Our First-Time User Experience (FTUE) Toolkit explores the best practices for onboarding players across markets. This report is based on our analysis of the FTUEs of 26 leading casual, core, and casino apps.
For this analysis, we playtested the first six 15-minute sessions of each app and extensively documented our experience with each session. We also bought the first two starter IAPs offered by each app.
We found that successful FTUEs:
- Get players playing as quickly as possible.
- Teach primarily through gameplay rather than text.
- Highlight unique core mechanics, progression systems, or rewards.
- Offer players their first IAP within the first few sessions of gameplay.
- Contain starter IAPs with exceptional value for early resources.
In addition to the main report, the FTUE Toolkit includes three supporting documents: a Teardown Document, a Progression Log, and a Retention Data Sheet.
The Teardown Document contains detailed breakdowns and image galleries of the FTUEs for 26 leading apps. The Progression Log contains all of the data from our playtesting sessions, including what features, tutorials, and IAP offers appeared at each stage of the FTUE. The Retention Data Sheet contains retention data for all apps tracked by Liquid & Grit and also includes comparisons to genre, subgenre and market averages.
We recommend starting with the main report for our key findings before moving to the Teardown Document and Progression Log for examinations of individual apps.
