Optimizing your game for retention and LTV essentially means lowering your churn rate.
In fact, retention and churn rate are two faces of the same coin: if one rises, the other lowers.
But how do you make sure your players aren’t abandoning your game after a few days?
In this guide, we provide you with simple, actionable steps that you can implement to lower your churn rate and make your players stay.
How to Calculate Churn Rate
To calculate your churn rate percentage – which is the percentage of users who abandon a game – you first select a given period of time (D1, D7, D14, D30, for example).
Then you see how many users there were at the beginning of that period and how many are left at the end, and you divide those by the initial number of users.
Let’s make an example.
Your game has 150 installs on D1 and, by D7, 100 users are still playing.
In this case, the churn rate is:
(150-100)/150 = 0.33 x 100 = 33%
How to Analyze Your Churn Rate: Go to the Root of the Problem
Now that you have your churn rate, let’s understand how to analyze it.
In order to find a solution, you first need to know what is causing players to churn.
Some common causes of churn are:
- A poor first impression: Maybe the UX isn’t seamless, or your game doesn’t reflect the ads. Maybe the tutorial is confusing, or your game doesn’t spark immediate curiosity.
- A bad tutorial: A tutorial that drags for too long and is confusing can make your players leave before they even start playing.
- An aggressive monetization strategy: Having too many ads can definitely make your users churn in no time.
Core Metrics to Analyze Your Churn Rate
Retention Windows (D1, D7, D30)
For apps, we usually calculate churn on a monthly basis. For games, this is a bit different.
We use retention windows to analyze churn rate. For example, common retention windows are:
- D1, the first day. A good D1 retention benchmark is anything higher than 45%. If it’s lower than that, you should review your onboarding process.
- D7, the first week. A good retention for D7 should be around 20%. This gives you a hint that players find your game interesting and have returned steadily throughout the week.
- D30, the first month. D30 retention varies greatly, depending on the genres. Usually, a good benchmark is 6-10%, but it can be lower for hypercasual or casual games.
You should be looking out for any dramatic drop in the first week.
For example, if you notice that many players are abandoning the game at the tutorial stage, then it’s time to revisit it.
DAU and MAU
Daily active users (DAU) and monthly active users (MAU) are strictly tied to retention.
If your DAU and MAU are stable, then it means that your game is engaging and your players return regularly.
On the other hand, strong fluctuations in the number of DAU and MAU suggest that something in your game is making players leave.
Session Frequency and Session Length
Session frequency refers to the number of times a user opens your game. Session length to how many minutes the session lasts.
Here, the data can differ based on the game genre:
- Casual and hypercasual games tend to have high session frequency and lower session length.
- Midcore games aim for longer sessions, even if less frequent.
You should look out for any sudden drop: if your session length or frequency drops after two or three days, this likely means that players are bored or find your game too difficult, and they churn.
Time to Churn
Time to churn highlights the moment when your players abandon the game.
For example, you may notice that a certain percentage of players all stop playing at a specific level.
This may suggest that the level is too hard to complete, causing frustration in the players.
Time to churn is the perfect metric to guide your optimization process, because it allows you to identify when your players are dropping off and act accordingly.
How to Decrease Your Churn Rate
So, once you’ve identified the main issues, what can you do to lower your churn rate?
Optimize Onboarding
According to statistics, 73% of players leave a game after D1. Optimizing onboarding and tutorials is vital to make sure they won’t churn.
- Keep the tutorial concise and introduce your players to the game gradually.
- If suitable, add the option to skip the tutorial.
- Immediately show your players what makes your game fun and interesting.
An example of successful onboarding optimization is Lumbercraft, a hyper‑casual game launched in 2021 by Noor Games.
The game was experiencing a low D1 retention, and most of the players were abandoning the game after the first day.
So they took a bold decision: to change the core gameplay entirely.
Instead of focusing on the fighting element, they expanded the village-building loop.
This brought D1 retention to 62%.
Balance Progression and Level Difficulty
When levels are too difficult, they often cause frustration. But when they are too easy to complete, then the game isn’t challenging enough.
Analytics can shed some light on which levels are causing players to churn.
You can use that data to adjust the difficulty and progression to find the right balance.
A great example of this is Block Blast.
The game uses machine learning and A/B tests to automatically adjust the game difficulty and keep it just hard enough to be challenging, but not frustrating.
Add Rewards
Adding rewards can be an effective way to reduce your churn rate. Players are more likely to return to a game when they know there’s something valuable waiting for them.
Daily login bonuses, milestone rewards, and achievement systems create a sense of progression and give players a reason to come back regularly.
The key is to make rewards feel meaningful without overwhelming players. Start with generous early rewards to hook new players, then gradually space them out as players progress.
You can also consider integrating an offerwall, a type of rewarded advertising that rewards users for completing specific tasks.
Rewarded advertising is growing in popularity, and certain formats have proven highly effective for retention.
For example, after integrating Play2Earn, a playtime-based offerwall that rewards users for time spent in advertised games, 707 Interactive saw a +288% lift in D7 retention.
Test LiveOps and Fresh Content
LiveOps and fresh content are essential for keeping your game feeling dynamic and preventing churn.
The beauty of LiveOps is that you can test what resonates with your audience, like weekly tournaments, special game modes for holidays, or community challenges.
For example, Honor of Kings frequently updates its gameplay with new characters, limited-time events and special matches, to keep its audience engaged.
Conclusion
Reducing churn is an ongoing process that requires constant attention to your metrics and willingness to experiment.
Data are your best friend here. Analyze every step, think of how you can improve them.
At the end of the day, even a small improvement in retention translates into higher LTV and a more sustainable game.
