Struggling to increase CCU for new game

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
#1

Our new game Zombie Zone had peaked at around ~300 CCU right after Christmas day a couple weeks back, but has fallen pretty drastically to an average of maybe ~100 CCU within the last week or so. Ideally we want to get to the level of success that the big zombie games maintain (Zombie Uprising, Zombie Attack, etc) but I am not sure what we are missing right now.

Our stats were recently updated yesterday to use similar experience benchmarks instead of genre, and they are now pretty low in just about every benchmark:

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I think onboarding is definitely are biggest struggle as seen in the low D1 retention, and I believe that it is also negatively affecting our average session time. I playtest all the time to try and see what new players do in the game and I definitely notice a lot of new players leaving after killing a few zombies and not even completing a wave. I have no idea why this happens. I am 100% sure there are no game-breaking bugs that are preventing people from playing, as I test all the time on just about every platform.

It confuses me even more when I see the types of zombie games that have success, like how does this slop game regularly break 1k CCU when we can’t manage 200? Even compared to games like Zombie Attack which have been successful for years, I don’t think there is any major gameplay feature we are lacking to be competitive with them, and our progression is just as good if not much better and more diverse.

I would love to hear any feedback or advice. Thanks in advance!

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#2

Well our session time improved a little bit yesterday, but still not within benchmarks unfortunately:

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I am working on some overhauls to the game’s UI to make it look better on mobile but aside from that I am still not sure what to do to improve onboarding.

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#3

This is what our homepage impressions looked like over the past 30 days:

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I have no idea why it would drop off so much, we did not make any changes to bring stats down after the peak on the 28th.

I find it impossible to believe that games like this have good enough stats to maintain thousands of CCU while our impressions are continuing to fall and we are still losing CCU:

Our gameplay loop is either similar to these games or even much better in some cases and yet they maintain much more success than us. What are we missing?

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#4

I get what you mean a bit, im not giving as much advice but adding on to your concern:

I recentally updated my game Flamethrower Engine and added functions that other developers have done to increase onboarding, play time, and click rate. A year ago, the game was a lacking buggy mess with tons of broken mechanics that had an average of ~300-150 CCU at that point in time. After optimizing the game to fix memory leaks and add replayability, i published the update, then the game dropped in less than a day to 80 CCU (i didnt change the thumbnails at all). The game lagged less, the game was more addicting, had a core loop other than using a horrendous buggy free model flamethrower from 2013, and it wasnt at all pushy on clickbait methods and brainrot.

I then decided that I should change the thumbnails to be a couple inches eye catching (nicer visuals and sleek design), i did so, the click through rate skyrocketed, but the play time dropped to 3 literal minutes. (ps previous playtime was at ~10 minutes). I dont know what happened, but i reverted the thumbnail and nothing changed for the next 30 days.

Present day my game is now around ~7-20 ccu, which is a huge drop. A recent major update I did (that did have a huge memory leak that got fixed in an hour) tanked it down to this level, and im super desperate to know methods as well.

As far as I know in advice, try using roblox’s Analytics system they made to see where players drop off, and for click rate, use thumbnail personalization to see which thumbnail out of many you can make gets the most clicks, will help tons in engagement.

As for the slop game you mentioned, i get what you mean. Their playerbase on the other hand probably consists of 5-8 year olds where bright colors hook their eyes. Their game also has probably little built on to it, which can help very lower end devices run the game smoothly. This is why low poly simulators exist.

PS school did also just start in many regions which could contribute to the drop.

I hope the best for you!

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#5

your game has low ccu because your tutorial is broken

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#6

Tried it on like 2 alts today, it worked for me, thats weird.

Ill check it out, thank you though!

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#7

I am not sure what he saw, but the issue I experienced was the arrow telling me to go to the shop when I was unable to get back up to the starting area without resetting.

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#8

you gotta use the tool jetpack thing

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#9

found out, it didnt hand out coins for the tutorial, whoops!

#10

You have a good point about school starting back, I have thought of that too and I am sure that has something to do with it, but I still think it’s been a very drastic drop in impressions even taking that into consideration. I am just not sure what other factors would’ve played into it.

#11

Maybe you just need to be more unique. Why would people play your game over theirs? If players already have their data over there, is it really worth it for them to switch over to your game and lose everything, while getting the same if not worse experience?

#12

There is no worse experience. The OP asked for tips and or advice, or a reasoning behind their game having a significant drop in players. Players losing their data does not apply to literally anything, it’s not like if you play the game the OP was developing for, all your progress gets wiped for every other zombie survival game, what are you trying to imply?

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#13

As well the game has a unique style and isn’t a ripoff of any game I can think of; it’s a vast zombie survival game where you can collect new weapons and probably do many other things that other games do not provide. If the game in question was another simulator where you use labor pets to mine coins, then I would get your point, but this game is unique in its way.

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#14

Have you played the game lol? We have many unique aspects. I was simply naming the other games because they are examples of similar games with similar gameplay loops. Also, being unique is clearly not a requirement for success on Roblox when there are so many ripoff games that achieve massive success constantly, just look at the Squid Game trend right now.

There are clearly some factors that are influencing our low stats which do not have to do with our core game concept of being a zombie survival game / shooter. There will always be simple games like that which achieve success, and I am confident that Zombie Zone has the foundation and potential to be among those successes. I am looking for actionable feedback and ideas for practical changes we can make to improve the game, not just “be unique.”

#15

My point is, you need something that’s worth switching over for. That’s the simple answer. You can’t expect players to play your game over theirs for just no reason. What’s your specialty? That’s what you need to figure out

#16

I understand, but that is something we have already considered many times and we have adopted multiple features which are our specialties compared to the other big zombie games. I believe our issues now lie with small QoL things or just small features we have (or don’t have) that I wouldn’t think about due to having played the game for so long. This is why I am looking for actionable and practical feedback on specific ways to improve the game.

I also know that the majority of our issues come from mobile players, and while they do make up the majority of the Roblox playerbase, they also play for much shorter sessions (on average) and bring our average session time down (likely other stats as well). I test all the time on mobile so I am not sure what is causing the issues there, which is why I am asking for input.

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