Hello folks.
I have been noticing a pretty significant problem with player retention lately and I
figured I would share this with you all. Maybe we can brainstorm some ideas as a team.
Here is a graph taken from the server analytics site:
I’ll explain the obvious first so we’re all on the same page: This graph shows the retention
statistics of players in the last 7 seven days. The trend appears to be similar when looking at the
statistics from the previous 30 days as well. For whatever reason, new players are joining,
playing for a day, and then not coming back - or at least that is what the majority is doing. While
it would be completely unrealistic to expect every new player who joins to become regular
players, I think the rate at which we are seeing new players NOT return regardless of statistics
is a bit too high at the moment.
We also have an issue with our regular players just logging off one day and not coming back. As
you can see above, 22 of our previously regular players have become inactive. Maybe they’re
burnt out - I’m sure that’s common - but I also feel that maybe they just don’t feel as engaged in
the server. Maybe it’s gotten repetitive to them and they’ve lost interest. I have noticed that even
on our Saturday events the player count isn’t what it used to be.
Note in the statistics above how not only are regular players falling off, but our current regular
playerbase is also decreasing their playtime per session. Though the amount is minimal, also
take into account the fact that those numbers are an average of all regular players.
It doesn’t take a graph to see it. Happens all the time. The player joins, walks around spawn, or
even /rtp’s and then leaves. Yea, sure maybe the server isn’t really for them and they wanted to
check it out, which is probably the most common case, but I feel like if there was potentially
more pulling them in and getting them hooked, they would likely stick around longer.
When I first joined, it was relatively easy for me to stay because the server had everything I was
looking for:
- Smaller-Medium sized playerbase
- Friendly players
- No stress environment
- Effort put into it (custom plugins, crates, unique economy, etc.)
I liked the fact that when I first joined, a bunch of people welcomed me and even gave me some
stuff to get started. I think a welcoming playerbase is super important to player retention on
servers like these, it’s just not something we can control as a staff team, however we can set the
example and all by doing it (like we already do).
That’s where WE should come in as a staff team. I think we should not only be assisting the
playerbase and enforcing the rules, but we should also be trying to grow the community as a
whole. Let’s brainstorm ideas on how we can create more of a reason for new folks to stick
around. Minecraft servers used to be very simple and straight forward (I remember the majority
of them just running essentials and some extra land protection plugins…very minimal effort.)
which made it very easy for ones like this (custom plugins, events, items, etc.) to stand out
which also enabled the server’s playerbase to grow exponentially. Now, there are a lot more of
these kinds of servers around, so I personally think it might take a little extra to stand out from
the crowd. We can have players vote for the server, make the forum posts, have our regulars
regularly donate and all, but I feel that we need to be stepping out of our comfort zones with
some creative ideas to keep pushing the community to grow. Also, while we’re at it, we should
also come up with some good ideas to keep current player count high. I’ve been talking about
sponsoring more giveaways myself, potentially for rewarding the player with the highest amount
of active playtime for the month and whatnot.
It may seem cheesy to some of you, but if that’s the case, I’m not concerned with what you
think! It may only be a Minecraft server that we spend some time on when we aren’t busy with
our usual lives, but I think it’s cool to put effort into every little thing I do, even if it is something
as minimal as being a staff member on a Minecraft server. That doesn’t mean I’m looking to run
the server like the damn Navy by any means. I definitely think it's important as staff to not
tolerate rules being broken, but I think we should definitely be making ourselves more available
to the playerbase. Some of you may not realize it, but a lot of kids still do play Minecraft, and
they do play on our server. It may sound silly, but I remember being a bit intimidated by the staff
members on the server I played on as a kid. For no particular reason, I was just a kid and a bit
dumb. That’s something I like to keep in mind when dealing with folks on our server. People are
more prone to relax and stick around if they know the staff on the server are super chill and they
won’t rip them a new one or take a situation too seriously.
Anyways, that was my presentation for today lol. If you’re down to put some effort in, let’s get a
think tank going. Here’s what I am contributing to this whole effort:
- I will regularly track playerbase statistics
- I will sponsor more giveaways (ideally ones that reward playtime, but not just playtime,
maybe player referrals and whatnot.)
- I will do a better job of engaging with the active playerbase and making myself more
available to them (self-improvement)