How not to onboard (Game Center fail) (2016)

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
Forcing users to troubleshoot authentication errors or navigate complex system settings during the initial onboarding phase significantly alienates players at their most vulnerable point of engagement.
02
Flexible design choices, such as Mobius Final Fantasy's 16-character naming system, effectively accommodate linguistic differences between Japanese and Western character sets.
03
Effective onboarding requires a seamless transition into the game world, which is undermined when technical dependencies and aggressive permission requests take precedence over the user experience.
04
Mandatory Game Center integration creates technical barriers that prevent players from accessing the core gameplay loop, leading to potential churn before the game even begins.
05
Displaying push notification prompts immediately upon launch is a design flaw that causes users to dismiss requests before they have established any connection to the game.
06
Because push notification prompts can typically only be displayed once, an early, poorly timed request permanently sacrifices the developer's ability to re-engage the player.

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Transcript

hello and welcome to Pocket Gamer up busies youtube channel I'm John Jordan and this is our first time user experience playlist so as you can see we are we have downloading thank you for we are downloading bits of Mobius final fantasy um so the slip new game to start new game from the beginning okay we recommend you enable okay enter your character name okay so interesting that we get up to 16 characters in a lot of Japanese games just because of the line difference of characters in Japanese language they sometimes liver you any to eight characters so that's good that they allow for along the character set so we're connecting in as all aging RPG seem to do at the moment Laurent a lot of other games you get push notifications that is one of the first things you see which is bad to push

notifications this prompt can only be shown once absolute if I say don't allow I can still go into settings and reset push notification to be on but the developer const can't show me this prompt again which isn't quite important prompt push notifications it gets people to re-engage in the game so they don't allow that's poor arrow into Game Center okay let me tell me so that this is not good experience you may temporarily disable game center well yeah okay but now ok let me not do at this point you

Summary

The initial user experience of Mobius Final Fantasy highlights critical friction points in mobile game onboarding, specifically regarding technical integration and permission requests. While the game offers a flexible character naming system that accommodates up to 16 characters—a thoughtful design choice that accounts for linguistic differences between Japanese and Western character sets—the subsequent setup process suffers from poor execution. The immediate presentation of push notification prompts upon launch represents a significant design flaw, as these requests are often dismissed by users before they have established any engagement with the game. Because these prompts can only be displayed once, developers lose a vital opportunity to re-engage players if the initial request is denied.

The onboarding flow is further compromised by mandatory Game Center integration, which introduces unnecessary technical hurdles. When the system fails to connect or requires manual intervention, it creates a disruptive barrier that prevents the player from accessing the core gameplay loop. These technical failures, combined with aggressive permission requests, illustrate how rigid onboarding sequences can negatively impact player retention. By forcing users to navigate complex system settings or troubleshoot authentication errors before they have even begun the game, developers risk alienating their audience during the most vulnerable stage of the user journey. Effective onboarding requires a seamless transition into the game world, yet these obstacles demonstrate how technical dependencies and poorly timed prompts can undermine even high-production titles.