Why social features are so important to mobile games

Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful tool, and it is no different for mobile gaming. In fact, according to the user-acquisition experts at Applifier, word of mouth is how most people find new games.

Last week, Applifier released a study that speaks to the importance of not only word-of-mouth advertising but to the importance of the people most likely to share new games with their friends. The company calls these people “sharers.”

The value in sharers isn’t just that they help introduce new people to games, it’s that they are often the most dedicated and willing to begin paying for in-game microtransactions.

“[Around] 20 percent of users are sharers,” reads the Applifier report. “[These are] highly valuable users as they actively share from games and are more likely to download more games, play more often and for longer, and are more likely to covert to paying users.”

The key to retaining those users, according to Applifier, is to have a number of social features that appeal to the key behaviors of these gamers.

“Sharers rate social-gaming features often nearly twice as high as mainstream users,” reads the report. “They are also 50 percent more interested in playing together with friends and with non-friends.”

Additionally, the company found that more than 80 percent of these mega-social players watched a gaming video in the last week. Almost half of those credited the video with leading them to download the game they were watching.

The results of this study suggests that developers should take a top-down approach to design and features. That means giving players multiplayer modes, livestreaming functionality, and easy social-media integration.

This will keep those sharers invested in a game while also broadcasting about the games to their friends.

Applifier has a vested interest in these results. It provides a tool called Everyplay for developers that enables in-game recording and sharing of gameplay videos.

This is a feature that is growing in popularity across console and PC gaming with services like Twitch. Sony introduced the capability to stream video natively using its upcoming PlayStation 4 console.

On mobile devices, Everyplay faces competition from Kamcord which works in select iOS games.