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From:http://news.131.com/news/yejie/14/0603/1193340_1.html

for mobile games, decent downloads are a good start, but as a game developer, or an investor in a gaming company, you have to understand more than the amount of downloads. The indicators cited in this article are often used by game companies to measure a product's success or not

Players get the relevant indicators

Currently, a new player's acquisition cost is between $0.5-$ 2.5. The player gets the cost, which is closely related to the channel that you choose to get the player, and the type of game. But judging from current market trends, it's not hard to notice that player acquisition costs are rising. Why? This is because large publishers use a huge advertising network to promote their own games, the overall cost of the players to get the increase. Rising costs have little impact on well-established game companies, but for indie game developers, it's undoubtedly a big hassle.

Buy vs. native

How did you get the player? Native players download your game because they see it in the App store because they have a friend's advice to take a look at, maybe even because they inadvertently see their boss quietly playing your game.

Other players enter your game but do not go through any of the above channels. Simply put, you "buy" them-you attract them directly or indirectly by paying them to click on the Game Download button.

This is the simplest way to classify a gamer group and is often the most important indicator of any game.

Number of installations in different countries

Not all games are "Candy Crush Saga" or "Pixel bird", sweeping across national borders, attracting the favor (or contempt) of all earth people. Some games are targeted at specific areas of the audience, such as games for Japanese, Chinese, or Korean players. Does your game perform in the target market as expected? Or are there other areas where players are particularly interested in your game? By counting the downloads of a game in each country, you will likely find many related issues.

Installs of different versions

Have you ever launched a "St. Patrick's Day" version of a game that has provoked some players to delete the game? Does the latest version of your game disappoint the player? Or, the newer version of a game makes its downloads go crazy? For better or worse, each version of the installation will deliver important information to you, so it is an important indicator that you need to keep track of.

K factor (K-factor)

K-factor is used to measure the effect of viral growth.

If the K factor equals 1, that means you can get a new player from every existing player and your game is neither growing nor decaying. If the K factor is less than 1, then you have to increase marketing efforts, otherwise the game players will be lost, and if the K factor is greater than 1, it means that your game is growing fast. Most games have a k factor of less than 1, in other words, most games are unlikely to grow rapidly.

From the point of view of viral transmission, the K factor measures the "infection cases" caused by a single infected player. For example, if a game has a k factor of 0.5, it means that every "infected player" will infect 0.5 other players-prompting the latter to download your game. However, this measure is not entirely accurate, as many factors can trigger viral transmission, and the process is fraught with uncertainty and unpredictability.

Average per-user acquisition cost (CPA) and effective user acquisition cost (ECPA)

CPA is the average per user acquisition cost. CPA is easy to understand, assuming that you spend $5000 in chartboost channels and get 2,500 new players, then your CPA is 5000/2500=2 dollars.

There are a number of factors that can affect the overall user acquisition cost of a mobile game, such as geography, platform, game type, download package size and other parameters. A game is free or paid download, as well as the quality of users, will affect user acquisition costs. You may have to pay $0.5-$ 2.5 for every download of the game to get high-quality users, and/or a large number of users. Typically, this is a basic plan for getting a user, and the higher the expected user size, the greater the bid.

Service charges for ad networks such as InMobi or admob can be higher, often between $5-10 per installation. These networks are usually used only by big game companies, which are not cost-effective for indie game developers. Many developers choose Chartboost, because the latter allows the game to reach high-quality players, and the costs are acceptable.

ECPA refers to the cost of effective user acquisition, that is, the total cost of acquiring each player, plus the amount of downloads that the player is attracted to. In a way, ECPA can also be used to measure the viral spread potential of your network. ECPA is always smaller than CPA, because it has an additional effect, but its biggest disadvantage is that ECPA is very difficult to count. For example, how do you determine if a cascading effect originated from one of your buying behaviors?

But for the sake of simplicity, developers tend to count the total amount of money spent on a given time period and the total number of downloads in the game. Suppose that in 1 months, the developer invested $2000 to buy 1000 downloads for a game, and the game has a total download volume of 5,000 times a month, then its CPA is 2000/1000 = $2, while ECPA is 2000/5000 = $0.4.

Use and retention of relevant indicators

Retention rates are used to count the retention rate of active players over a period of time.

For example, one of your games has successfully acquired 4,000 players thanks to some marketing behavior. On the 5th day, if the number of active players in the game reached 2000 on the day, the retention rate is 50%, if the next day (6th day) existing players reduced by 10% to 1800 people, then the 6th day game retention rate is 45%, and so on.

In general, developers will count the retention rates for the first day of the game, the 7th and 30th days-the retention rate data for 40%, 20%, and 10% are good in these 3 statistics. However, the game retention rate is also affected by the game type, the 30th retention rate of strategy games is usually higher than casual games.

Days x Retention Rate

This indicator refers to the frequency with which players return to the game after the game is installed, usually as a percentage, and is used to track performance or specific versions of your game. High retention means people really like it, and your chances of making a profit grow.

Count the number of players who have opened the game in the past 4/7/15 days and count the number of players in weeks and months. You need to understand how many truly "active" players are, and once you've mastered these numbers, you can start measuring churn rates--and compare them to the number of players who have been active at some point in the past. When making a comparison with historical data, be sure to select the appropriate point in time.

DAU, MAU, Dau/mau

Indicators that count active users include daily active users (DAU) and monthly active users (MAU). Two data points are the number of players in a game, one day, or a month. This data will help you manage server load and handle similar issues. Developers generally believe that using Dau to count active players is more accurate, while Mau is often used for long-term planning.

The value of Dau/mau is used to measure the player's viscosity, in other words, this value can reflect the ability of your game to retain players. In a way, it also shows the potential for a game to engage players, but it does not reflect revenue or sales data for in-app items.

Session duration

How long will the player stay in your game? Look at the length of the session and you'll know. The longer the player spends in your game, the greater the amount of input it takes. This may be because the player is really interested in your game (the game is really great, it's addictive), or the difficulty is appropriate for the player to pass the time. It is necessary to adjust the ad schedule and time to match the player's conversational appearance.

Wastage Rate

Attrition rate refers to the percentage of players who stop playing in a game within one months of the total player count. Players sometimes get bored with a game and switch to other games or apps. The aforementioned percentage is called the churn rate.

Attrition rate =----retention rate

In-game process

How long will it take to experience the game before the player has paid? At what stage does the payment behavior occur? Is there a specific node in the game that attracts a large number of players to pay? Based on a qualitative study of user behavior, you may be able to summarize unique insights.

Monetization related indicators

Average daily active user income (ARPDAU), average per paid user income (ARPPU)

Arpdau and Arppu are the two key monetization indicators that game developers need to count, often on a monthly statistical cycle. Arpdau refers to the average amount of the game's total revenue divided by the number of users logged into the game on that day. Another indicator, ARPU, refers to the average per (active) user income. The ARPU value of casual games is generally between 0.10-0.20 USD, driven by factors such as market size, growth rate, and micro-trade conversion rate.

User lifetime value (LTV) refers to the average amount of each player's accumulated spending in the game, which includes paid and non-paying players.

LTV = ARPU x (average number of months each player plays your game). Take a casual game as an example, assuming the game has a value of $0.15 and an average of 6 months per player playing the game, then its ltv= 0.15 x 6 = $0.9 ARPU.

Conversion rate

Conversion rate refers to the percentage of players who pay for the first time in a game during a given day, which is usually displayed as a percentage and is used to evaluate the effect of the new version of the game. Ways to optimize player conversions include adjusting the UI to make the in-game pay experience easier for players to accept.

According to Tosten Reille, chief executive of mobile game publisher Natural Motion, the company's iOS game, CSR Racing, has a very high conversion rate, benefiting from a $12 million-a-day revenue in 2012. Almost every day IAP is credited $400,000. "CSR Racing" is native to all downloads, and Natural motion does not pay to buy players, he said.

But overall, the conversion rate of casual games is about 2-5%.

Number of paid users, micro-trading times

As every mobile game developer tries to innovate, the cost of research and development in mobile games continues to be bullish. You have to keep track of the number of paid users, because quite a few paid users are your fans--and they are more important than tracking their behavior or data. Once the number of paid users declines, you must find out the cause as soon as possible.

In the same vein, it is also necessary to count the number of micro-trades in the game at all times. Based on this statistic, you'll see which upgrades are selling better and are more popular with players. Further down, you can also find out if a user is only involved in a certain type of micro-transaction and make adjustments (if necessary) to the game based on this.

Finally, I hope the above list of indicators will help game developers to better study game performance. Keep in mind that specific indicators may only be available for specific games, and you need to select the correct statistical indicators.

[Turn] Hand Travel research data Professional terminology Popular science game What's the heat?