New Releases Hurting the Breeders

[Tad Carlucci]

I know this is a bit off-topic for this thread: forgive me. In my most recent posting I spoke about the size of the user base. While doing that, I noticed something interesting.

There seemed to be an abnormally large number of people whose last-visit date was around August of this year.

This is what we call "anecdotal evidence" because it's based upon impressions. But it caused me to wonder, is so, WHY?

Charm and I kicked the idea around and I've come to two observations. First, that's the height of the "summer doldrums" where we don't have many, if any, special collections. Second, that's about 120 days after the last big special collection came out.

While I have no intention of an in-depth analysis to see if there is some relationship between the timing of special collections, subsequent malaise and people leaving, I am very confident from my research into various breedable products that such a relationship exits.

Something else I noticed was a seemingly larger-than-average number of people still playing, today, started playing around Yule and the New Year.

So, I have two suggestions for the KittyCatS management team to seriously consider:

1) Your best marketing success comes with the Yule and New Year seasons. You should make a special effort to entice new players at that time.

2) Your timing of releases, typically Special Collections, an the size of those releases have a strong effect upon the number of players and how long they stay playing. You should strive to have releases quarterly. Specifically, you should look to a Special Collection in the late-June/early-July time-frame. [Frankly, I don't remember if you even have one about then; if you do, perhaps it's too small?] This will re-enliven the player-base, retaining some players you're currently losing.