The 7 Reasons Why Users Leave Your Mobile App Game

People regularly download mobile app games of all types, use them once, and then never touch them again except perhaps to uninstall them. Why is that? Are humans just too picky? As a mobile app developer, we are constantly looking for ways to better ourselves and the projects that we undertake so we were also curious about the why. We ended up finding 7 reasons why users leave your mobile app game which is valuable knowledge worth sharing.

To be fair, uninstall rates are fairly high for every app category with Android apps typically being uninstalled twice as fast as iOS apps. However, today we are focusing on a single niche that is very popular with developers because of the profit potential; mobile games. Of course some of these reasons can apply to other types of apps as well.

The 7 Deadly Sins

• Not Unique – What does your game bring to the table that is different compared to what is out there? A lot of games get quickly dropped because the game is too similar to something else out on the market that is already extremely popular and well-designed. You need to provide something new, different, better or more interesting to make people want to use your game as a fun diversion over something else.
• Slow Loading Intro – There is nothing worse than having ten minutes to play a game and then being forced to wait for a slow loading introduction of any type. The title screen needs to load quickly allowing you to jump in right away with limited time between the title screen and the first level or activity.
• Bad UI – The User Interface of your game is very important. A clunky interface that is hard to use can be incredibly frustrating especially if it prevents people from making the actions they are expecting to make. Controls need to be precise, the UI needs to be easily understood, and it should be pleasing to look at.
• Too difficult – The difficulty of any game should be based on the skills of the target audience. For the most part, games should start off fairly easy and build in complexity and difficulty as users learn the nuances of the game and its controls. If a game is too hard out of the gate people won’t want to waste their time because where is the fun in failing?
• Session Length – Session length is very important because some players only have a few minutes of free time to spend playing a game. If you can’t get a session completed in 5 minutes or less then it makes it less likely they will want to play it a lot because then you have to plan for it or risk losing any accomplishments if they can’t complete a level or session.
• Lack of Accomplishment – When you a play a game there needs to be some sense of reward or accomplishment. Without it, what exactly is the hook for the user to play? Things like beating levels and earning special power-ups to being on high score leaderboards to social media recognition all increase enjoyment by providing types of achievement.
• Too Buggy – This tends to happen when developers don’t test as much as they should prior to a release. A buggy release should not be the norm! Take the time to test and re-test every aspect of the game including how it functions on various devices. Beta testing is a great way to find bugs, gain feedback and learn more about what users think of the project before the actual release.

Now there are quite a few more deadly sins out there when it comes to mobile game development, but our focus was on those things causing people to only use the game once or twice after downloading them before forgetting about them. Things that cause users to drop a game after investing hours over a few weeks or months will be the subject of another post.

The bottom line when it comes to new downloads is that these are 7 reasons why users leave your mobile app game after only a few sessions or less. Relieving or removing these sins will help lessen the aggravation that they cause users which will increase the chances that they will include your mobile game in their regular rotation of fun things to do.

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