User blog comment:Pgrobban/The rise and fall of Cookie Run/@comment-24956068-20151002102429/@comment-25889587-20151002132038

Yes, those friends HAVE to be someone whom you know in real life. We talked about this before and almost all of us started from playing with our girlfriend/boyfriend (or exes ;P) playing with you. Aside from that, it can also be your best friend or your friend who you always compete with. From there, both of you can rise together. Or else you'll get easily bored and quit the game early.

This is also true to rhythm games that I played. Unless there's a competition, you won't have motivation to train harder and play harder charts. Competitions are the one that makes retention rate high, and it's no wonder why so many people used to play CR back in the day because almost all of my friends have played before.

When the trend goes down, many people quits the game as well. I don't even know why I'm still playing this game to be honest, but I'm guessing I have a satisfaction of my own if I'm able to be #1 in all of my added friends.