The Psychology Behind Mobile Games

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People open a game for hundreds of different reasons — to kill time; to feel smart; to escape; to win. But here’s what’s interesting: most players can’t explain why they keep coming back. They just do.  Our new Live Ops report, The Psychology Behind Mobile Games, seeks to explain that “why”. It’s important first to understand the distinction between positive and negative motivations, and the role they play in sustaining player retention and engagement. We’ll go through detailed examples of each before outlining exactly how you can build on these strategies for your own game. 

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Psychology Behind Mobile Games Payliner Report Interior Pages

Inside, you’ll learn about: 

  • Positive motivations like mastery and progress, curiosity and exploration, and pattern recognition

  • Negative motivations like FOMO, loss aversion, and social pressure 

  • How to harness these psychological mechanisms to boost performance, through features like synergy and combinations, daily logins, and battlepasses 

  • The Motivation Wheel as a framework for analyzing a game’s core psychological components

  • And so much more!