Keeping Players Engaged: Common Strategies for Daily Login By Top Studios

Michael Kopelovich
ironSource LevelUp
Published in
3 min readMay 21, 2023
Mech Arena by Plarium

If you’ve ever played a mobile game, you’re likely familiar with the concept of daily login rewards. These rewards are a common strategy used by game developers to incentivize players and keep them coming back for more. The ultimate goal of this strategy is to increase player retention and loyalty, similar to a positive reinforcement system.

In this article, we’ll take an inside look at how daily login rewards are used in mobile games and explore the various strategies employed by game developers to make them effective.

1. Back to Square One

A common model used by game developers is when players break their daily login streak, they are reset to “square one”. This can be demotivating for players, as it is often interpreted as a punishment, so you have to consider this in advance and see if it aligns with your game strategy.

Family Island by Melsoft

2. Keeping the Streak Alive

A more forgiving model often used by top studios is allowing users to maintain their daily streak, even if they didn’t log in for consecutive days, without resetting them to day one. This approach avoids punishing players and eliminates the need for them to start from scratch. As demonstrated in the example below, I intentionally didn’t log in, but my daily streak remained unbroken.

Raid by Plarium

3. Restore Streak

A very interesting model that enables users who have broken their streak to maintain it by providing them the option to utilize in-game currency, such as coins or diamonds, to restore their place back in the daily streak, regardless of any non-login days.

4. Bonus Multiplier

This monetization model gives the user the option to see an ad in exchange for multiplying their daily bonus. This can be a great opportunity to monetize players who are willing to watch video ads in exchange for a bonus reward, such as an x2 multiplier.

Cooking Madness by ZenLife Games

Conclusion

In summary, daily login rewards are essential for mobile game retention and engagement. Developers should A/B test different strategies, analyze results, and be open to adjustments for optimal player experience.

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