PSYCHOLOGICAL TRICKS IN INJUSTICE 2 MOBILE

How Injustice 2 uses slight tricks to make user stay in the game for longer hours and also squeeze more ARPU

There are many psychological elements in Injustice 2 that makes their developers earn more out of every user.

For every product manager it’s important to understand human psychology to predict/ nudge their product’s user behavior. So, let’s find out about the game Injustice 2 mobile and how they use psychology to derive most revenue out of their users.

INTRODUCTION

• Injustice 2 mobile is mobile video game featuring comic book characters from DC Comics
• The game has around 10 million downloads on Play store.
• These games play an important role in keeping comic book readers and movie watchers engaged when they keep working on other products
• Injustice 2 itself is a self-sufficient business as it compels users to pay for in game resources which helps them to progress in the game.

PSYCHOLOGICAL TRICKS INVOLVED

• The developers of Injustice 2 push the users to buy in game currencies so that they can advance in the game pretty quickly
• They have created few features/ modes which compels users to stay more time on the game

BASIC GAME DETAILS

• This is a PvP(player vs player) game
• Each player has to 3 heroes and using them defeat the opponent heroes
• Heroes can be obtained either by collecting their shards or by purchasing them.
• There are classes of heroes (Might, Agility, Tech, Arcane(Magic etc)
• Each hero has his unique abilities, gears, talents and levels which can be collected, upgraded or both.
• In game currencies help in achieving them by defeating other players or wining events
• The game has different modes where rules of playing are different

VARIOUS GAME MODES

• Campaign: Complete levels by defeating the bosses
• Champions Arena: Defeat other players and rank in top 10 of an arena to progress to better arena. Better the arena better the rewards.
• Solo Raid event: Defeat bosses to earn rewards
• Arena: Only single arena. Rank higher to more earn hero shards

GAME CURRENCIES

• Credits — used for basic transactions
• Power Gems — used for advanced transactions
• Arena Medals — earned in the Arena and used to purchase certain hero shards and gear
• League Credits — earned in Raids and League Missions and used to purchase certain hero shards and gear, as well as Xp Capsules
• Stamina — consumed for challenge battles (upon winning), as well as campaign battles and Resource missions (upon entering)
• Orbs — earned in Raids and used to upgrade hero star rating to 6
• Gear Material
• Gear Reforge

More details

PSYCHOLOGICAL INSIGHTS USED IN THE APP

Injustice 2 rewards players for completing small tasks. This is a good feature as it gives the user a sense of achievement. This gives user the motivation to play the game more frequently.

Whenever a player falls short of resources while upgrading any hero then the app nudges the player to go to the store and buy some resources to upgrade the hero.

We all like a bit of unpredictability. Whenever a player tries to buy some resources, he/she is made to see a glowing box which eventually erupts and gives the resources. This is all very dramatic and is made to make users excited. Like Forrest Gump’s quote: My mama always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’”

Users can modify their heroes in many ways. They can change their abilities and other attributes which makes them stronger. This makes players value their heroes and feel a stronger a bond with the game.

•Creating more engagement for DC movies and events. Players can put special DC dp whenever there’s a new DC movie or event.

Players in particular league(group) can see each other’s heroes and how they have upgraded their levels. This makes the platform whole lot more engaging

Ads in an app ruins the whole UX but injustice 2 incentivizes users to watch ads earn some gems. Nice way to earn revenue from ads without ruining the UX!

Injustice 2 allows players in a league to share shards of heroes which other players to upgrade.

For every match that is played on Injustice 2 , a bit of energy is taken away. It ranges from 5 to 20 depending the type of matches are being played

That’s it for today. Hope you like this psychology teardown of a game. There are probably more tricks in this game but that’s for another day.

Please do comment your thoughts. This is a small project that I did while I was completing a course at Upraised. For any queries please DM me on twitter.