The gaming industry cranks out all kinds of digital games every year. But just a few of them make the cut. Why so, you’d ask. This can be traced to poor gaming experiences among other factors.
Over 3739 new applications find resorts on the app store every day. Of the figure mentioned, about 14.4 billion mobile games were downloaded globally, in the initial quarter of 2022 across Google Play Store and Apple App Store. It has been projected, by 2025, there will be 3.25 billion mobile game players across the globe actively hunting for games that can seize their attention.
Unquestionably, these figures make it very clear. Competition is thick, no matter what the game type or audience is. New-age gamers have got high standards and expectations.
You might think, “Well, I must try to build a solid game premise, get the best professionals and the right resources, and so on to make a game successful.” All that’s crucial but not enough in these times when you’ve to stand out in a crowd of billions of games.
That’s where LiveOps service comes in. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking your game can make a name without proper Liveops strategy and implementation. The importance of LiveOps meaning, its basics, crucial aspects, benefits and best practices, is what we will hash out here in detail.
Let’s dig in!
What is LiveOps All About?
In simple words, LiveOps can be defined as an ongoing strategy put out to keep your game as engaging, exciting, and profitable as it was in its earlier days. So, not only LiveOps determine the present but the future of mobile games as well.
The generation of new content lies at the core of LiveOps. But, know that the content is not created blindly, but rather audience insights, cadence schedule, and other analytic processes are considered.
All the steps taken under LiveOps have one aim: “To stay relevant to your gamer audience for longer”. This doesn’t mean, you are doing it more and more and more. Robust LiveOps implementation is about quality not the quantity of efforts. The better your strategy, the better the outcomes.
How can you make a fruitful LiveOps Strategy? The most important thing, build a potent team. It will get you far. Further strategies and best practices are discussed in the latter section, here.
A Glimpse Into The History Of LiveOps
In the earlier days, it wasn’t possible for makers to update or fix a bug when it arose, as the disc or cartridge was already manufactured. So, the players had to bear with the glitch while playing.
On top of this, if gamers once complete the game or reach its end, they are done with it and won’t return to it ever again. The games lacked a hook to keep their audience engaged and retained.
Time passed.
Games now started to get published on digital-friendly channels.
Thus, LiveOps too came up. However, originally it started as a way to fix bugs and issues that occurred in the game.
Then, more time passed.
And LiveOps became a complex service that focuses on enhancing the gaming experience of the users by adding new content, retaining & engaging audiences, and making money.
Does LiveOps In Games Matter?
Short answer: Yes, a lot.
LiveOps strategies extend the scalability and longevity of games: by updating the game content, adding new content and features, including live events, and more. However, all these spices aren’t added as per one’s whim, but the taste and requirement of the audience.
Not only the updates are well-researched but given at a proper frequency. For example, if a studio releases updates, events, or content too often, it may end up overwhelming the gamers. However, if this is done over ages, the game may become stagnant and bore players. The rhythm of updates matters when it comes to making the game engaging.
LiveOps basically is all about the ability of studios to customize and create gaming experiences based on real-time user feedback. It can be in the form of new features, content, live events, or bundles.
Game LiveOps familiarizes game manufacturers with its crowd, which helps them make it more fun and thrilling, so they keep coming back for more and for a long time.
How To Build A Fruitful LiveOps Strategy?
As mentioned earlier, the quality of efforts matters more in LiveOps than the number. So, it is imperative that you know how to build a solid LiveOps strategy that truly drives results. This must be taken seriously as it is a potential opportunity to increase the engagement and loyalty of the existing fans while attracting new folks.
Here’s some expert help on creating an adaptable LiveOps strategy for your game. Read on!
Listen to What Your Users Have To Say
You cannot do away with the audience’s feedback on your game and put out great, engaging updates, features, and events.
You can ask passionate fans of the game or even your friends to offer candid feedback, go through App Store ratings, or consider similar games from your competitors to better understand the gameplay variety.
This knowledge would benefit you in knowing and prioritizing what’s working and what would work and what, of course, would not.
Do You Have The Resources? Take A Look
Can your existing team feasibly carry out all the upgrades effectively? Do you need extra team members to get the job done? Before starting all, take a step back and have a look at your resources. Because you wouldn’t want your employees to work incessantly and face burnout to keep giving unproductive and poor upgrades. Neither you’d want to place all your crew from new game development to maintain an existing game.
Here are some things you need to know, here:
- The right tools can help you change everything from Leaderboard rewards to In-App Purchases without even updating your game.
- LiveOps strategy will become more and more crucial as your game grows. So, a dedicated LiveOps is a must as it will help you build a scalable and flexible game.
- For all the time-consuming and hyper-specialized or expensive tasks, consider outsourcing.
Live Ops tasks can also be outsourced from a reliable game development company that’s well-versed in a wide range of categories like Casual Mobile Game Development, Gamification, Casino Game Development, and so on. That way you’d be able to enjoy much more convenience and better results.
Now, Test and Iterate
Time to test the performance of the updates. For that, push it live in an A/B format, and note down the following points:
- Did users spend more time on the app?
- Did more users convert on in-app purchases?
- Did users really notice the updates you made?
You can consider several other markers as well and use them in future Liveops mobile games testing and updates.
For professional guidance on Games Liveops, you can get in touch with StudioKrew’s business team.
LiveOps Games: Best Practices That Make It Work
With so many games out there, players choose the ones most fresh, engaging, and user-friendly. So, their expectations and definition of what a great game is evolving constantly as the gaming industry is evolving.
To succeed in the industry and attract the gamer’s eye, you need to bring anything in the game potent of thriving their interest.
Why do we need to bend backwards to satisfy their game consumers? Why so much fuss over it? Well, because LiveOps content makes the content unpredictable, fun, and irresistible for your audience, making it stay focused on you.
Here are a few surefire and practical tips for you to make your game more exciting:
Tips for Rewards
The options are innumerable, when it comes to game rewards, from medals and trophies to characters, novel perks, and more. But you can’t put out all of them together at one time. Why? Because it would overwhelm your audience. So, here’s some help:
- Pick the right rewards and make your audience anticipate with excitement by starting slow. Avoid releasing a lot of rewards at once, make them wait a while. “The longer the wait, the more rewarding it becomes”.
- Instead of bringing out all your reward strategies and confusing the players. Prefer giving one theme per event, so they feel more clear and directed.
- Do not make your losing/ participating players feel bad and the winners too good. Instead, the key is, to make the former feel good by appreciating their effort and winners feel special.
- Avoid dividing your community by giving some of them exclusive rewards and others just plain ones. Know that your game community interacts, so make sure you just provide them with different versions of rewards not better.
- You can read about outsourcing through our other post: Insider Guide to Outsource Your App Development Services. If you are confused about LiveOps or how much would it cost then you can contact StudioKrew’s Business team for a free quote or read more about Mobile App Development Services by StudioKrew.
Tips for Content
Impress your audience with novel content and engage them like never before with the following tips:
- While creating and posting new content, make sure neither it is too familiar nor too unpredictable for the audience. Instead, it must be in between.
- Segment your audience based on their region, occupation, behaviour, and other parameters, if you want to gain insights to engage them more in your game.
Tips for Cadence
Cadence is about content releasing frequency. It is not done blindly but with a proper strategy, so it truly engages your crowd. Finding a perfect balance between too often and too sparse is the key to perfect cadence.
- Too many rewards and content update options can tempt you to deliver a lot of them. This may end up confusing your audience, who then may end up making a hasty, irritated exit.
- Under-delivering the updates can make your game look boring. Thus, doing it really slow is a perfect recipe for driving away your players.
- Consider your resources before making a cadence schedule and optimize them for productive and effective work.
Quick LiveOps Wrap-Up
That’s all about LiveOps, what is it all about, and the best practices. When done well, LiveOps can be a perfect game changer for your game as well as the audience. Every game manufacturer has a dream of making a game that thrives for decades. In these times of cutthroat competition, the key is to focus on the LiveOps of your game, and see how it gets you off the ground!
Want help on LiveOps or building a new game or application? Look no further and opt for StudioKrew. Being a top Mobile Game Development Company in the USA, UAE, and UK always has taken pride in its specialized, cooperative team that’s passionate and equipped with the latest tech to swing it all like a pro. Now, breathing life into your game is just a call away!
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