Soft-launch kill criteria checklist for F2P (retention, payers, economy)

Soft launches that lack pre-written kill criteria become unpaid jobs programmes.

Checklist

1. Retention floors — Define D1/D7 return-rate floors before paid UA; retention is return rate and genre curves differ (GameAnalytics).
2. Payer / FTUE floors — Write D7 payer rate and FTUE-complete minimums for the soft-launch geos.
3. Economy health — Sink/source balance and first-purchase attach gates owned by live-ops.
4. Calendar cap — Time-box the soft launch; note Play pre-registration itself is limited to 90 days per country before production launch is required.
5. Test before pre-reg — Same Play article recommends a test track before switching on pre-registration.
6. Two-strike kill — Two frozen cohorts below floors ends the soft launch.

Facts vs limits

CSV.

Draft prepared 20 September 2026. Local expansion-500 file; human editorial review pending. No CMS write.