Players are not happy with the recent series of changes to the game. Scavenger Hunt is reviled, but still being heavily pushed by having at least 2 scavenger hunt events per week. Playing with peoples friends coin requests for a second time in less than 6 months also has people upset.
The new coin request change certainly isn’t testing the feature itself, as that has been functioning well for months. Your marketers must be testing to see how far they can push the users to buy more coins by restricting the free coins they can get.
My question for your marketers is this: Do you know where you are getting your players from?
I know I started playing after a friend who was playing showed me the game. I got 2 other friends to start playing the game on my recommendation. What percentage of your players started playing based on recommendations from other players? If a large percentage of your players started playing on this basis, and you are now upsetting the current player base with your “changes and testing”, do you think that they will be recommending this game to potential new players? If the above is a large percentage of your players, you may be in the process of creating a snowball effect of people leaving the game, and not be able to get new players to replace those leaving.
I would strongly urge you to put a survey in all your players inboxes to find out more about your players before creating more unrest in the player community.
Questions I would propose for the survey include:
How did you find this game (friend recommendation, saw somebody playing, online ad, etc)?
Have you recommended this game to any friends?
Would you currently consider recommending this game to your friends?
Do you like the scavenger hunt and how often should scavenger hunts be held?
Friends request feature questions.
How else can we improve the game?
And people should be given a reasonable reward for filling out the survey (Minimum of 3 free plays).
If you don’t understand your players, how can you make good decisions in how to modify the game.