Daily login rewards explained

Daily login rewards offer players small gifts that can be claimed after logging into a game. It’s a minor reward for minimal effort, making it an efficient action.

The implementation differs from game to game – some games refresh the availability of rewards always at the same time of day, while other games refresh them 20-24 hours after claiming the previous one.

The rewards can be usually found in:

• messages window
• shop
• daily rewards window/pop-up

Use case

This mechanic is meant to create a habit of opening the game every day. It’s used mostly in games that benefit from having a stable player base, so mostly:

• multiplayer games
• micro-transaction-based games
• adds-based games

Why does it work?

People have a tendency to achieve their goals in a way that requires the least amount of effort. Even though daily rewards aren’t big, the effortlessness is highly appealing to our minds.

Every time we receive a gift, dopamine is released in our body, which slightly increases our happiness. Our mind subconsciously connects logging into the game with a small dose of joy, conditioning us into visiting the game daily and turning it into a habit.

Daily rewards also abuse fear of missing out – once a reward is skipped, it can’t be claimed again (even though a similar reward can be claimed in the future). Since people prefer to avoid negative emotions, some of them are willing to log in just to make sure they’re not missing anything.

To increase the odds of creating a habit, it’s necessary to repeat the same process for multiple days, preferably in a row. This is why a lot of games have special variations of daily rewards, such as

• daily reward streak
• daily rewards for beginners
• daily rewards for returning players

A daily reward streak usually offers incremental rewards for each consecutive daily login. This trick abuses sunk cost fallacy – since each login increased the rewards of further logins, our profits haven’t been fully claimed yet, and abandoning them would feel like we’ve wasted our efforts. It also exploits our effort justification – people tend to consider things more rewarding if an effort was required to achieve them, making the process a more satisfying memory.

Daily rewards for beginners are usually time-limited, putting players under pressure and increasing the odds that they will log into the game every day for a longer period of time. These rewards are usually much higher than regular rewards, and the streak is usually one week or two weeks long.

Daily rewards for returning players have a similar principle to the ones for beginners, but they’re also meant to let players catch up with other players. Without such encouragement, players could feel like they missed too much to compete.

Benefits

From the developer’s perspective, the main benefit is the creation of a habit that makes players open up the game every day.

Encouragement to play

Once player makes an effort to open up the game hoping for daily rewards, the effort is already paid. In such a case a thought may enter player’s mind: “if I’m already here, I may as well play.”

Some players may experience the so-called force of habit that will make them thoughtlessly start playing the game. The reasoning behind it is simple – in the past, players opened the game to play it, which created an association that the game is turned on to be played. Even if the current goal is different (claiming a daily reward), the old habit may kick in.

Constant reminder

Once a customer forgets about your product, he isn’t likely to become a customer again. Turning playing into a habit automatically reminds players about the game every day, even they aren’t in the mood for playing.

Visibility

Once the player opens up the game, the developer has an opportunity to show players things they could’ve missed if they ignored the game. It may include things like showing players the patch notes, notifying them about new messages, announcing new content, or reminding them about different services.

Micro-transactions advertisement

Games with micro-transactions often have daily rewards in their shop menu. That way, players are exposed to the micro-transactions and are tempted by them. Developers usually put daily rewards in some inconvenient place, forcing the player to scroll through many promotional offers, increasing temptation.

Flexible difficulty

When a player is completely stuck in the game, he is likely to abandon it. With daily rewards, the player is never completely stuck – if they collect enough rewards, they will eventually be able to progress again.

Controversies

The most addictive and predatory games usually have a daily rewards system. For some players, daily rewards can be considered a red flag – the golem effect may make them automatically associate some features with the predatory games they’ve played before.

If the players already have all the content unlocked, there is nothing daily rewards can offer. This means that implementing daily rewards requires initially locking some of the content that would typically be available in this game. The existence of daily rewards also implies that unlocking the game’s content may take a lot of time. In practice, the ceiling is almost always designed to be impossible to reach, which is supposed to keep players playing forever.