G'day.
I'm Duncan from the Google Play Games team.
Play Games is Google's game network for Android, iOS
and the web, with user experiences and services
designed to enhance game play.
I'm here to tell you about what's new,
and why it's great for you.
Three big things are coming out-- game profiles,
quests, and saved games.
These features could significantly
boost engagement and retention for your game.
So listen closely to learn how to level up your game.
Speaking of leveling up, that reminds
me-- one of our huge updates to Play
Games is our game profile which now enables players to level up
across the entire Play Games ecosystem.
They can check out what activities
they've done to get there, and compare themselves
against others.
This may drive significant levels of engagement
for any game that players love.
So, leveling happens based on points
earned from gaining achievements in Play Games like yours.
Each game you publish has 1,000 points
to allocate to achievements.
Why?
Because players love to level up.
Compelling achievements give players
a reason to engage with your title
for longer periods of time.
You see, we've seen significant user retention improvement
in games where high quality achievements are available.
And the leveling system has the same potential.
While players are checking out their level in the Play Games
app, they can now also compare themselves to others.
Just tap on a face, and check out
the comparison in the Play Games app.
Are you beating your friends?
Have you checked?
You should probably go check.
They may have just beaten you.
On top of their level, players are now assigned a title,
based on the game category they've
earned the most XP or experience points in.
This means with just a glance, players
can tell that a Level 20 Speed Racer is a highly engaged
racing game expert, compared to another player who
may be a Level One Rookie.
With good achievement point allocations,
you'll set your players on the path
to lots of fun and retention.
And while on the path of retention,
players can engage with another one of our new features--
quests.
With quests, you can create time bound tasks and rewards
on top of events, giving players a reason
to come back for a new challenge.
Quests drive both deeper re-engagement
and increased retention for players.
For example, over the last few weeks,
I've been playing the extremely, ironically named game,
Questing Rocks.
I'd been on a quest to earn the axe of destiny.
I fought dragons, elves, and a rainbow
a few times, which was weird.
But it was totally worth it.
Now that I have the axe of destiny,
I can compete in the tournament coming up next month.
Now, normally this kind of feature
would require a significant live ops team
to manage regular updates, without having
to push a new build.
That is, until now.
So how do quests work?
Let's take a seafaring game as an example.
There are three things that I care about in my game--
treasure found, crew rescued, and miles sailed.
So I jump into the developer console and define
these three events.
Next, I integrate events that report these signals
back to Play Games.
And I also integrate the generic quest interfaces,
so players can see my quests as soon as I publish one.
Next, I monitor the events.
Oh, look-- people love finding treasure, who would've thought?
So now, I go and create a quest.
But uh, hm-- Talk Like a Pirate Day is coming up.
So I guess I'll create a quest based around that.
It will start on September 19, which
is International Speak Like a Pirate Day,
and will require players to find 50 treasures to earn
the reward of Blackbeard's secret treasure map.
I also add some images, including a secret treasure map
to draw a player's attention.
And then I hit publish.
So players are out there, finding treasures,
and accepting my quests and participating.
When a player does find 50 treasures,
I add the secret treasure map to their inventory.
And what do they think about it?
My community is abuzz with tales of Blackbeard's treasure maps
and the secrets it reveals.
So many players enjoyed the quest,
that it's time for me to go back and look at my events
to determine what quest I should create next.
By designing a game to send a broad spectrum of events,
and defining quest rewards in advance,
you can run quests whenever you'd
like without updating your game, to build a better
relationship with your user community.
Players will also get to see quests in the Play Games app
for all games they've recently played.
This is another great way to reengage players,
or to drive deeper engagement.
Ensure that you make your quests easy to understand,
fun and rewarding.
Speaking of fun and rewarding, I'd
like to introduce our new saved games feature.
Saved games are the new visual, cross platform,
game save for Play Games on Android, iOS, and the web.
Saved games will mean your players never
have to play a level one again and allow
you to reengage your players by reminding them
of the awesome things that they are up to in your game.
What is unique about saved games is the ability
to store metadata that can improve discoverability
through the Play Games apps and increase usability
for your players.
This metadata includes a custom image, a description,
and a timestamp that are presented
to players within your own game's UI,
and within the Play Games app.
The latest saved game for a Play will
appear on your game's detail page in the Play Games app.
It will also appear prominently in the home screen of the app,
reminding players why they should come back to your game.
So let's take a closer look.
The custom image is set by you, and should capture a screenshot
of the player's progress in the game that
will both remind the player of where they're at in the game,
but also entice them to play more.
Going above and beyond may include
overlaying other art elements, such as your logo,
or their latest achievement, or some particle
effects onto the game screenshot to make
it even more compelling.
The description field should be short, but informative,
to remind players where they were in your game,
and why they should return.
Without it, your image may not resonate as well.
For example, fighting the goblin king
in the dark woods, grand master trainer, or the deep caves,
are all a lot better than level 12.
So to learn how to make awesome quests,
engaging saved games, setting achievement points
at the access code samples, just visit our docs,
by clicking one of the links on the screen.
Thanks for taking the time to learn
about these awesome new features for Play Games.
I hope you have as much fun making great engaging quests
and compelling saved games as we had making these features.
Cheers.