In a 4 million marketplace, knowing what features gamers appreciate the most in mobile games is one of the means to elbow the way out of the crowd, engage more users and correspondingly grow revenue. How can a mobile game benefit from integration of social features? What features mobile users expect to see when downloading a game? Let’s weigh in!
Features of social network to boost user engagement in your mobile game:
Social media integration and social login
There’s data on the web concerning how much time users spent on social networks in a lifetime: 1 year and 10 months on Youtube (or 40 minutes daily), 1 year and 7 months on Facebook (or 35 minutes daily), and 1 year and 2 months on Snapchat (or 25 minutes daily), for instance [1]. Incredible, right? Being an irreplaceable part of our day-to-day routine, integration of such features have gradually evolved from nice-to-haves to must-haves. Moreover, social media integration is actually one of the means to allow your mobile game players to do all the marketing for you through result sharing, for instance. Word-of-mouth marketing has been the highest ranked source of trustworthiness, according to Nielsen, as 84% of customers trust their friends’ and family members’ recommendations. It is also faster and more convenient for users to log in or enter certain data with minimum effort through social login, and can help you to acquire certain info on the user base (Clash of Clans, Candy Crush Saga, and Diamond Dash, for instance). Friend points It’s not for the first time that users get encouraged for inviting their friends to use a mobile product. Make sure to deal with companies that have cut their teeth on social networking app development in order to seamlessly integrate such features in the core game play. In-game currency, lives, free of charge advancement to another level are just some of the examples of possible user rewards (Final Fantasy, Naruto Shippuden, and The Simpsons: Tapped Out, for instance). Gifting This feature allows game players to exchange virtual items with other players and/or friends. Gifting is widely applied in games that are integrated in social networks, i.e. asking a friend for lives, in-game virtual items or help, for instance, as means to acquire more users. Moreover, gifting can also be used as a part of your monetization strategy. You can always offer players to purchase in-game items for friends or other members who play the game (Animal Crossing, Clash of Clans and Pearl’s Peril, just to name a few).
Social leaderboards
This is sort of a teaser that puts on competitiveness. As one of the oldest social features, leaderboards are just what the doctor ordered for mobile games where score, ranking or lap time, for example, are prominently featured to trigger competition between players. While it’s totally senseless to apply leaderboards to all the game players, it can be a great tool to show users their scores that are relevant solely to their friends (FRZ Racing, Real Drift Car Racing, and other racing games, but not only). Events This feature allows users to arrange tournaments or multi-player game sessions. This doesn’t mean that players have to get down to completing challenges at a certain point of time. Players can put certain time constraints, for instance. In order to make this feature successfully integrated, make sure to deal with vendors that have solid experience in multiplayer and event-based game mechanics (QuizUp, Hearthstone, and Despicable Me: Minion Rush, for example). Chat. Some mobile users crave communication and value such features as live chats with players or a team. While text messaging is the most used data service in the world – According to Nielsen – it’ll certainly jazz up your mobile game. (Vainglory, Trivia Crack, and Sky Wars: Archon Rises, for instance). Two examples of successful integration of social features in mobile games:
o it used linking to a player’s Facebook account; o automatic prompts to players who share their progress with social networks; o social media feedback as means to polish the game; o encouraging gamers’ friends from social networks to help out as one of the means to avoid having to pay to advance; o sharing on social media info on waiting time for “lives” or communicating that these “lives” have already been sent; o user engagement through social media invitations, like this FB post: some user “invited me to play candy crush and I was weak lol” [3];
o gamers regularly have a chance to create Clans of their own to play with friends; o gifting is carried out through sending each other reinforcement troops; o events: challenging friends via game center or personal Facebook account; o message board to chat either with personal Clan mates or any player around the world; o leaderboards in the form of ranking lists (Top Clans, or Top Players) [4]. Bottom line Building an appealing mobile game is half the battle. However, it’s by no means unimportant to make it resonate with game players in order to boost player acquisition and retention. Social features are of much help here! Putting yourself in hands of a professional (please, have a look at some of our solutions here) with profound experience in seamless integration of social features, is a big step towards success.
[1]http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/how-much-time-do-people-spend-social-media-infographic
[2]http://www.digitaleyemedia.com/blog/how-candy-crush-used-social-media-to-become-marketing-genius [3]https://www.crimsonhexagon.com/blog/social-insights-reveal-important-features-mobile-gaming/ [4]http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PeteKoistila/20140415/215503/Game_monetization_design_Analysis_of_Clash_of_Clans.php
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