A/B Testing in Mobile Games

A/B testing is a tried and proven method of optimizing and creating the perfect formula. But how do you know what to test for? What are the most important things to test? What should you test?

Previously we were talking about M-Commerce A/B Testing. Let’s talk about the games.

Retain

To retain users is the biggest priority after getting them.

Giving away free credits and payables are a good way to entice people. How much to give though? Too much and you lose out on credit purchases. Too little and it would start to look like a pay to play. The sweet spot can only be found through thorough A/B Testing. Ideally, you would want to give enough to leave them more, but not too much to reduce the revenue derived. Give them enough to leave them wanting more.

You can vary the flow of your game too. How do you want players to unlock levels and items? How do you want them to obtain premium credits? What are the crucial things you want your players to learn in the tutorial? Do you even need a tutorial level?

Other non-gameplay related events like sending push notifications, prompt to sign up and social media connect are all important. A/B test to find out how the optimal amount of prompts and notifications you should send.

Engage

How do you engage your audience and how engaging is your content?

Some would say that game design is a science, balanced to keep the challenge and yet reward you sufficiently to make you continue playing. Some would say it’s an art, stemming from free flowing, brilliant and unadulterated creativity. In truth, it is a bit of both. Proper A/B testing is required to find the desired mix of challenge and reward, to fine tune the difficulty level and to adjust the learning curve.

Finding the desired balance of all the above factor is essential to engaging your audience. Keep them hooked on the thrill of overcoming a challenge and obtaining rewards.

Monetize

Tweak your strategy based on your revenue source.

If your primary income is from ads, then increasing the number of players is the logical choice. Do A/B testing for various challenges, events, and current content to see which drives the most activity. An increase in activity and engagement will often create anticipation and peer influence leading to more app installs and sign ups.

If your business model depends on In-App-Purchases (IAP), then you might be losing a significant sum of cash by giving too many freebies too soon. With proper A/B Testing, you can estimate the right amount of free content to keep players on the edge wanting more without hurting your potential revenue.

Have different price points for different enhancements, give discounts and time based offers. Perform A/B testing to find out the prefect ratio of cost to amount. Giving higher discounts for larger package of enhancements leads to an increase in revenue, although not necessarily total amount of sales. All these can be tested to optimize your monetizing strategy.