LiveOps
Nov 29th, 2024Video games of today are living, continuously evolving things with thriving communities, frequent updates, and exciting events. The reason for this is implementation of LiveOps strategy. This approach of continuous improvement and holistic management has helped enhance gaming experiences and brought in more personalization.
The use of LiveOps in games has caused a paradigm shift in the relationship between gamers and developers, and player expectations have become a lot more discerning. Unfortunately, many developers are still unaware of how to implement LiveOps or what metrics to track, and are unable to unlock its true potential.
Here, we will walk you through some of the LiveOps best practices and help you get a competitive edge with a few secret tips and tricks.
LiveOps, or Live Operations, refers to the continuous optimization and management of a video game beyond its release. It involves monitoring player behavior and performance, updating content, and responding to player feedback and data to make the gaming experience more exciting and engaging.
The goal of a LiveOps strategy is to boost player retention, which in turn enhances the opportunities for increased monetization. Minecraft, Candy Crush Saga, and Fortnite are games that pioneered the use of LiveOps – to great success, we may add.
Monetizing games has become very challenging as consumers are on a cost-cutting mission. This survey by Appflyer found that in 2022, there was a 16% reduction in in-app purchases, and ads did not do very well either.
In fact, ads continued on a negative spiral steadily, and many studios had to rethink their monetization strategies. They turned towards LiveOps strategies instead, and fared better. This report by Sensor Tower indicates that the top 10 mobile games in 2022 also used LiveOps to drive success for their titles.
LiveOps strategy helps game studios and developers maintain player engagement in the long run, making it a much more lucrative approach than others.
The original purpose of LiveOps was fixing bugs in games, detected post release. It is still the most practical use of LiveOps, as the gaming company is able to release fixes and patches for any problems in real time. There’s no need to wait for the release of the next version or game.
When you follow a LiveOps approach, you can get closer to the players and collect feedback continuously, which you can act on. By fulfilling feature requests and releasing updates as per the feedback, you can deliver an enhanced experience, building players’ loyalty and trust, along with longer engagement with the game.
Players move on to other games once they finish a static game — after all, there’s nothing more to do. But when you keep releasing new features and time-bound updates, you induce players to keep returning even if they have completed all the levels. Live tournaments within the game add tremendous excitement and incentivize players to come back.
Player retention can be more economical vis-a-vis player acquisition, especially with the high cost of advertising; LiveOps strategy can boost player retention and drive growth significantly.
The ultimate aim of game LiveOps services is to help developers earn better revenue. As per this study, players spent more than 1.6 billion USD on mobile gaming each week in 2022. Just imagine the figures if players spend even more time in a game — there will be a surge in subscriptions and in-game transactions.
A game pass usually involves a systematic advancement system that enables players to earn in-game rewards. To do so, they must complete tasks, overcome challenges, achieve objectives, and so on. Fortnite has the Battle Pass, and Royal Match has the Royal Pass that offers players in-game currency and items that allow them to complete goals quickly.
Skimming is a type of pricing where you first set quite a steep price for a feature but keep lowering it over time. Real-time or dynamic pricing involves responding to market trends and player demands and making price adjustments on the fly. AI and ML are often used for this LiveOps strategy.
Segmenting players based on their activity and habits is an essential component of LiveOps strategy. This allows you to personalize offers; some offers may be too expensive for certain players, while other players may find them cheap. Segmenting your players can help you target them with the right offers and enjoy better conversion, and retention.
This is a common LiveOps strategy, but is a winner. When you combine promotional sales and in-game events based on current trends, you create the FOMO effect, and can rake in the revenues. For example, selling ghostly skins for Halloween, or announcing a limited-time Black Friday sale with massive discounts can generate a lot of excitement.
You need to have a strategic approach to effectively implement LiveOps. It is important that you understand your audience well, plan your event calendar, and conduct proper testing and analysis when the update is implemented.
You must examine trends and player preferences regularly, so that you can align your LiveOps strategy and content with their interests. It is important to segment players into various categories and offer personalized offers to different groups.
Getting the timing right is critical — you need to schedule the events in a way that guarantees consistent engagement without overburdening the players. Make it a point to be unpredictable; surprise flash sales rather than have a sale every second Wednesday, or so on.
Balancing in-game purchases and rewards is crucial; you should be able to make gameplay enticing without forcing a ‘pay to win’ situation. That is, the game should be winnable even if the player does not make a purchase; maybe it takes them longer.
To understand how an event impacts the game and to be able to craft strategies for the future, it is vital that you measure the results of your LiveOps strategy. There are a number of metrics like player engagement, retention, feedback, and so on, that are important, depending on the purpose of each specific event.
Conversion rates are important when your primary aim is to get players to make an in-app purchase for the first time. Churned user re-engagement is what you should look at when you want to get back the players who had stopped playing.
A/B testing helps you evaluate different types of events, timing, and rewards to determine the most successful ones. You can get invaluable qualitative data when you scour social media to get player feedback and opinions.
Game developers must measure these metrics to effectively measure the impact of a LiveOps strategy:
Cost per Install: CPI measures the average spend on acquiring a new player via paid acquisition methods. Optimizing your CPI helps you maximize ROI on marketing and ensure sustainable growth.
Return on Investment: Calculating your ROI helps you understand the financial viability of a specific initiative and its impact on your bottom line. The cost of developing, implementing and promoting the game and LiveOps strategies, and the revenues generated from players are considered.
Supercell is a company that leveraged the power of data analytics to revolutionize the gaming experience, and set new benchmarks for player engagement and retention. Their popular title, Clash of Clans, harnessed data analytics to deliver improved player experience continuously.
Juego Studios has in-depth experience in implementing LiveOps strategy that draws in fresh audiences, engages gamers, and retains existing ones for the long term. Hire LiveOps Specialists from Juego Studios to boost your game’s brand visibility and loyalty, and eventually game revenue.
LiveOps strategy requires continuous monitoring and optimization to ensure a delightful experience for players, one that keeps them immersed for long. You need to supervise a number of things like traffic, activity, monetization, engagement, and other metrics to truly understand player behavior, and shape your strategies and game features accordingly.
When done right, LiveOps can help you personalize gaming and deliver engaging experiences that can help you increase your revenues and build your brand. In a world where user acquisition and monetization is becoming increasingly challenging, implementing smart LiveOps strategies can help you stand out and achieve your goals. LiveOps can offer you increased control and flexibility and help you get ahead of your competition.
It is a method of managing a game and its operations where a game is treated like a live service rather than a finished product. Updates, new features, improvements, in-game events, and promotions, are delivered continually, helping to deliver enhanced gaming experiences to the player community.
Finding the perfect balance between monetizing your game and delighting your users by fulfilling their expectations can be tricky. You have to ensure that the player experience is not hampered; at the same time, you need to bring in revenue through in-app purchases, ads, events, and other methods. Juego Studios has the expertise to strike this balance – talk to us for more information.
As nearly 50% of gaming revenue comes from mobile gaming, you need to seriously consider LiveOps strategies for mobile games too. Global revenues from games run into billions of dollars, and unless you enhance your mobile game frequently and acquiesce to user demands, you may miss a golden opportunity to capitalize on this trend. For more details, contact a Juego Studios representative now.
Video games of today are living, continuously evolving things with thriving communities, frequent updates, and exciting events. The reason for this is implementation of LiveOps strategy.
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