providing a nuanced understanding of how updates impact user behavior. Identifying events leading to churn is equally crucial. For instance, an unexpected server outage or a poorly received in-game event can prompt users to disengage. By closely monitoring player feedback and correlating it with churn rates, you can proactively address the issues.

Community Engagement: Measure the activity on forums, social media, and other community platforms related to the game. Server Uptime and Response Time: Ensure the game's technical infrastructure is stable and responsive. Bug Reports and Fixes: Track the number of reported bugs and the time it takes to address them. User-Generated Content (UGC): Track the creation and sharing of user-generated content within the game or on external platforms.

Retention rates and churn rates are critical for understanding how well your game holds players' interest over time. Retention measures the percentage of players who return after their first game session, while churn quantifies those who stop playing. Improving retention involves analyzing player feedback and gameplay data to refine the gaming experience continually. My strategies for reducing churn include adding new content, fixing bugs promptly, and engaging with the community to keep the game fresh and exciting.

Conversion measures the percentage of players who transition from free users to paying customers by making in-app purchases or acquiring premium content. A high conversion rate signifies a successful conversion strategy, indicating that a significant portion of the player base finds value in spending money within the game. Complementing this, ARPU quantifies the average revenue generated from each individual player. A growing ARPU is often a positive indicator of effective monetization strategies and player engagement. Together, Conversion and ARPU serve as indispensable tools for game developers, guiding decisions related to pricing models, in-game offers .

Conversion rate and ARPU are key financial metrics for any online game. Conversion rate tracks the percentage of players who make a purchase, while ARPU measures the average revenue generated per active user. These metrics are vital for evaluating the effectiveness of monetization strategies. Through A/B testing different in-game purchases and promotions, I've been able to identify what motivates players to spend, allowing for targeted improvements that boost revenue without compromising the player experience.

Community Engagement: Measure the activity on forums, social media, and other community platforms related to the game. User-Generated Content (UGC): Track the creation and sharing of user-generated content within the game or on external platforms.

Engagement metrics, such as time spent in-game and social shares, alongside virality metrics like the k-factor, which indicates how many new players are brought in by existing ones, are crucial for understanding how players interact with your game and with each other. Enhancing social features and encouraging community building can lead to higher engagement and virality. My experience has shown that games with strong social integrations and shareable content naturally encourage players to spread the word, driving organic growth.

Player Churn Rate: Measure the percentage of players who stop playing over a specific period. Conversion Rate: Track the percentage of players who make in-app purchases. Average Transaction Value (ATV): Measure the average amount spent by players in each transaction.

Monitoring game performance and stability through metrics like load times, error rates, and server uptime is essential for providing a smooth gaming experience. High performance and stability are critical for retaining players, as technical issues are a common reason for frustration and churn. Regularly analyzing these metrics and conducting stress tests have enabled me to preemptively address potential issues, ensuring that players have a seamless and enjoyable experience every time they log in.

20% of your game’s metrics drive 80% of your game’s performance. ?? Growth Think Monthly Active Users. Blending newbies, core, returners, churners. ?? Retention The crystal ball for future success. Watch players at 1, 7, and 30 days. ?? Engagement Measured in active days. Smiling curve: where power users shine. ?? Monetization Understanding the 'why' behind the spend. The meat of revenue, from ARPU to MPU. ?? Lifetime Value - The North Star It's not just about the time spent in-game, but the value players bring during their play.

There’s a lack of game industry metrics that think about the players outside of the game. The narrowed focus to just in-game metrics prevents studios from thinking about the acquisition funnel and broader lifecycle of play, and reinforces churn and consumption of their game as linear media. Ultimately I’d suggest looking for what other entertainment sectors call “reach.” Some actionable numbers to look for include: - Twitch streamers and viewers - Subreddit size, posts, and engagements - YouTube videos, view counts, and comments - Google trends

Much depends on what exactly you want to check. First and foremost, it is important to check retention, crash-free rates, session length, etc. However, metrics alone don't tell you much. For example, is a 30% first-day retention high or low? It depends on the game genre, platform, project stage, even the country, and other parameters. A good practice is to compare your metrics with benchmarks and also with games in the same genre.