With mobile gaming becoming ever more popular, it is necessary to understand various aspects of player behavior in those games. This is especially true for free-to-play games as revenue comes from a small subset of the playerbase. This article presents a large-scale analysis of data collected over 9 months, comprising over 10 million players of a case study free-to-play mobile interactive story telling video game. The data are analyzed from a temporal standpoint, followed by presentation of findings in three important player engagement aspects: 1) retention; 2) conversion (i.e., players becoming payers); 3) lifetime revenue collected. These findings confirm the importance of early conversion in casual mobile games as the retention is low due to wide target audience. Additionally, players who convert very early also tend to spend more in the game in general. Most of the monetization depends on a small fraction of large spenders as one fifth of the entire revenue comes from only 2% of spenders. The article stresses out the key checkpoints in casual gameplay that are potentially most profitable topics for further research and player targeted actions. The insights of long-term analysis are relevant to both academia and industry in the efforts to optimize service quality, players' satisfaction, and profitability.

中文翻译：

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移动免费互动故事讲述游戏中玩家行为的案例研究

随着移动游戏变得越来越流行，有必要了解这些游戏中玩家行为的各个方面。对于免费游戏来说尤其如此，因为收入来自一小部分玩家。本文对 9 个月内收集的数据进行了大规模分析，其中包括一个免费移动互动故事视频游戏案例研究的超过 1000 万玩家。从时间角度对数据进行分析，然后介绍三个重要的玩家参与度方面的发现：1）保留；2）转化（即玩家成为付费者）；3) 终生收集的收入。这些发现证实了休闲手机游戏早期转化的重要性，因为目标受众广泛，留存率较低。此外，一般来说，很早就转化的玩家也倾向于在游戏中花费更多。大部分货币化取决于一小部分大额消费者，因为总收入的五分之一仅来自 2% 的消费者。本文强调了休闲游戏中的关键检查点，这些检查点可能是进一步研究和玩家有针对性的行动中最有利可图的主题。长期分析的见解对于学术界和工业界在优化服务质量、玩家满意度和盈利能力方面都具有重要意义。