Full presentation by Pretty Simple's co-founders Corentin Raux and Bastien Cazenave, on designing the virality and retention for the hit social game of investigation Criminal Case. Launched in November 2012, Criminal Case went from 0 to 9 million players in just 6 months, and reached #2 most played game on Facebook by May 2013. Only 2% of all players came from ads, which means a staggering 98% of players discovered and played Criminal Case organically. The popularity of Criminal Case rests in large part on the quality of the game itself, but though this presentation discusses our overall design choices briefly, how to design a good game is (way) beyond its scope. This presentation focuses on the key pillars of the success of Criminal Case: optimizing the first time user experience, designing virality and retention, and understanding their relationship. This presentation is supported by actual examples and numbers from Criminal Case.

1. Corentin Raux and Bastien Cazenave, Co-founders
Casual Connect 2013, San Francisco, CA

2. About us
Pretty Simple was founded in
January 2010
• 3 Games so far
• Team: 45 people
• Top 10 Facebook Games developer

3. My Shops

4. Magical Ride

5. Criminal Case

6. Our games are available
on…
Great online distribution platform
to launch a new game!

7. … And soon on iOS

8. Designing Criminal Case
for
Virality and Retention

9. Concept
Every week, solve a new
investigation with your friends!

10. Game Loop

11. Game Loop
Look for clues

12. Analyze them

13. Arrest the killer!

14. Exceptional Growth
December 2012 June 2012
English
French
German
Spanish
Portuguese
Italian
Turkish
9 Million DAUs

15. Top Popularity
June 2013

16. Exceptional Organic
Growth
Organic 98%
Ads 2%
Organic 98%
Ads 2%

17. How to make this growth
possible?

18. Obviously, you need a
great game

19. We can’t explain how to
create a great game

20. However we can share
our experience

21. 1. We chose a universal and
social theme
Crime Investigation

22. So do I!
So do I!
Meow!
Poor guy…
I must catch his
killer right now!
So do I!

23. 2. We made it casual
People shouldn’t be afraid of losing because
they get stuck during their investigation

24. Imagine…
YOU’RE
a LOSER.
You
Failed!
You
didn’t find the
fingerprint that was
hidden in crime #3.
The killer has
escaped!

25. 3. We designed it with
virality and retention
Think it from the beginning and
make them part of the game

26. Let’s focus on Virality

27. Players must invite
during the first session
Forget everything else!

28. Ideal First Play
Session
Invites!
FUN!
FUN!
FUN!
FUN!

29. Real First Session
Invites!
Confusion

30. Loading Monster
Loadius Monsterus

31. Loading screen conversion rate
Game Weight Impact
10 MB
5 MB
3.5 MB
87%
90%
93%

32. Total weight of Criminal Case: 530 MB
First loading weight: 3.5 MB
Still working to make it 2.5 MB !
Criminal Case Weight

33. Confusion Monster
Confusius Beastius
fig. 2

34. Playtest
Playtest
Playtest
How to make sure people
understand the game?

35. Never help the playtester
PLAYTEST GOLDEN RULE:

36. Clear green action buttons

37. 100% of play testers completed the
first session without any help

38. But only 50% of players
said they liked the game!

39. Tech Issues Monster
Crashius to Desktopius
fig. 3

40. 1. Track every click
2. Observe drops
3. Find the problem
4. Fix it
How to solve tech
issues

41. Criminal Case Tutorial
60%
80%
100%
Step 1 Step 7 Step 8 Step
16
20% USERS DROP

43. 2
Exit Full Screen Mode

44. Case Study
60%
80%
100%
Step 1 Step 7 Step 8 Step
16
NO MORE DROP

45. Criminal Case FTUE
Funnel
35 Steps tracked in the
Criminal Case FTUE
funnel
80%
Step 35
Step 1
100%

46. Invites!
FUN!
FUN!
FUN!
FUN!

47. This is Hard Work
30% of dev time focused on tutorial and
First Time User Experience (FTUE).
Approx. 6 months with 25 people

48. Many devs fail not because they
can’t create a great game but
because most people leave before
seeing it’s a great game!

49. Remember!
Players must invite during their
first session. <- DONE!

50. Now people must
send invites to their friends!

51. 1. Good reason
2. Right timing
3. Ease of use
What makes people invite?

52. Give a Good Reason
RULE NUMBER ONE:
What is the most valuable resource in your game?
In Criminal Case it is Energy.
We promise more Energy

53. Choose the Right Timing
RULE NUMBER TWO:

54. Step 1: desire to continue

55. Step 2: frustration

56. Step 3: Free Energy Opportunity

57. Make it Easy to Invite
RULE NUMBER THREE:

58. Pre-selected friends // Green Button // Progress Bar

59. Now People Send
Invites
!

60. That’s not enough!
In Criminal Case, invites only
account for 50% of total installs

61. In Criminal Case,
we used another channel
Open Graph Stories

62. What is an Open Graph story?

63. 1. Posted automatically
2. Show up in the news feed
3. Aggregated by Facebook
What’s an Open Graph Story?

64. What is an Open Graph story?

65. In Criminal Case,
Open Graph Stories
performed amazingly

66. OG impact on early installs
December 2012 February 2013
5 times more installs from
OG stories than invites
Close to 100k installs/day
from OG stories aloneOG stories Invites
Installs from

67. What is a cool OG story?
• Visually appealing
• Triggers curiosity

68. Criminal Case OG Stories
• INVESTIGATE a crime scene
• WORK ON a murder case
• AUTOPSY a victim
• Etc.

69. How to create performing
Open Graph Stories?

70. Visuals A/B Testing
Which one works best?
+18% clicks

71. Which story title performs better?
Titles A/B Testing
+9% clicks

72. In Criminal Case,
we A/B tested more than
500 images and titles
for Open Graph Stories

73. 660k installs per day!
Virality Results

75. So much for virality.
Now it’s time to
take care of retention!

76. What Makes People
Come Back?
They come back because they get a request or
a notification from the game.
Forget everything else!

77. Retention Channels
• Requests
• Feed posts
• App-to-user notifications

78. Requests – Send Free Energy

79. Avoid Spamming!
People send free energy only to
their friends who are already
playing the game

80. When you accept +2
You send back +1
Receiving Energy
MUTUAL RE-ENGAGEMENT

81. Feed Posts

82. 2

83. Feed Posts

84. Focus on receiver when
using feed posts!

85. Feed Posts

86. Feed Posts
MUTUAL RE-ENGAGEMENT

87. App to User Notifications
Approx. 500k clicks/day
29% CTR

88. Retention Metrics
In Criminal Case
Day 1 retention is approx. 52%
Day 7 retention is approx. 39%

89. Conclusion

90. Retention Virality
Players come back
on Day 1 because they
receive free gifts from the
friends they invited
the day before.
Fact:

91. Virality
Retention

92. There’s no
RETENTION
without
VIRALITY