EVE Online has dominated the RPG MMO space for 17 years. Its creators, CCP, discovered a couple of hurdles new players kept encountering early in the game. They identified that, once players made it past those moments, they’d be far more likely to continue gameplay.
CCP began with a couple of internal agents who provided in-game player outreach during those critical moments. They saw results fast. To ramp up and roll out across multiple languages, CCP partnered with 5CA.
Through EVE Online, CCP has dominated the RPG MMO space for 17+ years. The complex galactic title — known for its long-term player retention and impressive engagement — saw significant increases in its numbers from January 2019 to January 2020 alone. It currently has an enormous active userbase of players who demand a significant level of support.
With 5CA as a support partner, CCP can provide key English support as well as multilingual support in five languages across webchat and mail support channels.
Within 2 weeks of partnership, we ramped up an initial outreach team of peer-to-peer Game Masters. We then scaled this group by 100% across 5 languages within 6 weeks of the program’s initiation.
Using comprehensive dashboards, the 5CA EVE team — all of whom have an in-game presence — can reach out to new players for Meet and Greet moments in a couple of days of their gaming experience.
It isn’t only our initial interaction that helps player retention. Our team also works to guide new players through their first in-game steps.
As new players gather resources and learn to build their first spaceships, they also encounter a few setbacks. One of these causes them to permanently lose some of the assets they’ve created.
It’s at this point that our 5CA Outreach Team connects with players in-game to offer retention-focused support. Whether a soft reset or additional resources to encourage them to try again, we offer a mixed and tailored response to maximize player retention.
Since using 5CA’s solution, CCP has seen outstanding results:
Thanks to 5CA Outreach, CCP saw a 14% increase in active players during the first 20 days after sign-up when compared to a Control Group.
What’s more, our team proactively continued to identify more Magic Moments within the EVE Online player experience to harness for further results.
We’re still scaling the team with best-in-class Fans of Brands who provide outreach services during those Magic Moments and continue to drive player retention.
