Are paid mods included?
Bad tycoons have limited/no replayability. Good tycoons, like Roller Coaster Tycoon, don’t. The problem is current tycoons do not have scenarios or variables that make replaying it interesting, or they lack rewarding the player for learning how the game works.
By the way just throwing this out there but last time I read Game Informer - Replay value was a rating they had on every game.
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Tell that to superhero tycoon.
I really love that you’ve created this thread 
I wanted to reply but at the same time I wanted a topic to start on my new blog, so I thought… Hey I’ll post this there so even developers outside of the Dev forums can see!
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This is a very good thread.
I’d like to point something out from my personal experience, it doesn’t truly matter if the game-play itself isn’t linear, in place of that can be a skill curve - take games like bhop by @Quaternions.
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This seems backwards. Minecraft and terraria are so replayable because each playthrough is unique. It has nothing to do with their progression systems. AR and PF are highly replayable for the same reasons. Progression systems are inherently not replayable. Once you’ve bought a car in Jailbreak you can’t buy it again, for example. You have to start working toward another car, and eventually that content stream will run out.
The key to replayable content is to design a content stream that doesn’t run out. Roblox does this with UGC games. Skyrim does this with mods. Minecraft does this with a good procedural world generator. Youtube does this with UGC videos. Google does this with UGC everything. This is why these games and platforms have existed and remained popular for over a decade. Games with limited content streams (undertale, half life, pokemon, 2048, flappy bird) fade into obscurity once the content runs out.
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Great article! Any chance you could put this in the tutorial section? I’d love to share this with friends.
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what do you mean
Would it be possible for you to copy this thread and put it in #tutorials? It’s a really great post and I want to share this with some of my friends/partners who aren’t on the DevForum.
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This might be a good idea, although instead of copying it over into a new thread, @preacher_online can just move the thread to the Tutorials section. You can do this by hitting the pencil icon next to the title, and then selecting a new category for your post (i.e. the Tutorials section, as suggested by antonio).
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oh I see what you mean, I’ll try it out
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This is a good overview and introduction to the very complex subject of player retention.
What keeps people playing Minecraft is quite different from what keeps people playing Chess or Overwatch, and that relates to what people want out of games. As Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types neatly outlines, what attracts the four basic types of players (Explorers, Killers, Socializers and Achievers) to games differs and thus what keeps them playing will also differ.
But they all tie back to one concept which the OP broke into 5 parts, different kinds of depth. In Minecraft explorers see vast lands to dig into (literally), in Overwatch killers have many varieties of play styles and dynamic maps in which the actions of players are constantly changing situations, in Chess achievers have simple rules that lead to amazing complexity while games like Work at a Pizza Place provide working social structures for those who like to socialize.
Naturally the lines are often blurred. Minecraft also appeals to achievers who find a complex crafting system with which to build vast cities or complex machines and killers find survival mode with it’s varied monsters and leveling system fun while socializers can jump into multiplayer instances and build their ideal social space.
It’s always interesting to go to the top games list on Roblox and see if you can determine which player type(s) each game appeals to and how they provide depth to those players.
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Thanks a ton! This’ll help me a lot when planning my projects!
i don’t think this thread needs to exist
there are almost infinite intricate levels of replayability factors which apply to players on personal levels (even if they may overlap with other people)
everyone very much likes to sound smart talking about their sharp observations made from being a cool gamer, but you could probably pull any bogus argument out of your head for/against replayability as long as you find a game you’ve played more than once that includes such a factor.
you’re negating the layers of complexity involved with making a product that easily propels people back towards it by trying to truncate it, ever. such a short investigation does this issue a disservice and will misinform those that read it.
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Like everything else in game design, the best you can do is an educated guess about what you think will succeed. Reading about other people’s opinions is a great way to get useful information that can lead you to good solutions.
This thread isn’t designed to be a comprehensive guide on how to make any game retain every player forever. You have to figure out how to do that on your own, and reading about other people have to say is a great way to get on the right track.
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my argument is that no matter what you say you can make it apply to replayability because of how low the standards we are applying here.
a proper argument must be as comprehensive as possible, otherwise we are making bare-boned guesses that will misinform and disservice replayability theory. which is what i see as a lot more harm than good.
This is what a forum is. People post their opinions, right or wrong, then everyone discusses them. If you want a comprehensive and definitive answer then you should look elsewhere.
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this should not be a tutorial if it is not going to properly instruct people
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I kinda disagree with you saying that CS GO doesn’t have infinity replayability even though it meets all of the 5 points you discussed.