To be or not to be... social: Incorporating simple social features in mobile game customer lifetime value predictions

Anders Drachen, Mari Pastor, Aron Liu, Dylan Jack Fontaine, Yuan Chang, Julian Runge, Rafet Sifa, Diego Klabjan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

Mobile games make up the largest segment of the games industry, in terms of revenue as well as players. Hundreds of thousands of games are available with most being free to download and play. In freemium games, revenue is predominantly generated by users making in-game purchases. As only a small fraction of users make purchases, predicting these users and their Customer Lifetime Value are key challenges in Game Analytics and currently barely explored in academic research. Furthermore, while social factors have been shown to be essential for retention in games in general, the impact on retention and monetization in mobile games is unexplored. In this paper, the problem of defining social features in freemium casual mobile games is addressed through a case study with over 200,000 players. .e study evaluates the in.uence of specific types of social interactions typical of casual mobile games, on predictions of premium users and Customer Lifetime Value by applying classifiers and regression models respectively. Results indicate that social activity does not correlate with the tendency to become a premium user, but that social activity increases over time in a cohort.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference, ACSW 2018
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
ISBN (Electronic)9781450354363
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 29 2018
Event2018 Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference, ACSW 2018 - Brisbane, Australia
Duration: Jan 29 2018Feb 2 2018

Publication series

NameACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Other

Other2018 Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference, ACSW 2018
Country/TerritoryAustralia
CityBrisbane
Period1/29/182/2/18

Funding

Keywords

  • Behavioral Prediction
  • Computer Games
  • Customer Lifetime Value
  • Freemium
  • Game Analytics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Computer Networks and Communications

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