DeltaDNA: the longer the first session, the better the performance of the game

In the freeplay, the retention rates of the game, ARPU and the conversion rate partly depend on the length of the first session, experts of the mobile marketing company DeltaDNA believe.

According to DeltaDNA, 20% of freeplay players “fall off” in the first two minutes after the first launch of the game. Less than 50% of players return to the game for the second time. This means that the first game session should be as thoughtful as possible.

DeltaDNA asked what the optimal session duration is. In order to find out, the company’s experts examined 5 thousand shareware games.

First, it turned out that 90% of games have a first session length of 20 minutes.

Secondly, there was a relationship between the length of the first session and the retention rates of the first day, the seventh day and ARPU.

In games where the first session lasted less than 9 minutes, the retention of the first day was 20%. By the thirtieth day, the figure was falling to 6%. In games where the first session lasted more than 9 minutes, the retention of the first day was 31%, and the thirtieth – 11%.

ARPU in the first case was $0.1, in the second – $0.3.

The conversion rate in games with longer first sessions was also higher – 2.2% versus 1%.

The conclusion from the figures of DeltaDNA turned out to be the following: it makes no sense to do a session longer than 20 minutes, since you can’t hold a fritupley player who is used to a certain duration for so long. The optimal time is between 10 and 20 minutes. And since so much depends on the first session, it makes sense not to save the most interesting features and finds for later, but to post them right away.

Source: DeltaDNA