- “You should start implementing events immediately after the hard launch or even earlier”
- “A crucial recommendation for all events is to include leaderboards”
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In-game events are critical in a mobile game’s LiveOps strategy. They capture the attention of new players, help retain long-term ones, and can play a key part in boosting revenue as player engagement increases throughout the event.
However, getting your in-game events right requires a delicate balance. Do frequent events mean players grow too accustomed to them? Or are you missing out on monetisation if you rarley run events? And if you leave too long of a gap between each new idea, will players simply move on?
In this article, AppQuantum’s producer, Oleg Nalimov, touches on these themes and shares how events should be handled properly to ensure the very best outcome.
Launching events in your game isn’t just a good idea – it’s essential. Events can significantly boost monetisation, sometimes increasing project revenue by several times.
However, if not managed properly, they can lead to ‘hangover’ effects where a spike in profit is followed by a similarly sharp drop. In some of our projects, even those not utilising events to their full potential, events still contribute more than 50% of the total revenue and even engage players who aren’t in a rush to spend on core gameplay.
Here are the key questions when running LiveOps:
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How often should events be launched?
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What should their duration be for maximum impact?
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What mechanics should be used?
Let’s dive into these questions, starting with the basics for independent developers and moving to advanced settings for those already using LiveOps.
When to launch events
Events should be introduced once the core loop of your game is complete. Once you have a solid core gameplay loop, players will eventually need new experiences to stay engaged.
Events become crucial as your marketing efforts grow and old players start completing the main content.
This is where events come in – they provide a fresh twist, like a new setting, on the existing gameplay or introduce entirely new mechanics if the event significantly differs from the core loop.
Ideally, you should start implementing events immediately after the hard launch or even earlier. Events become crucial as your marketing efforts grow and old players start completing the main content.
If your core gameplay takes, say, 20 days to complete, paying players might finish it in 10 days. At this point, you need to add substantial new content to keep these players engaged.
Sure, the core and events complement each other, so you need to focus on both at the same time, but, generally, there are two approaches to doing this:
1. Adding new levels to core gameplay. But please note that this is:
a) Only suitable for players who have completed the main levels.
b) Often not as profitable as a new event would be.
2. Introducing events.
Events are effective for all player types. They offer alternative gameplay for new players and primary gameplay for experienced players who have completed the main content.
So, when should you add events? The answer is, the sooner the better – for both player engagement and monetisation.
The simplest type of event
In our team, we use the term “extroversion” for a specific type of event. I’m not sure how popular the term is overall, but it seemed like the best fit for us. This involves overlaying a different setting on the same core mechanics. I don’t think there’s a need to explain why it’s the easiest type of event to launch initially.
The ‘only’ thing you have to do is collect insights and monitor the sharp boost in metrics this event will give you (I’m just kidding; it’s not that easy).
Here’s what the product manager will immediately think: “Great, but how can I make sure we have these surges regularly?”
So, you start creating new events, increasing their number so they follow one after another.
Then, depending on your resources, you start to alternate them – maybe three short events, three long ones, then three short ones again. Basically, you create a sequence of events.
This is pretty straightforward, but the next question arises: How long should the break be between events? A day, two days, a week to give players a chance to get bored? There are different opinions on this, but we’ve found a consistent answer through our own experience.
Is there a need for a break between events?
It used to be believed that there should be some pause between events to avoid “event fatigue.”
The more frequent the events, the better the monetisation.
But our data tells a different story – the more frequent the events, the better the monetisation.
Our recommendation for all devs is that, ideally, a player should have an event available every day.
I say ‘ideally’ because I know developers who deliberately include pauses based on their sense of balance in the gameplay, even though they know the project has room to grow in terms of monetisation.
If you want to scale to the max, consider organising your workflow so that events run without interruption.
Next question: What’s the optimal duration for an event? Should events last a month to save resources on new content, or should they change every week? Or is it better to launch very short events so players are afraid to miss them?
How long should events last?
First, it depends on the type of event (we’ll get back to this later). Second, established practices generally still hold true for us, unlike the belief that events should be spaced out.
The golden standard for event duration is 7-14 days. This remains mostly consistent, but there are nuances.
The golden standard for event duration is 7-14 days. This remains mostly consistent, but there are nuances.
A two-day event might not be feasible – it requires resources to produce, and the income from two days is unlikely to be enough. A super long event can be hard to maintain user focus, which affects metrics. In such cases, it’s better to create a new event for a fresh boost instead of prolonging an old one.
Fine-tuning the duration isn’t simple.
Let’s get back to the 7-14 days standard. Our analytics show an important nuance: events longer than seven days and up to 14 days bring in proportionally more money. So, an eight-day event is better than a seven-day one, and a 14-day event is even better.
It’s possible that shorter events (two-to-five days) can help with long-term retention, giving players a constant sense of new content instead of preparing them for a series of two-week events. Some alterations might be necessary.
If you look at the market, most successful companies have event lengths ranging between five and 15 days. Observing those ahead of you is the best practice for new developers – use their strategies as a base and then start experimenting.
There is no definitive answer regarding the perfect event length; ideally, all events should be viewed as part of a single system, with varying durations – two-to-four days for short events, five-to-seven days for medium ones, and 8-14 days for long ones. Fine-tuning these durations to maximise monetisation requires experimentation and accumulated expertise.
Additional events motivate players to engage in regular ones to achieve rewards, creating a cohesive experience.
Note: Three-week or longer events also exist, but these are different. For example, you could have a four week event, layer a monthly battle pass on top, and even higher – a monthly season.
This unifies the player’s activity across the meta (rewards, rankings, other events, etc.) with the same theme.
Additional events motivate players to engage in regular ones to achieve rewards, creating a cohesive experience. In other words, an event created to stimulate core gameplay or other timed events is allowed to be longer than the standard one or two weeks because it serves as glue.
Standard events, however, show that seven to 14 days is the sweet spot for player interest. This is according to our user retention through the events curve.
Embedding events
Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all scheme, but here are some basic recommendations:
Primarily, we rely on rewards. The idea is to combine core and temporary events using balance.
An adjusted core balance usually involves challenges, leading players to face obstacles. These could be difficult bosses, long-timers, or strong opponents.
Paying players can circumvent this their own way, but we also provide an alternative – an event with new gameplay and unique rewards that help progress in the core. These could be unique equipment, manager cards for idlers, or other boosters.
That’s where we noticed an interesting detail. Players who, for some reason, avoid expensive core purchases often buy a multitude of small upgrades during events in addition to the free resources. From a monetisation standpoint, this is often much more profitable and more enjoyable for the player.
For beginners, the best advice is to deconstruct successful games and replicate their best practices until you have enough expertise and resources to experiment.
When integrating and alternating events, start with rewards and progression. Balance as a whole is too big of a topic to touch on right now, but conceptually, you need a written cycle of what the player is farming, how quickly new content is unlocked, and what flow guides them through their progress. This way, you cycle through mechanics to keep them from getting boring. Give players variety and track engagement levels.
At each stage, consider the rewards. A balance that’s too easy, where the player always has excess resources, gets boring quickly. Even a low win rate can work for some projects, but that’s a separate and very niche topic.
For beginners, the best advice is to deconstruct successful games and replicate their best practices until you have enough expertise and resources to experiment. However, this tactic can be difficult to execute for independent studios aiming to scale projects, so you guys should focus on market monitoring to adopt already successful strategies.
This strategy won’t make you the best to ever do it, but it will deliver good results. The key is to be flexible and fast.
Final thoughts: What makes an event unusable
A crucial recommendation for all events is to include leaderboards.
If an event lacks a leaderboard, don’t even waste your time on it.
Event leaderboards, temporary rankings, and other rating systems offer a significant boost to metrics. By incorporating these, you can also create what are known as accelerating mechanics. For instance, in the first few minutes of a game or event, showing players a leaderboard that displays the progress of others.
This enhances the competitive element, as players quickly realise they’re not alone. There are many others playing, and they’ll have to put in effort to reach the top.
Edited by Paige Cook
