Summary

In this episode of the Mastering Retention podcast, Tom Hammond, co-founder of User Wise, has a great chat with Dafna Ben Onn, Director of Monetization at SciPlay, a mobile gaming company. Dafna shares how LiveOps teams focus on events and promotions to engage players, drive retention, and monetize games. Successful LiveOps events are those that balance the core gameplay loop of a game while introducing new features, challenges, and rewards to keep players interested. She also highlights the importance of understanding player behavior, segmentation, and time zones in planning LiveOps events, and the need to balance creativity with return on investment.

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Listen to the full episode:

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Not interested in listening? Here are the highlights:

LiveOps for Mobile Games

LiveOps is a crucial component of mobile game development. It involves creating events, promotions, and challenges to keep players engaged and drive retention while monetizing the game. The core gameplay loop of a game is the play-earn-spend mechanism, and the goal of LiveOps is to introduce new features, challenges, and rewards that keep players interested and engaged without taking away from the core gameplay. A successful LiveOps event should enhance the core gameplay loop and not detract from it.

Understanding Player Behavior

To create successful LiveOps events, it is crucial to understand player behavior, segmentation, and time zones. LiveOps teams must identify when players are typically active and cater to their play style. For example, if players are more active on weekends, LiveOps teams should plan events that cater to this behavior. The LiveOps team should be able to balance the needs of the players with the business goals of the company.

Creativity vs. Return on Investment

LiveOps events require a lot of planning, coordination, and configuration. It is essential to balance creativity with return on investment. LiveOps teams must prioritize events that have the most significant impact on key performance indicators (KPIs) and maximize the return on investment. While creativity is essential, the LiveOps team must ensure that the events are cost-effective and that the return on investment justifies the investment.

Conclusion

LiveOps is an essential component of mobile game development, and it is crucial to understand player behavior, segmentation, and time zones. LiveOps teams must balance creativity with return on investment and prioritize events that have a significant impact on KPIs. Successful LiveOps events enhance the core gameplay loop and engage players without detracting from the overall game experience.

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