PC and Console gamers have always had great features and strong communities on their side. The same is not the case with mobile gamers and communities. But with the latest technological developments, mobile gaming has been seeing astonishing growth. Mobile gamers, like other gamers, like to be part of a community. They want to compete and compare with their friends and constantly challenge others.
Every day new features are added to your favorite games. Most of these features focus on developing the game’s social side to make the player feel more involved. Even traditional genres like puzzle match games can reach a new level of popularity. For example, Candy crush has adopted guilds and is now among the elitist games. Thanks to the pandemic and lockdown, when people started to feel the need for social interactions, they found their way to mobile games. Online casino games are recently in demand among users. Websites like strafe.com are used for checking branded reviews and deriving the best games with time. Casino games have evolved over time. Even though the lockdown is over now, mobile games are still one of the most preferred ways for people to interact with society, apart from all the social media and communication apps.
Effects of social features on Mobile games
Social features can have multiple effects when appropriately used. People like to compete all the time. Features like leaderboards, inviting and playing against your friends, and comparing scores give you a sense of competition. Along with it, you feel like a part of the group. When met with a community of similar interests and playing styles, you feel motivated to stay active and keep moving with the group. Also, features like inviting players to the same server or room and sharing their achievements on social media make it more attractive. It boosts the game’s marketable surplus. All these features positively impact user retention and increase revenue as well.
So here are some of the best gameplay features and how it increases and impacts the player and the developers.
In Game Chat
In today’s time, when you want to socialize, chatting and texting on social media is the first thing that comes to mind. In-game chat allows you to communicate in-game. You can use texts and emotes to share with your partners and team members. You can make it more personal by using the voice chat feature. It especially helps new players understand the features and gameplay. Experienced players use the voice chat feature to communicate strategies and tactics during the match. It doesn’t matter how you use it and what you make of it, but the in-game chat feature makes it easy to connect and socialize with players and new people.
Linking Social Media
Today, almost every other game asks you to link your social media account to the in-game ID. You get a pop-up asking to continue with Facebook, Gmail, or Apple ID or play as a guest. By linking your social media to the game, you can track your friends’ progress, invite them to join in the same room, and share your achievements as well. Many games offer rewards and incentives to connect your social media accounts. For those who log in as guests, the game keeps notifying and asking them to connect their IDs and claim the rewards. But this is not the same with every game. Some games let you engage with them for some time, and when you start liking them, they then ask you to log in with your socials.
Leaderboards
Adding a leaderboard is the best idea if you want to add a competitive element to the game. Leaderboards rank players based on their achievements, the number of matches won, total reward points, and many other factors. Leaderboards show different rankings of different regions. You can see your rankings in global leaderboards, country leaderboards, event leaderboards, and PvP vs Friends leaderboards. The competition allows players to spend more time and some real-life money too.
Bottom Line
Creating a mobile game may seem very easy, but you need to consider many things to improve the users’ overall experience. Without the player’s satisfaction, it’s hard to develop a game. You need to keep adding features and taking feedback to understand what they want. These are some of the most important features that improve the gameplay for the players and are also beneficial for them. A good gaming app lacking features is not only compromising on a good structure but also a potential audience.
