How to improve user retention through game mechanics?

According to the "2020 China Game Industry Report", the actual sales revenue of the Chinese game market reached 278.687 billion yuan in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 20.71%. This is the fifth consecutive year of growth in the Chinese game market.

At the same time, the number of game users in China reached 665 million in 2020. In 2020, downloads of game applications and consumer spending reached record levels. One popular game after another emerged, witnessing mobile game applications "dominating the world."

The purpose of disassembling the game’s user incentive system is not to analyze the reasons for its popularity, but to understand the common user incentive methods through disassembly.

If you play games frequently, you will find that all games, big and small, now have a task system, such as limited-time benefits, holiday task benefits, etc. In fact, different tasks have corresponding reasons. for example:

• Daily repetitive tasks: cultivate users’ fixed habits;
• Holiday tasks: create benefits and increase user activity;
• First charge task: Use high rewards to encourage users to make their first payment.

Moreover, the design of each task is different in different games, so the task system in the game is a very typical systematic method, and this system will be generated along with the user experience process; at the same time, it will always accompany the user until he leaves. As a game, such a task system will be accompanied by the user throughout the life cycle of the user, and even more, such as achievements.

We often say that the launch of a product is to meet a core need of users; however, when the degree to which the product itself meets the needs is not enough to attract users to use it, it needs to be stimulated by "external factors". This practice of guiding and stimulating users to complete the desired behaviors of the product is called user behavior management, or simply "user motivation."

1. Why should we incentivize user behavior?

For users, short-term value can be used to stimulate them to complete certain specific behaviors, thereby increasing their usage stickiness and activity, and then converting them into other behaviors; for example, increasing stickiness by signing in, and then redeeming items through the points mall.

For products, on the one hand, behavioral incentives can be used to allow users to complete the core path of the product earlier and discover the value of the product as soon as possible; on the other hand, it can be used as a means to stimulate users to complete key behaviors. The more times users complete key behaviors of the product, the more likely they are to stay.

2. How to create “external factors”?

1. Eight driving forces

We say that the main body affected by the incentive system is the user, so how to motivate the user? Here we need to create various incentives. So how do we create incentives?

The octagonal model in "Practical Gamification" - the theory of eight driving forces is used here; these eight driving forces are: sense of mission, creativity & feedback, social influence, unknown & curiosity, fear & fear, scarcity, sense of ownership, development & achievement.

1) Sense of mission

When people do something of great significance beyond themselves, they will show courage and full motivation.

For example, in the game "Resident Evil 4", the whole world is infected by a virus and is about to be destroyed, the president's daughter is abducted by evil forces, and only you can save the world; in the process, you need to defeat countless zombies controlled by the bishop and the virus. This feeling of being the one who can do it instantly inspires the user's fighting spirit.

2) Creation & Feedback

People engage in creative activities, constantly discovering new things, finding new possibilities, and getting timely feedback on their creative performance.

For example, in the game "Minecraft", although the graphics are rough, players can use the materials provided in the game to create any buildings, weapons and equipment, furniture, means of transportation, mountains and rivers they want, and even make new game maps, etc.; this DIY, reconfigurable and reconstruction mode has become one of the players' favorite games.

3) Social influence

People have a herd mentality to a certain extent, and their behavior is influenced by the words and deeds of others.

Here we have to mention Tencent's games. As long as the other party has an account and logs into the game, they can see all the QQ and WeChat friends who play the game. For example, "Honor of Kings" can import players' WeChat or QQ friends to form a team, can display intimacy, can become masters and disciples, can join teams, the number of players has skyrocketed, forming a herd effect, and social outbreak is the main channel for the success of Honor of Kings.

4) Unknown & Curiosity

Humans have a natural curiosity about unknown things and expectations for uncertain events.

For example, there are more and more blind boxes now. When something is beyond your daily recognition system, your brain will immediately and consciously begin to pay attention to this sudden thing. Curiosity and the unknown future will drive humans to continue exploring!

5) Fear & Afraid

People are afraid of losing what they have now and worry that bad things will happen.

Many products now have activities such as "double the reward for seven days of sign-in". Only by signing in for seven consecutive days can you get the final grand prize. If you forget to sign in one day, you need to start over. For example, there is often a mechanism in the game: only if you win this level can you move on to the next level; if you fail in this level and start over, the precious resources previously obtained will be lost. Players will cherish every opportunity of the game more and face the challenges at hand more attentively.

6) Scarcity

When something is extremely rare, difficult to obtain, or not immediately available, we want it even more.

For example, not all heroes in “Honor of Kings” are available to all players. Users need to earn gold coins or recharge money to buy them. Users need to pay to obtain them. And the rarer the heroes and the rarer the skills, the more willing users are to cherish them and work hard to obtain them.

7) Sense of Ownership

When people feel they own or have control over something, they are motivated and naturally want to get more and improve their current situation.

Nowadays, many games have levels and virtual assets. As the game progresses, the player's backpack has more and more gold coins, equipment, and weapons, and the player's level is also higher, which gives the player a sense of "value"; and different levels and equipment represent your game level, and your game level determines your skill level and opponent level, which greatly stimulates users to obtain higher levels and equipment.

8) Development & Achievements

People are intrinsically motivated to achieve, to master skills, to complete tasks, to meet challenges.

Many games now have winning conditions. For example, in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, you and a group of other players are parachuted onto a mysterious island. You need to obtain equipment, kill enemies, and survive to be the last one to "eat the chicken" (win). The number of enemies eliminated and the number of "eating the chicken" represent an achievement. You will play this game over and over again to achieve the "chicken eating" state.

2. Three major categories

Having the driving force is not enough. Why should users be driven by you? Because you want to gain benefits. The more commonly used incentive mechanisms on the market: honor incentive system, emotional incentive system, and interest incentive system.

1) Honor incentives

For product functions designed from the perspective of giving users a sense of honor, the means of honor incentives are mainly points, grade systems, and credit systems; such as the credit system of Taobao's transaction system, the credit rating of a store is very popular among users and has almost become a standard for users to measure the reputation of a store.

2) Emotional motivation

It is mainly achieved through the user emotional feedback mechanism involving the product, which is reflected in the social interaction between people, the sense of identity, and the emotional resonance between the platform and users; for example, content communities use functions such as likes, likes, recognition, and comments to encourage relationships between users.

3) Interest incentives

Interest incentives are divided into two parts, one is privilege and the other is welfare:

• Privileges refer to priority, preferential rights, etc. These are some special rights that a user can obtain in the product;
• Welfare is a free service or free reward that exceeds user expectations, such as a points mall. The most common example is the money-burning war among taxi-hailing apps, which directly subsidizes users and drivers with money, and can attract a large number of users in a short period of time and expand the market.

3. How to build a user behavior incentive system?

Before we motivate users, we first need to think clearly about what group and what behavior we want to motivate.

1. Identify the group

First of all, we should know clearly which types of users there are in the product, what roles they play and what value they have. We generally divide the product life cycle into introduction, growth, maturity and decline. We classify the users at the current stage and find the core user group.

Only by knowing the different user roles can we build a user incentive system in a targeted manner; for example, content communities should not only encourage users to become content contributors, but also encourage the majority of users to become content consumers.

2. Clarify the behavior

Secondly, we need to be clear about what kind of behavior we want users to have and what kind of behavior we do not want users to have; we can sort out key behaviors according to the core business processes of the product, and think about which user behaviors are beneficial and should be incentivized, and which user behaviors are harmful and should be punished.

Taking Honor of Kings as an example, the core business process is to hope that users can continue to play games, so it is necessary to ensure the user's gaming experience and allow users to quickly match opponents. Around this core process, some of the incentives used by Honor of Kings are:

• Encourage users to play multiple times through daily tasks;
• Increase the penalty time for players who fail to confirm the game multiple times during matching;
• Establish a user credit score system to score users based on their performance in a single game. Users with low credit scores cannot participate in PVP battles.
• Users with higher credit scores can claim rewards…

3. Confirmation means

That is to say, choose what form to use to stimulate users and what the specific incentive means are.

Generally speaking, motivational resources can be divided into material motivation and spiritual motivation, and these two types of motivation usually exist at the same time.

• Material incentives usually include the following: cash, red envelopes, vouchers, tokens, etc.; redeemable points, physical prizes, etc.; new features, revival opportunities, etc.; data packages, limited documents, etc.;
• Spiritual incentives usually include the following: levels, rankings, titles, etc.; medals, achievements, privileges, etc.; official recommendations, fans’ attention, public praise, etc.;

When considering incentive resources, on the one hand, you need to consider the internal and external resources you currently have, and on the other hand, you also need to consider the user's recognition and acceptance and the positioning of the product itself.

For example: tool-type products can use incentives such as point systems, privileges and discounts; content communities can adopt point systems, level systems, credit systems, welfare redemption and other means; social products can use interactive incentives, platform incentives, level systems, etc.

The main body affected by the user incentive system is the "user". Incentive is not a one-time thing. Users must be aware of it and have feedback. Through continuous incentive measures, habitual behaviors are eventually formed, and the purpose of incentive is achieved.

The implementation of the entire incentive system is the process of helping users develop habits.

Author: Zhuge io

Source: Zhugeio