How Social Features Can Help Mobile Games To Attract and Engage Users?
The growth of mobile game users has significantly increased in the last year, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and people stuck at home finding ways of entertainment on their smartphones. This has rapidly given rise to the mobile gaming industry as billions are poured into the gaming industry, probably more money than ever before. It has lifted the spirits of game development company, marketers and designers.
As per Forbes, the most popular game in 2020 could manage only 4.5% retention after a period of 30 days. However, experts suggest that addition of social features in mobile games can keep the players engaged for a longer period of time.
If you are looking to exploit this market, now is the time and it will certainly help you to stay on top of relevant industry trends and statistics. These industry trends coupled with relevant industry knowledge will enable you to take bright decisions and improve your chances of success. Let’s find out how you can leverage social features in your mobile games in 2021.
Integrated Activity Feed
It is one of the most crucial features in mobile games where a player can view the feed of their friends. For instance, if we talk about World of Warcraft, a seemingly popular game among millennials have an activity feed where a player can check the last active status of their friends on the game. Including these features in mobile games can allow a player to follow others’ progress and can ask for in-app lives, discuss about the game and more.
Live Chat
Live chat is a great example of how to boost your player engagement and take it to the next level. However, when using the live chat feature, users will have expectations based on other chatting apps like Whatsapp, Messenger, Skype etc.
For instance, PUBG is one of the most widely popular games around the world. In PUBG, the game developers have included a live chat along with an audio chat. Now, you can play the game in single player mode, duo or with your squad and keep an open communication throughout the game. The audio chat feature of PUBG has really hit the right spot and allowed to increase the player engagement.
Leaderboard
The Leaderboard enables you to view the activity of your friends in your network. For instance, a player may want to know when their friend has amassed a new high score and collected a valuable item by achieving a target. The Leaderboard is also a great place to display online active users and their experience points in a world ranking scenario. Moreover, you can use a player’s network to share customised leaderboards. After all these years, the Leaderboard still remains the most crucial feature in a mobile game and it will continue to do so in 2021 and beyond.
Push Notifications
Push notifications are an inevitable part of every mobile application these days. Simply how you get notifications from your social media, in the same manner, users can get notifications of new activities in the game. According to reports, more than 40% players enable push notifications on their mobile devices. For instance, users can choose to be notified about a new feature addition to the game, a new mode, send or receive a gift along with challenging a friend or stranger for a match etc. It is an ideal way to allow discontinued players back into the game.
Multiplayer Mode
Multiplayer mode is a must have feature for all mobile games as it allows players to have their own virtual world and give them a feeling that they are not alone. By including a multiplayer mode, users can play with their friends and other players around the world which increases user engagement. These days, connectivity through the cloud is inevitable but allowing connectivity through Bluetooth is also important.
These social features have a lot of added benefits too along with increasing user engagement. The advantages include:
- Social Benefits – Whether it is playing a game with their friends or strangers, these games allow players to interact and nurture relationships in the long term.
- Team Work – Social mobile games enable users to undertake multiple tasks that allow them to manage a team, work together with their teammates and look for ways to improve and win as a team.
- Stay Active – Famous games like Pokemon Go is an ideal example of mobile games helping players to stay active and keep moving while playing a game. With the growing popularity of mobile games, it doesn’t mean that you have to be confined to a single place, now you can easily move and keep playing.
- Develop Compassion – Mobile games can assist users to keep their emotions in check and allows them to support kindness and compassion with people around you.
Conclusion
The social features that have been enlisted in the article are likely to be the future of mobile gaming in 2021 and beyond due to engagement abilities. Social engagement is an important metric in mobile games as it creates a competitive advantage and improves the gaming experience, prompt users, increases conversion and saves money on marketing and user acquisition. We hope that these steps help you to build a successful mobile game in 2021. Or you can hire experienced game developers from a skillful mobile game development company like Nimblechapps to add social features to your mobile games.
Keval Padia is the founder & CEO of Nimblechapps, a fast-growing mobile app development company. The current innovation and updates of the field lures him to express his views and thoughts on certain topics.