I recently launch my game and started paying a bit for ads on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. This has resulted in some new users trying out my game.

The majority of users download the game but never create a user. I am not so concerned about the dropoff between app download and create user. There is a good chance bots are involved. Out of the 1% that do create a user, a third of those users never create a doggo. Out of the ones that do create a doggo, about half never kill their first enemy.

Here’s is a diagram to show how many users are left after each experience:

I am concerned about the remaining 10 people who choose to create a user but don’t end up playing the game. How do we reduce the number of people who stop using the app before they even try out the game?

As an engineer, I am focused on making things work. The psychology of the player is only briefly on my mind as I create a feature. To reduce friction in the UX and therefore dropoff rates, it has to be a focus and top of mind. This is so important that many companies have teams of UX engineers dedicated to this.

For small shop like us, let’s focus on reducing the number of clicks it takes to get from user creation to gameplay. Let’s take a look at the old user journey for this on version 1.3.6:

Above is the illustration of all the screens that the user needs to go through before they can start playing. Here’s all the actions required to go through those screens:

• Click Start.
• Click Create User.
• Input new Username and Password.
• Click Submit.
• Wait for Success screen.
• Click Back.
• Input new Username and Password in Login screen.
• Click Login.
• Click Create Doggo.
• Select Doggo type.
• Click Submit.
• Input doggo name.
• Click Submit.
• Wait for Success screen.
• Click Back.
• Click Select.
• Select a Tower.
• Wait for cutscene.

Yikes! That is way too many screens to go through and too many actions required to start playing! No wonder we have such a high dropoff rate.

After lots of planning, whiteboarding, and redevelopment, here is the new user journey from account creation to gameplay that is available as of the latest version 1.5.15:

• Click Start.
• Click Create User.
• Input new Username and Password.
• Wait for loading screen.
• Input Doggo name and Select Doggo type in the same screen.
• Click Create.
• Wait for loading screen.
• Select Tower.
• Wait for cutscene.

Much better! We’ve reduced the number of screens by half!

This change has reduced the dropoff rate significantly. In fact analytics show that MOST users that create an account, also try out the gameplay! Here is the updated dropoff rates after this change:

Great success! We’ve more than doubled the number of users who play from 3 to 8!

If you want your game to be successful, spend time and resources on UX. It is worth it.