If you want a free-to-play massively multiplayer online game to succeed, get those players in the door on the first day.
That’s one finding from a F2P MMO study by SuperData Research: The longer a player waits to join — to a point — the less likely they are to stay.
“A strong initial launch, fueled by an effective marketing campaign, helps establishing a loyal customer base,” the report says, adding, “The first 30 days after launch are also critical in assessing the long term viability and success of a title. Finally, titles that make it past the two-year mark generally experience an influx of self-qualifying and valuable users.”
About 6 percent of players who log in for the first time in a game’s first month are still there a year later. If they wait until the title’s been out a year to give it a try, less than one percent — about .6 percent — will stick it out for a full year.
“Following the marketing effort surrounding the release of your game, a slew of new curious users will try it. But they are also quick to decide whether or not they like it enough to continue using it,” the Superdata report said. “The first month is critical in gauging the long-term success of your title, as it serves as a proxy.”
Above: How long do people stay? This graph shows the percentages of people who start in the first month that are still playing the game days (blue chart) and months (orange chart) later.
That’s true even if you look at shorter time periods. If you log in during the first month of a game’s release, you’ll very likely log in the next day — Superdata suggests 83 percent of first-month players do. But a month later, only 20 percent are still logging in.
Compare that to people who check out the game a year later. Only a third will log in the next day, and only 3 percent will still be playing a month after they start.
What’s interesting is what happens after a game has been out, and successful, for a long time.
Above: In these charts, the lines represent players still in the game 90 days, 180 days, etc. later after they start playing. The numbers at the bottom are how many months after launch they started to play.
SuperData suggests that if your F2P MMO makes it successfully to the two-year mark, you’ve got a shot at attracting additional players. The chart (shown at the top of the story) tells the tale: Numbers of players drop through the first year, then start to rebound in the second.
“If a free-to-play MMOs manages to stay afloat for a period of around two years, it will begin to attract new, valuable players,” the report says, suggesting that these new players will stay with the game longer than those who pick it up a year earlier.
“Players that start playing at this time are generally introduced by word-of-mouth or have made the decision to join after more careful consideration rather than trying the game out of boredom or serendipity.”
The Superdata study was based on login data collected from large and small F2P MMOs over five years, involving one million unique users.