Understanding Player Retention Strategies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

In this paper, we present an exploration of player retention strategies found in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In particular, this paper seeks to understand the effect that non-playable characters (NPCs), which are often integral to the single-player experience, have on player retention. A qualitative study was executed to understand how and why Animal Crossing has had sustained success over a year after it launched. More specifically, data was collected via a survey focusing on gameplay features and player experience, including the interactions with the NPCs known as villagers in the game. This data was fit into a regression model, and it was concluded that while the villagers do play an important role in the retention of players, it is not the most significant gameplay factor; other factors such as frequent content updates and adding new items to collect also influenced retention. These preliminary results help us to better understand the retention strategies at play in a popular game, thereby providing lessons for future single player games to develop better retention strategies.