How Mobile Games Aim to Keep You Coming Back

By Sarah E. Needleman 

When making "Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes," Electronic Arts Inc. knew it wasn't enough to have a mobile videogame that featured some of the most popular movie characters of all time. To succeed, it had to get players to open the app every day.

Developers crafted a lengthy checklist of tasks -- train a character, equip special gear, battle other players -- that dole out digital currency and other rewards when completed each day. Players can use that loot to boost their characters' fighting prowess, giving them a crucial edge against competitors.

The strategy worked. A little more than a year since launch, EA says users play an average 2.5 hours a day, putting "Galaxy of Heroes" among its most popular mobile games. It ranks among the top 25 revenue-generating apps on the Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. U.S. app stores.

Daily rewards have emerged as the indispensable tool for hooking players in a field of more than a million game apps. The stakes are high: Mobile games are on track this year to become the biggest slice of the nearly $100 billion videogame industry.

Extracting as much time as possible out of users is critical because games like "Galaxy of Heroes" make money selling virtual goods. The more people play, the more likely they will spend.

Companies have myriad ways to encourage routine use, such as a monthly calendar that tracks a player's progress or weeklong side missions with extra-valuable rewards. The latest mobile-game hit, "Super Mario Run," rewards players for competing daily against friends.

Ingraining a game into a person's daily routine is key, since that increases the chances a player will become a coveted spender, said Dr. Rachel Kowert, a research psychologist in Austin, Texas. "People are genuinely goal-driven and games are just providing goals to achieve," she said.

Developers began experimenting with daily rewards around 2012, when mobile games evolved from mostly paid to free. The tool is gaining traction as the cost to acquire a new user grows -- it cost an average of $6.62 in the U.S. last year across about a half dozen major advertising platforms, compared with $3.87 in 2015 and $1.98 in 2014, according to a mobile-marketing firm Fiksu DSP.

This year, 18 out of the top 25 most downloaded games in the U.S. offer some form of daily-reward system, up from 11 in 2014, according to Sensor Tower Inc.

King added a calendar of daily logins this year to "Candy Crush Saga," a well-established but aging puzzle franchise. The feature has proved particularly popular, said Sebastian Knutsson, creative chief at the Activision Blizzard Inc. unit.

At its peak in late July, the smash hit "Pokémon Go" generated $88 million in weekly revenue. That fell to about $24 million by the first week of November, according to Sensor Tower. To reignite interest, the game's developer Niantic Inc. added daily bonuses that increase in value when players consistently open the app to catch monsters and visit Poké Stops. A limited-time event pegged to Halloween boosted engagement.

Daily-reward initiatives aren't foolproof, though. One mistake is giving away so much players don't need to spend. Another is punishing players for taking breaks.

Sebastien Benedict, a 31-year-old nonprofit worker in Ottawa, Canada, was close to earning a large sum of virtual currency in a game with daily check-ins. He missed a day when he traveled for a business trip, and his login streak was set to zero. That was his breaking point.

"You shouldn't have to start from scratch just because you're not able to play a game every day," said Mr. Benedict. Now he plays Activision Blizzard's "Hearthstone" almost daily since the card game lets him skip logging in up to two days in a row without penalty. He spends between $25 and $50 a month in it on virtual card packs, he said.

A particularly effective tactic is team-based objectives, since players tend to nudge one another to participate, said Harlan Crystal, technology chief at Pocket Gems Inc. In its strategy game "War Dragons," for instance, the more players who show up for a daily team battle, the better a team's chances to win and for members to earn free virtual currency.

The most alluring daily hooks give surprise rewards. Not knowing what to expect excites people, said Michael Hanus, a professor at the University Nebraska who researched gamification and rewards. Exclusive offers, such as the opportunity to unlock a rare character during a one-week event, tap into people's natural fear of missing out, he said.

Game companies are cautious, though, not to tax players with too many chores. "Galaxy of Heroes" introduced several new tasks in the past year, including letting players train and fight with starships.

"We want to keep adding cool things," said John Salera, the game's executive producer. "But we don't want to get to a tipping point where it's too much a time burden."

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 07, 2017 07:14 ET (12:14 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.