Retention based on user life cycle

Hi all,
I'm not sure of retention in dashboard. I want to keep track retention based on user life cycle. Unity analytics has offered lifecycle segments to begin with. If I use 1-3 days life cycle and choose metric 'Retention Day 1', it will be shown in the dashboard. But here's what confusing me:

1. Day 1-3 lifecycle is basically a group of person who starts playing 1-3 days ago right? So there's no way we could tell how many person have played for one day (well it can be tricked using New User), but we cannot see how many people exactly have playing for two or three days, or combined (day 1-3).

2. Since day 1-3 lifecycle is a group of such person, if I start my dashboard from April 7th, then this point on April 7th will collect data from player who start on April 4th, 5th, and 6th. This is very confusing since I don't really get the data for April 7th group. (This is how usually works on other analytics). This will be more confusing if I want to select day 8-14 lifecycle. or other lifecycles that I made on my own. Is my assumption in this right or wrong?

Last, I just want to suggest that you guys can give us more detailed retention (Day2, Day3, ...., Day 14, .... and so on). I think it'll help a lot of people.

 

Hi @kenli_touchten,

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions!

The life-cycle segments are meant to help you analyze how player behavior changes over time. This is useful for answering questions like "are players more likely to spend in their first 1 - 3 days or 4 - 7 days of gameplay?" or "does the number of sessions increase or decrease over time?"

For measuring retention, it's best to use the retention metrics (Day 1, Day 7 and Day 30), instead of looking at the life-cycle segments. These metrics show you how many users installed exactly 1 (or 7, or 30) days ago and returned the next day. We'll discuss as a team about adding additional retentions metrics

 

Thanks @angeloferro for your reply,
I'm still curious to my second question anyway I want to make sure whether my assumption is correct.

 

Hi @kenli_touchten - life-cycle segments are dynamic and are not linked to specific install date.

The important distinction is that the 1 - 3 day segment will always show users who are currently in their first 1 to 3 days of game play. This means that the group of users who are in the 1 - 3 day segment today, will be different tomorrow, since the 3 day users will become 4 day users and fall in the 4 - 7 day segment, and new users will join the 1 - 3 day segment.