Achievement and Friends: Key Factors of Player Retention Vary Across Player Levels in Online Multiplayer Games

TL;DR

This study analyzes in-game logs from over 51,000 players to identify how key factors influencing player retention vary across different game levels, highlighting the changing importance of achievement and social features.

Contribution

It provides a multifaceted, phase-specific analysis of player retention factors in online multiplayer games, which was lacking in previous snapshot-based studies.

Findings

Achievement features are crucial in early to mid-game phases.

Social features become dominant predictors at the highest levels.

Retention factors vary significantly across different player levels.

Abstract

Retaining players over an extended period of time is a long-standing challenge in game industry. Significant effort has been paid to understanding what motivates players enjoy games. While individuals may have varying reasons to play or abandon a game at different stages within the game, previous studies have looked at the retention problem from a snapshot view. This study, by analyzing in-game logs of 51,104 distinct individuals in an online multiplayer game, uniquely offers a multifaceted view of the retention problem over the players' virtual life phases. We find that key indicators of longevity change with the game level. Achievement features are important for players at the initial to the advanced phases, yet social features become the most predictive of longevity once players reach the highest level offered by the game. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for designing online games that are adaptive to meeting the players' needs.