Sponsored By

4 Hacks to Improve your Game’s Shelf Life

Game Development is just the beginning. Game Marketing is how you succeed.

Aidityo Ganguly, Blogger

January 13, 2016

3 Min Read
Game Developer logo in a gray background | Game Developer

A lot has been written about how to market your game and boost its shelf life. Sure, that’s important, but ever wondered, why your game is removed after it has been installed by the user?

gameplay iphone 4 Hacks to Improve your Game’s Shelf Life

4 Hacks to Improve your Game’s Shelf Life

The answer can’t be simpler than this—the user has lost interest in your game. More often, the user would become inactive, as there is nothing new the game offers. No more challenges, levels or even scope of engagement.

So, let’s kill the ambiguity here! Feel free to try these few things, to get the users’ interest back:

  1. Get a Rewards module in place: Though it might sound repetitive, but you need to incentivize your game users—loyalty attracts loyalty and that is the thumb rule. You want users to share your game in their circle, give them benefits and watch it do the trick for you. Need a thought?

    • Maybe a referrer coupon for an in-app store purchase and see them swing the market your way

    • You may also create a game virality campaign to offer more opportunities to your users to share your game

  2. Personalize your game: Nothing interests a gamer more than seeing something in action. Yes, go real time in your game—but how?

    • Give a real time in-app chat option

    • Push notifications of active gamers/rooms as per users’ region

    • Give them an update on their ranking in their city—don’t wait for them to fetch it

    • Give them updates about their social buddies performance—scores/purchases/last played

  3. You have something you want others to see—Allow Posting: Why social media apps rule the roost? Users want to post themselves and they are able to do so! Allow users to post their pictures, updates, music—pretty much anything they want to and witness a new level of engagement with your app. For instance:

    • Use an Upload and Social service section in your game—to post a screenshot of their score / ranking / a new in-app store product they purchased, and see your app take a new life, when it comes to Avg. Session Time and Churn

    • Allow them to unlock new things based on the number of social shares, this way you also increase your chances of user acquisition

  4. Allow users to create a community: You are a sports freak and I put you in a place with 10 guys with politics on their mind—nah! Get you out right? It is human psyche to connect quickly with like-minded people. Allow your game to do the same:

    • Let users create / join similar communities based on game levels/ tips and tricks/ranking ranges and allow them to communicate.

    • For continuous engagement, send push whenever there is an update on the thread.

Oh yes! Now, don’t start creating the backend for all this, use our cloud Eco-system’s off-the-shelf APIs and get started now.

Till next time.

Read more about:

Featured Blogs
Daily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inbox

You May Also Like