Consumers are motivated to play video games because they relieve boredom, provide a challenge, create a more social atmosphere and help to escape reality. A recent study by Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanaltyics.com) has found that mobile gaming continues to primarily be for quick entertainment in downtime; in an average week, more time is spent playing mobile games outside of the home.
The Media and Services UX (MSX) group at Strategy Analytics investigated mobile gaming behaviors and identified four motivators that are making the mobile gaming experience more compelling. These include daily incentives for accessing and playing the game, game incentives for viewing advertisements, daily timeouts for game play and frequent game updates.
“Daily incentives for accessing and playing a game give users a progressive series of incentives,” says Christopher Dodge, report author and Associate Director, MSX. “This helps keep the user motivated to continually launch the game even if they don’t continue to play, as the progressive incentives restart if one day is missed”
Incentives for viewing advertisements are beneficial for both the gamer and the advertiser. he adds. Consumers are more likely to view the ad and stay in a game if a reward of some sort was given; and at the same time, this could drive up full-length ad consumption generating more revenue from advertising.
“Boredom and completing a game are two primary reasons consumers delete mobile games,” says Kevin Nolan, vice president, UXIP. “Daily timeouts for game play could prevent overuse and game deletion brought on by boredom, while frequent game updates are also more likely to keep users more interested and less likely to delete a game.”