u/Hooferella

A mobile game developer I worked with recently was worried about their numbers.

~52,000 downloads.

~€180/month.

Their first instinct was to switch ad networks.

But when I checked their data 91% of their players were gone by Day 7.

Almost nobody was around long enough to see ads more than once or twice.

After the discussion in my last post here, I realised a lot of people either aren’t tracking this or aren’t sure what to look for. This number explains a lot on its own.

In this case it was pretty clear what was going on.

There was a level where players kept failing, and nothing pulling them back the next day. No daily mission, no streak, nothing.

Before touching ads, I’d check:

where players stop completing levels

whether there’s any reason to come back tomorrow

what Day 3 retention looks like compared to Day 1

If people don’t stick around, there’s only so much ads can do.

Curious if in general you're tracking any of these and how its looking

After my last post in gamedev I realized a lot of mobile game developers are either not tracking retention yet or aren't sure what the data is telling them/what retention even is.

I used to consult on game experience and monetization and loved it (although had to promote the ad placement quite a bit due to the nature of my work). The most useful thing I did was sit with developers, look at their game experience and numbers together, and design the strategy to improve the ratio of players who wanted to come back.

I want to put together some publicly available resources and I'm offering to analyze one game a month (no strings just material for the resources and can be anonymous).

What I would need:

Game is live with at least 2 weeks of data

Puzzle, idle, action, simulation (anything in that space)

If interested DM me!

Happy to answer anything in the comments