FEATURES
Independent and unbiased level quality, difficulty and conversion metrics
IMPACT
Churn reduction, DAU increase, and +3% billing
ACHIEVEMENTS
ROI achieved in one week. Change of mentality in the analysis of the progression. Scientific article published
BUSINESS PROBLEM
King is a global leader in mobile game development, most notable for the Candy Crush franchise, which has more than 200 million monthly active users. This company is characterized by its offer of casual games structured in levels, with some titles exceeding 15,000 levels. Continuous optimization of these games is crucial to improve player retention, activity and conversion. At this scale, even small increases in these metrics can have a significant impact on group revenue. The monetization models of these games are often based on purchasing aids to progress through the game, making for a balanced progression—with levels accessible enough to allow progression without frustration, yet challenging enough to encourage to make purchases—be essential. Adjusting this balance is not easy, as increasing the difficulty of a level can increase revenue in the short term, but can also lead to a decrease in player retention, negatively affecting revenue in the long term.
DRIBIA’S SOLUTION
To address this problem, an innovative solution was developed: the creation of independent indicators of quality and difficulty. This approach allowed King to differentiate between levels that were genuinely low quality and those that were simply longer or more challenging. With this information, we were able to fine-tune their games more precisely, lengthening levels that were high quality but perhaps too easy, as well as shortening or simplifying those levels that weren’t too high quality. This maximized the time players spent in high quality levels.
This approach resulted in several significant benefits for King, as for the first time at King, an increase in all 3 main game performance metrics was achieved. It achieved both an increase in the number of daily active users (DAU), as well as an increase in player retention and the number of payments. This success story demonstrates the importance of having the right metrics for assessing the quality of levels in games, and how a well-thought-out strategy can simultaneously improve user retention and revenue generation.
These advances were also translated into a scientific article in an internationally prestigious journal such as Nature scientific reports:
