Which KPIs Matter Most to Your Game Genre?

It’s easy to assume that every game has to follow the same formula; and that they can be measured by the exact same game KPIs. But this is simply not true.

Let’s say you’ve been working on a Shooter game and have managed to convert 5% of your players into paid users. Yes, give yourself a pat on the back – great job!

But then you’re studio decides to shift towards developing match 3 games (like Candy Crush Saga). The harsh truth is that these two genres are completely different. One is for a hardcore player base, the other is for casual (or even hypercasual) players. 

They’re completely different genres, with completely different players, and completely different metrics to track for them. Let’s break down how to track the ones that matter most to your game.

Premium vs. Free-to-Play models

Console games and titles on distribution services like Steam predominantly use premium-paid models. While most mobile games are free-to-play (F2P). 

Here are some key differences between the two monetization models:

Premium games (AAA)

• Games like Spider-Man 2 and Sonic Frontiers follow a one-time purchase model.
• To justify prices, success depends on keeping players engaged for 60-80 hours.
• Expansions (DLCs) provide additional revenue streams. But the main focus is delivering high retention in the paid experience.
• Major game metric: In-store conversions, Average Revenue per User (ARPU), and Lifetime Value (LTV).

Free-to-Play (F2P) games

For F2P games, revenue comes from in-game purchases (IAPs) and in-game ads.

Under this model, the user acquisition costs, also known as cost per install (CPI), can vary significantly from one game genre to another. 

Here’s a basic breakdown: 

• Hyper-casual games: The cost of users is really cheap ($0.67 on iOS in 2024). In fact, 32.3% of all installs come from this super-genre.
• Casual games: It’s a bit more expensive ($2.17 in 2024).
• Mid-core games: Much more expensive ($4.50 for iOS, $3.25 for Android).
• Hardcore games: The most expensive ($6 on iOS, $4.50 on Android).

So which metric types are most relevant to free-to-play games?

3 dominant types of free-to-play game KPIs

For free-to-play games – retention, engagement, and monetization are the typical umbrella game metrics that developers live and die by.

Retention

Retention rate is an essential metric to track for any free-to-play game. Game developers usually make this metric a top priority. Think of it this way: If your retention rate is poor, then there’s no way you can monetize your traffic.

Here are some retention benchmarks to keep in mind:

• Casual games: For the top titles in this genre, D1 retention is 28% on average. On Day 7, retention drops to 6.7%, and on Day 28, it drops to 2.1%.
• Hardcore games: Retaining 40% of your players on Day 1 is considered a fantastic result.

Engagement

The amount of time your players spend on your game is a huge precursor to monetization.

Put it this way, the less time your players spend on your game, the less money they’ll spend on it. The average player is not going to spend in a game they played for just five minutes. Time is literally money when it comes to mobile games. 

Games typically monetize player engagement time by including in-app purchases (IAPs) at strategic points. These can take the form of extra moves, in-app currencies, upgrades, and boosters.

Monetization and ROI

With high retention and engagement rates over time, game developers can redeem their user acquisition costs (ROI). Ideally, you need to make a minimum of $1 per player, per day.

If you achieve this, then you can essentially pay back all of that money you invested into the game. Sure, the majority of players will churn. But those who won’t churn? They basically pay for themselves.

With all this said, monetization does vary depending on the genre you specialize in. For example:

• Casual games: Only need to return 15 to 30 cents.
• Hardcore games: When you need to spend $50-$80 to acquire just one player, you need to charge much more.

Generally speaking, free-to-play games require long-term retention to be profitable. ROI for a good game tends to take somewhere between six and eight months.

Most important KPIs to track (by game genre)

Here are some of the most impactful metrics by game genre.

Game super-genre	Game genres	Key game KPIs
Hyper-casual	Idle, Match-3, Puzzle, Arcade, Simulation, Racing, Sports	– D1, D3, and D7 retention – Session length and frequency – Cost per install (CPI) – Ad engagement
Casual	Idle, Match-3, Puzzle, Simulation	– D7, D30, D60 retention – ARPU  – LTV – In-app purchases – Completion rate – Session length and frequency
Mid-core	Action, Card Battlers, RPGs, Strategy	– D7, D30, D90 retention – DAU/MAU – Conversion rate (F2P to paying players) – ARPPU – Churn rate
Hardcore	Battle Royale, FPS, MMORPG, MOBA	– D30, D90, D180 retention – Whale % – In-game economy balancing – Session length and frequency

Note: There can be considerable overlap between game genres in terms of what metrics are most important to track. There’s no one-size-fits-all. So it really depends from one game to the next. 

This begs the question: How do you know what metrics are worth tracking most? Where do you get all this information from? Generally, it takes a long time to get this data. And not everybody has the resources or toolkits to do it effectively. 

How to track game KPIs that matter most

There are ways to focus on the metrics that matter most. And today’s most effective method is through AI. Specifically? AI analytics agents.

Keewano is leading the way in this technological advancement. It’s transforming how game developers, analysts, product managers, and entire studios explore player behavior – delivering accurate insights into retention, engagement, and monetization.

How Keewano makes this possible:

• Its database, keewanoDB, is 600x faster than any other solution, processing 256 million events per second, to get answers in real time.
• This database powers multiple AI agents – Keewano’s AI Analyst – to proactively identify and track metrics with the biggest impact on your game’s performance.
• Helps you find the root causes of churn, retention drivers, and key metrics, at any resolution.
• Provides recommendations on how to improve your product and boost revenue.
• Behavior Map gives a flexible view of your entire player base, helping you identify key patterns and focus on what matters.

Keewano helps developers identify churn risks, track sessions, understand the true drivers behind in-game spending, and actually reveal your game’s most impactful KPIs.

You need the right tools to track the right game KPIs

It’s easy to track all kinds of metrics for your game. But to narrow down that long list to the KPIs that matter most to your game’s success? That usually requires a lot of work, A/B testing, time, and resources. 

But not anymore. By leveraging AI analytics agents, like Keewano’s, game developers can automatically track the most critical metrics according to their game’s needs. 

This level of automation is a (literal) game changer for all games – from F2P games to AAA titles, and from hypercasual games to hardcore ones.