The question of retention is always top of mind for mobile game developers, and Jeremy shared an intriguing anecdote about Zynga founder Mark Pincus’ particular take on retention. As the story goes, some developers brought their game to Pincus for possible investment. He ultimately didn’t invest because while he enjoyed playing it at the time, he “didn’t dream about it.” Jeremy said he uses that idea of dreaming with regard to long-term retention. “What gets you dreaming about accomplishing more?” Sometimes it’s the gameplay itself, the desire to increase skill or reach a new level, and sometimes it’s new content. Whatever it is, if your game doesn’t have that thing that makes players think about your game when they’re not playing it, your long-term retention will suffer. There’s no long-term retention without persuading players to stick with your game in the short term, but reliable metrics can be scarce in those first few days. Sophie shared that she examines playtime and session length to get a feel for how well a game’s short-term stickiness is working. A daily playtime of around an hour is highly encouraging, less than that may indicate a problem with your onboarding. Robin shared that one of the things Hutch has learned across its portfolio of games is the importance of teaching one thing at a time. The goal is to teach the player enough to give them competency, but not so much that they get overwhelmed: “You can lose a lot of players within the first ten minutes, so it’s that balance of to what extent you want to handhold players through the basic mechanics, versus giving them the knowledge to succeed.” A game’s difficulty curve may also be a reason behind a sudden user dropoff. Jeremy suggested using the ratio of attempts to successes per level or per block of levels and correlating that with churn. Sophie added that the ratio matters both ways: a game can be too difficult and it can also be too easy. If players are sailing through those first levels they may feel like the game isn’t worth their attention and leave. Our experts had some specific advice for how to give your game the best chance at retaining players. Sophie spoke of the power of good sessioning, saying, “a feeling of achievement or completion” created by a natural stopping point lets players feel good about their experience. They’re not exhausted by their playtime and instead feel accomplished and excited about the next time they get to play. Robin echoed that by discussing players having the agency to make progress by cashing in their rewards or using their energy at the start of a new session, as it’s a strong reason to return to the game. Top Drives’ players have held Hutch to account “when it comes to the instant gratification of rewards when they’re doing any activity,” which speaks to Robin about their emotional investment in the game.