Understanding LTV, the most important KPI in gaming
summary
LTV equals a customer’s present value and is driven by retention, monetization and virality; if LTV < CPI the product can’t scale (example: $1 CPI vs $0.95 LTV). Measure retention with KER/NUR/RUR and D1/D3/D7, monetization with ARPDAU plus recency/frequency/clumpiness, and virality via k‑factor. Practical levers include content cadence (new content lifts revenue 20–30% short term), events, economy tuning (looser economy moved a slots title into top‑3), subscriptions and behavioral pricing.
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chapters (15)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:55Overview
- 1:54Why LTV
- 9:50What is LTV
- 11:11What drives LTV
- 15:59Retention
- 21:58Retention KPI
- 23:17Monetization KPI
- 26:19Virality KPI
- 28:30How to calculate LTV
- 29:10How to improve LTV
- 31:28Content
- 39:05Live Services
- 44:13Virality
- 46:48Monetization
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