If you’re a game developer searching for better results for your games, one of the key metrics you should focus on is session duration. This metric measures the average length of time a user spends playing your game, from start to finish.
At Helika, we’ve seen that session duration is one of the most important factors in determining a game’s success. As the leading game analytics company, we have helped many game developers improve their session duration and achieve better results. Ultimately, a good session duration directly correlates to user engagement and retention in the game industry which leads to better revenues for your game.
What is Session Duration?
Session duration refers to the amount of time a user spends actively engaged with your game. It starts when a user opens your game and ends when they close it. This metric is crucial in understanding how long users are spending in your game, the number of times they return to play, and their overall experience with your game.
In the highly competitive gaming industry, having a high average session duration is crucial for success. A longer session duration means that players are spending more time playing and engaging with your game, potentially leading to higher retention rates. It also indicates that users find your game interesting and enjoyable enough to play for an extended period.
With this analysis, we’ve helped leading game studios such as ArenaX Labs increase the total time users spent playing their games while providing practical advice for improving game design elements without hindering the storytelling or gameplay. If you’d like to learn more about this partnership, read this case study here.
Helika designed its analytics to perfectly align with AI Arena’s unique needs. These bespoke insights allowed AI Arena to consistently enhance gameplay, elevating both the player experience and the performance of its AI models. By partnering with Helika as Ai Arena’s analytics business extension, the company saved an impressive $300k, eliminating the need for in-house data analysts and engineers.
We’re now going to share some practical tips for increasing session duration below but if you’d like to focus on doing what you’re great at (building games) while partnering with Helika as your analytics business extension, feel free to contact us today!
How To Increase Average Session Length In Games
There are many factors that increase the average session length in games as well as ‘friction’ or ‘painpoints’ that can decrease it. Here are some practical tips for game developers to improve session duration:
Better User Experience
Factors such as loading times, crashes, and bugs can negatively impact the user experience and lead to players losing interest in the game. It’s crucial for game developers to prioritize optimizing these areas to ensure a smooth and enjoyable gaming experience for their users.
Improving Landing Pages
Whether it be the main menu of the game or in-game menus, developers should focus on making these pages visually appealing and easy to navigate. This not only enhances the user experience but also encourages players to spend more time exploring the game.
Increase User Engagement
Players are more likely to continue playing a game if they find it interesting and engaging. Game developers should focus on creating content that keeps the user invested in the gameplay, such as immersive storytelling or competitive multiplayer modes. Even small features such as audio can make a big difference in keeping players engaged for longer periods. Be attention oriented towards all senses!
Personalization
Incorporating personalization in games can greatly increase the average session length. This can include customizing avatar appearances, in-game choices that affect gameplay, or even personalized rewards for players. When users feel a sense of ownership and connection to the game, they are more likely to invest their time and effort into it.
Reward Strategy
Incorporating rewards, such as unlocking new levels or items, can incentivize players to continue playing the game. However, it’s important to strike a balance and avoid making rewards too easy or too difficult to attain. This will ensure that players stay engaged and motivated without becoming frustrated.
Community Building
Creating a community around the game can greatly impact session duration. Players who are part of a community feel a sense of belonging and are more likely to invest their time into the game. Developers can encourage community building by incorporating features such as in-game chat, forums, or social media integration.
Regular Updates
Regular updates and new content can keep players interested and engaged in the game. This can include new levels, characters, challenges, or events. By consistently providing new content, developers can create anticipation and a sense of excitement for players to continue playing.
Creating a ‘Flow State’ For Players
Have you ever had so much fun that time just seemed to fly by? This is known as being in a ‘flow state’, where you are completely immersed and focused on the task at hand. To enter this state of mind, the gameplay can’t be too challenging but it also can’t be too easy as that gets boring. As the player progresses, and their skills developed, the game can gradually increase in difficulty to maintain this flow state.
At Helika, we don’t just aggregate data but we keep in mind human behaviour alongside this data. By doing so, we can share practical advice on when to increase the game’s difficulty ensure an optimal flow state, and as a result a longer session duration.
Session Duration (Marketing Your Games)
As a game developer, it’s easy to get caught up in the creative aspects of designing and developing your game. However, it’s important to also pay attention to the marketing side of things in order to ensure the success of your game. One crucial aspect of marketing that often gets overlooked is website analytics and specifically, session duration.
Even during the marketing funnel of your game, session duration plays a significant role. Let’s dive into why it matters and how you can use it to your advantage. First and foremost, session duration is an important metric that provides valuable insights into user behavior on your website. It measures the amount of time a user spends on your website or landing page before either exiting or becoming inactive for a certain period of time.
Imagine you’re doing organic marketing for your game and a piece of content goes viral. Thousands of interested new potential players visits your profile and sees a link in your bio. It takes them to your game’s website. This is where session duration comes in – you want these users to stay engaged and interested in your website’s offering.
If the session duration is low (without conversions), it could indicate that your website or landing page is not engaging enough and needs to be improved. It could be a UX issue or the content on your website is not resonating with your target audience. By analyzing session duration, you can identify these issues and make necessary improvements to increase engagement and conversion rates.
Also known as a high bounce rate, if users are leaving your website quickly without taking any actions or exploring further, it could be a sign that your marketing efforts are not reaching the right audience. Further diagnostics can reveal the underlying cause of the problems but session duration serves as an initial indicator.
A tool such as google analytics can uncover key performance indicators such as session duration of a web page. A single session could be a few seconds or even last up to half an hour. This metric can help you understand the average time spent on your website by users, and you can compare it to industry standards or your own previous performance.
Search engines favor sites that can keep users engaged for longer periods of time, so optimizing your session duration can also help improve your website’s search engine ranking.
But there is a caveat.
Length of time spent on a website does not always equate to new users for your game. If you’re a mobile game company and you have a link that redirects to the app store, ideally, you’d want to have users find the link and spend a short amount of time on your website before being redirected.
As you can see, it’s not just about having a high session duration, but also understanding the context and purpose of your website. A bigger picture analysis can help you make informed decisions for your marketing strategy and website design.
The problem is that many game developers and marketers find is that despite having data such as a low session duration or high bounce rate, they may not know how to interpret the data and make necessary changes. This is where user behavior analysis comes into play as Helika’s professional team can clearly explain what metrics to look for and how to take corrective actions.
Final Thoughts
Session duration matters. But what matters more is how you interpret that data and improve upon your existing strategies, whether it be retaining players or increasing your new active user base. It’s a metric that we don’t want to ignore and at Helika, we’ve seen how improvements in session duration can lead to significant results for our clients. Don’t just track your session duration, analyze it and learn from a team of experts to see the full potential of your gaming studio.
We’re ready to learn more about your project as we share a passion for bringing the best games to the market. Contact us today to see how we can help you achieve your goals.
