Is it harder to get people playing your game in the first place, or keeping hold of them once on board?

If the Social Gaming Summit 2012's panel on user retention is anything to by, the latter might be both one of the hardest tricks to pull off, and equally one of the most important.

"The most difficult part of a game is how you keep people in it," declared Tom Sente – CEO of data tracking service HoneyTracks – at the start of the panel.

"If your title offers no value to the player, they will leave. I've seen so many sad stories of developers burning money trying to keep hold of players and they still leave. Once the money is gone, it's gone."

Reasons 1, 2 and 3

"There are lots and lots of different reasons why people leave games," offered GamesAnalytics COO Mark Robinson, pictured right.

"There are people who misunderstand the tutorial and get frustrated, there are people who simply don't get it – it can be some time before you understand who is really playing your games."

According to the CEO of social gaming network - Celia Francis - it's often the little things that developers don't even think about that can cause a player to jump ship.

"Password retention is often a big barrier to entry," added Francis.

"People often can't be bothered to remember their passwords and don't come back – so Facebook login keeps the vast majority of people on board."

Facing Facebook

Mobile games, however, tend to offer better retention rates than native Facebook games almost by default, according to James Salins of social in-game ad platform SupersonicAds.

"Developers who have the same apps on Facebook and mobile have told us that the amount of times you pick up your tablet or your phone during the day would suggest retention rates would skew towards mobile," he stated.

"More people play on mobile than web, but typically, web players play for longer sessions."

TeePee Games CEO and co-founder Tony Pearce added that Facebook still has one or two tricks that mobile on its own doesn't boast.

"Facebook does a fantastic job of keeping you in that platform," said Pearce.

"Once you're in it, they do a good job of making sure players stay within the service and, in turn, your game."

Next steps

But when a player inevitably does leave your game, what should you do? Should you spend time and money trying to win them back over?

"It's very hard to reactivate people who have made the psychological decision to go," continued GamesAnalytics' Robinson.

"Rather than spend money trying to get them back, you're probably better off looking at your retention issues and working out why people are leaving. Being proactive and considering the experience long before people have the chance to leave is a better way to spend your time."

So how can a developer be proactive?

"You can't make assumptions on players understanding your game's mechanics or getting it from the get go. Take your mindset out of being involved in the process of development and but yourself in the mind of a player who comes to your game with no experience. That's an easy win.

"After that, then you can start to get more sophisticated about how you retain players."