How to Apply Behavioural Science for Better Results in Gaming

At Capuchin, our behavioural science approach has increased a gaming app’s App Store download rate by 4.5%, and driven referrals of 4,000 new high-value customers in a week for another app.

Picture: Monstera Production

The psychology of gaming

Would you like to spend your free time playing Dump Truck Simulator?

Well, as boring as it might sound, over one million people have downloaded it from the Google Play Store.

Dump Truck Simulator is a great example of how consumer behaviour – in gaming and beyond – is influenced by irrationality, emotion and bias. In this case, psychological processes like curiosity, flow, and even ‘dark flow’ likely played a role, as people got sucked into the game.

It was understanding behavioural science that helped us increase an app’s customer base by 4,000 in a week.

Behavioural science is vital for survival in gaming. Without it, you risk falling behind as your competitors better understand and influence the market.

The fact is, all of us – including your players – are cognitive misers. That means we have very limited brainpower for paying attention to the world and for making decisions. It’s impossible to put a number on it, but one guess based on sensory neurons firing in the brain is that we’re consciously aware of only 0.0004% of everything the brain is processing at any one time.

We can’t think through all of our decisions carefully, so we have to rely on quick shortcuts called heuristics. If one gaming app has good reviews and one gaming app has bad reviews, which will you choose? It’s an immediate gut response with little careful thought – and these gut responses can be turned into practical ‘nudges’.

Here are three examples of how behaviour is nudged in gaming:

🏎️ Endowed Progress. Once we feel committed to something, we’re more likely to follow through (so we don’t lose our investment). Games like Candy Crush and use daily login bonuses and streak rewards to encourage regular gameplay in this way.

⚡️ Priming. Some research suggests that our brains can misinterpret physical warmth for social warmth. A study at a racetrack found that, the warmer it was, the more people liked other bettors and the more likely they were to pick the most popular horse.

👉 Default Effect. Being cognitive misers, we tend to go with the easiest option – whatever is recommended or pre-selected. In gambling apps, fewer than 1% exceeded the default deposit limit in one study, suggesting a powerful intervention for player protection.

How does it work?

Whatever your challenge, we’ve most probably faced it - or very similar before.

From sports to candy crush, from profiling to player protection, from physical locations to apps.

Wherever and however your audience is made up, and whether you reach them directly or via partners, all around the world – we’ve probably done it.

Example 1 - Reveal new opportunities

We show you the real traits, motivations and triggers that drive your market. We quantify the value of commercial opportunities, then precisely detail the best ways to address them based on their psychological makeup – even down to specific ideas, words, language, images and colours that will be most persuasive.

We used this approach to reduce one brand’s CPA by 39%.

Example 2 - Be more persuasive

We create greater appeal for what you offer, based on how your audiences consider and mentally process decisions in your category. We do this using bespoke psychological research techniques like psychodynamic qualitative interviews or implicit testing.

We used this approach to double conversion for one multichannel brand.

Example 3 - Shift behaviour

We identify psychological motivations and triggers at the most crucial points in the customer journey. We use our understanding of cognitive biases to create behavioural “nudges” to shift your audience’s behaviour.

We used this approach to improve app downloads by 7% for one gaming app.

Ready to Nudge?

Wherever there’s behaviour to change, we can help.

Share your challenge, and we’ll show you an agile, effective way you can start applying behavioural science.

Talk to us today about how you can start scientifically improving results.

Still more questions? Just ask.