This article originally ran on game design site The Game Prodigy.  Visit for more resources on game design.

“A lot of our level 23 players are dropping.”

“I know!  What’s going on?”

“Not sure yet.  Maybe the items in the store are too expensive?  Maybe the XP level is too high?  But we need to figure it out…soon.”

Social games are, despite the massive successes that have taken place, a tough industry.  When I was working in social games then there was always the threat of “player death”, that is that players would, for whatever reason, stop playing all of the sudden.  It was dangerous, and it was deadly.  And it was a threat for all players, from levels 1-100.  Reducing player attrition and keeping players having fun enjoying the game was always a top priority.

This is one of the biggest concerns for microtransaction-supported games.  Retail titles are one purchase ($50-60 USD) and done, it doesn’t matter how far players play the game after purchasing it. From a financial standpoint, as long as they plunked down the cash, the game was a success (unless they gave it bad reviews which influenced future purchasers).

But many microtransaction-supported titles, like Facebook social games, rely on their players continuing to play in order to continue to make more in-game purchases over time.  Thus, the risk for online titles like this is not that players won’t buy the game, it’s that they’ll stop playing.  And this can happen at any moment.

Social game developers are always looking for ways to keep players coming back.  One common way to do so is by offering in-game incentives based on players logging in, which we’ll look at here.

Game Design: Daily Bonuses

Applicable Platforms: Facebook, MySpace, other online platforms

Applicable Experiences: Returning to game each day

A Daily Bonus is a great way to keep players coming back, a technique that’s used in many of Facebook’s more successful titles.  After enticing them with the game and getting them to come back on a second day, most games can pop up a Daily Bonus to make players excited to come back to the game each day after that.

Daily Bonus in Playdom’s City of Wonder

In City of Wonder, by Playdom, players see different icons on the side of the screen enticing them to click.  If the player hasn’t logged in in the last 24 hours, then they see a small twinkling bag:

After clicking, the player is prompted with a screen that runs them through a whole number of benefits that they receive for “Around the Game” activities.  While most rewards in the game (and in other games) are for activities done inside the title, this section is dedicated to rewarding the player for actions they perform that are outside of the game.

While the other aspects (Like Bonus, Email Bonus) are noteworthy, we’ll talk about them in a different post.  We’ll discuss two sections: the Daily Bonus and the Come Back Bonus, which are distinct.

Daily Bonus. At the top is the Daily Bonus.  In City of Wonder, as in most other popular Facebook social games, players receive in-game currency from performing various tasks and then spend the currency for rewards.  For example, spending coins to purchase new buildings and grow their city.

While using the same in-game currency, this Daily Bonus is different.  It is designed to encourage players to log in every day; by giving players something that resets every 24 hours, players have a chance to gain currency, or more importantly, they miss out on a chance to gain currency if they don’t log back in each day.

Come Back Bonus. In addition to the Daily Bonus, this retention feature also gives players something to look forward to.  On Day I players receive a small 100 Coin Bonus for logging in.  The window shows that more will be given if they log in consecutively for up to 5 days.

This first Day 1 reward immediately makes players happy that they’ve logged in that day, and the Day 2 and Day 3 on serve to make players mark their calendars to come back in the future for even bigger rewards.  This, compounded with the already substantial Daily Bonus, makes the incentive to come back very compelling.

One important note here is that rewards for Daily Bonuses must be enticing to the player for them to be effective.  High level players, for example, may have far too many coins to care about the small amounts given by the bonuses (which are effective for lower level players).  Or, if players haven’t gotten into the game enough to enjoy the benefit of coins, which is why Daily Bonus benefits aren’t often used the first time players load a game.

Daily Bonus in Zynga’s Cafe World

There are other variations to the Daily Bonus design.  Cafe World builds on the theme of a Come Back Bonus by explicity showing what the player will receive each day for returning (while City of Wonder keeps it hidden).  This serves to make the incentive even stronger, because players will be looking forward to what they receive.

Giving a daily bonus is a simple way for social game developers to keep players coming back.  Sophisticated systems that help players look forward to the rewards that they will get in the future for logging in for several days in a row, as well as rewarding them for logging in at all helps the design to gain traction and pull players back into enjoying the game on a regular basis.

This article originally ran on game design site The Game Prodigy.  Visit for more resources on game design.