Retention, Part One: Leaderboards

by Sanya Weathers

Marketing reels ‘em in, but community keeps ‘em around. Welcome to the Wednesday Mod Squad series on retention. Or, as I like to call it, 101 Things You Can Do With String. That’s because long after a budget is blown on shiny ads and booth babes, a community team will still be coming up with stuff to do.

But our first topic is best served if your community team works closely with a programmer. Let me back up. When you boil down any question relating to “why do people do what they do,” the answer is a variation on “because it makes them happy.” So when you’re looking into ways to retain customers, the question and answer should always be “what will make the greatest number of people happy?”

Mix that with a little Maslow, and frankly, you don’t need me, you should be able to come up with endless possibilities. But bookmark this series if you’re busy trying to make and launch a game.

Achievement, respect, and a sense that time spent on your product is not time wasted can all be checked off with leaderboards, or whatever you want to call your comparative ranking system. Here are some of the things you need for maximum effect:

–    Rank everyone. If I’m the 46512th best point getter, then I want to see that number when I click on my name.

–    Rank everything. Don’t settle for “the top ten people who have the most points.” If you do that, you’ve limited the retention factor of your leaderboard system to a few dozen people. Sure, have the top ten people with the most points, but don’t neglect the top people of each level, each class, each race, each region, each specialty, each weapon type, each gender (if applicable), and each age (if verified). Rank the guilds. Rank the unaffiliated. The more leaderboards you have, the more people you have who can be the best at something.

–    Make the rankings portable. With one click, give your players the chance to create a badge with their personal best and the date, and put that badge anywhere they want to put it. Put your rankings into data feeds that guild leaders and fansites can use to create their own displays and comparative standings. Let users click a check box to display their favorite thing on their forum signature files.

–    Integrate the rankings in the game itself. Set up a feedback loop to maximize the value to the user for appearing in the rankings. Make the rankings part of what players see when they /inspect each other. Reinforce your core game value: If your game has PVP components, turn the names of the top killers purple; if your focus is on crafting, turn your top crafter names gold.

–    Build yourself a back door. The downside to leaderboards is that there are people who will cheat their pants off to be #1. You need to be able to suspend people from the standings during investigation, and to remove their scores from the lists if you find yourself needing to bring down the banhammer. Nothing is more demoralizing (and worse for retention) than for known cheaters to dominate the records long after the cheater is banned.