Player churn has always been a major problem with social games, as many users tend to lose interest shortly after they start playing a new title. A new report from social game analysis firm Playnomics recently examined this trend, and found that 85 percent of all new U.S. players acquired between July and September stopped playing their social games after just one day.
Beyond those first 24 hours, it proved more difficult for developers to keep players around, as 95 percent of all the users in Playnomics' study stopped playing their new social games by the end of September. In fact, most users tend to fell off within the first three days – after that, it seems they become far more likely to stick with a new title.
If a user keeps playing a social game for a full seven days, for instance, Playnomics found that their overall playtime would increase exponentially compared to players who didn't make it through the first week. It seems that if you can get your players to stick around for that long, you're far more likely to hold onto them for the long term.
When it comes to monetizing those players, Playnomics said that users tend to spend the most money on social games on Fridays and Saturdays, since more players tend to log on during that part of the week. Meanwhile, players spend the least money on Mondays and Tuesdays, even though the users who play on those days tend to spend more time doing so.
Playnomics even examined user engagement on a geographical level, and found that within the U.S., Oregon sports the most-engaged social game players, while southern states like Georgia and South Carolina are the least engaged. Globally, the Middle East proved to be the most engaged region, overtaking Latin America.
Agreed. It fits the profile of curiosity, fiddle with it, drop it if I don't like it. With a 95% attrition rate, one has to wonder if the social games in the study were all that and a bag of chips.
This also underlines why Zynga got rich spamming our Facebook walls and now wanes as that gets harder to do. You need to bring your game to the attention of new players constantly to build and maintain your playerbase in the face of inevitable churn.
You nailed it. This is why this genre is so unpopular. People just don't want to play social games.
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Maybe the problem is that the market is oversaturated and that every new social game is just a clone of the previous one. I'm not saying that's the case, but definetly the genre isn't an issue here since social games are making the most money in the whole industry.
Anyone know what their definition of "social game" is? I looked over the report and could not find any definitions. Are they talking about web-based social network games or any social game on mobile, web etc..?
I don't know, Blizzard lives off of this model (grinding that is). I think most people that use social websites probably tire of grinding pretty quickly though it wouldn't surprise me though that this trend holds true with any game that is 'free' or "Pay 2 win/accelerate"
Well, what Blizzard has going for them with WoW is the immersion aspect. WoW feels like it is alive because of the large player base. The player isn't going to get that with a Facebook app. I think the problem with social games is that they are lacking the actual social aspect. Even though it's on Facebook, and it spams your friends with countless messages, there is usually not enough direct player to player interaction. It's more like, "I do my little thing over here, you do your little thing over there, and maybe we can give each other items".
This also underlines why Zynga got rich spamming our Facebook walls and now wanes as that gets harder to do. You need to bring your game to the attention of new players constantly to build and maintain your playerbase in the face of inevitable churn.
-.-
Maybe the problem is that the market is oversaturated and that every new social game is just a clone of the previous one. I'm not saying that's the case, but definetly the genre isn't an issue here since social games are making the most money in the whole industry.
Might be more to it, though :)