(upbeat music)
Hello, everyone.
Today, I'll be sharing why and how to enhance your game performance with UX.
I’m Serena, and I’m a Strategic Partner Manager
on the Google Play Partnerships Team.
I will begin with sharing why UX is an important topic,
followed by key areas of focus to enhance and optimize,
and finally ending with how Etermax has been able to grow
their performance of Trivia Crack 2 through UX changes.
So how did this topic come about?
In the last few years revenue diversification has remained a hot topic in the industry.
Regardless of the game genre, developers have been challenged
to become more innovative in the way that they monetize,
whether it’s through in-app purchases, subscription,
battle passes, ads, or a combination of the above.
When we dig deeper into deciphering what would improve the overall performance
of these four monetization trends,
especially when we think in terms of IAP growth,
an element that is often overlooked is the game's overall user experience
as it relates to monetization.
When developers are spending time scratching their heads
on what to do for new content to improve their metrics,
it's easy to forget that the simple element of UX
could be one of the key solutions.
Especially for an existing game,
what may now look intuitive to you as a developer
may not actually look the same for a new and/or existing player.
Turning your heads to the current UX
can create direct impact on engagement and monetization
and is a controllable method to ensure long-term
and sustainable growth to your new and existing game businesses.
After piloting with developers globally, we were surprised to see that what may seem
in hindsight to be obvious were often overlooked.
The three main themes and best practices I've collected are, number one,
the importance of making sure your players understand the IAPs that you’re offering.
Number two, making sure players are focused on the best values that you have.
And number three, ensuring that the purchase flow is smooth and streamlined.
When a new player enters your in-game store for the first time,
the display is key to help them navigate to the value of great deals
or understand what can be purchased.
There are two things to note here.
Number one is using IAP descriptions to the best aesthetic of your screen.
Especially when an IAP is added during LiveOps,
what we often see are colorful and vibrant starter packs with bundles
that may make a lot of sense to an existing player or to you
but may only look like pretty graphics for a potential first-time buyer.
For example, in the Design Home screenshot,
upon clicking More Information icon, the player is able to see
what the Desert Sienna pack actually entails before thinking about purchasing.
Number two, rather than leaving the player to calculate the values of each bundle,
it’s helpful to highlight the deals that you’re offering.
In the Gametion example, at a glance, a new or existing player can easily identify
which SKUs are best valued.
Gametion here uses a red banner to showcase
just how much more diamonds that a player will receive.
Similarly, it’s helpful to visually guide your players
to the pack that you’d like to promote.
Just like when we're entering a physical store,
we’re automatically attracted to certain items
based on the way that they’re displayed.
In these two cases, I’m instantly drawn to the Obsidian Chest in Archero
and the 9.99 SKU in Trivia Crack 2.
There are multiple ways to do this,
whether it's a play on colors, shading, icons, and/or graphics.
Another often-overlooked tip is the application of social proofs.
Social proof is a very common and powerful persuasion trigger
and a relevant and commonly-used form is to showcase popularity.
You can do this by helping your potential players know
which SKU is best-selling or the most popular.
This is important to note because, as consumers in this day and age,
whether it’s checking the most watched list on Netflix
or checking for most reviewed or popular items on Amazon,
we've all been trained to lean in to social proof when making decisions.
Similarly, this is something that developers can focus on with designing in-game offers.
Finally, purchase flow.
Firstly, an obvious misstep that we often see
is the game not removing barriers to the final purchase.
Developers, big or small, miss the step of checking
whether a player would either be stuck on the screen from loading
or led to another screen which would then exit their current in-game stage.
It’s important to ensure a frictionless purchase flow within your game.
Aside from removing barriers to purchase,
one best practice is to streamline your purchase flow
by suggesting an option or a bundle when the player runs out-of-turn.
In this example here with Lovelink by Ludia,
when the player matches with a potential love interest
the player is then given an option to unblur the photo that a love interest sends.
Since the player doesn’t actually have enough gems in this case,
by clicking the 180 Gems button, the player is then led to an alternative screen
with the best purchase option highlighted.
Note this actually isn’t the same as leading the player directly to the in-game store
but designing an alternative display
for players to choose directly from the customized options.
So how did making these changes turn into business impact?
For those who aren't familiar, Etermax's gaming division
has been delivering casual games since 2009.
Among their successes are Trivia Crack and Trivia Crack 2.
The Trivia Crack 2 business model relied mainly on ads
but Etermax sought to grow their IP revenue to diversify their games' revenue streams.
However, since changing up the entire game economy
and structure was not an easy option for an existing game,
we worked closely with Etermax to ensure that they've optimized their UX.
The results were telling.
The UX changes resulted in a 23% increase in total revenue,
a three times increase in buyers, and a two times increase in ARPDAU.
So what exactly did they change?
One of the many changes Etermax began with was the redesign of their store.
With the after screenshots, we can see that Etermax redesigned the overall shop layout.
The entire set of icons are redesigned with more vibrant colors.
Honing in on the details they put onto the level 100 gold bar option,
the before display shows the SKU identically as the other 150, 500 IAPs,
whereas the version on the after screen
adds a simple detail to the level 100 gold bars
in order to differentiate the SKU.
Outside of the store, Etermax also took a second look
at their icons within their game sessions.
Not only have they redesigned the power-up icons,
they also added one to two square simple text
to inform both new and existing players of what the icons actually mean.
When a player is deciding how to continue with a game session,
the player would clearly be able to see
which options they’re able to purchase with gold bars.
Players are also then able to clearly associate
how much each power-up is worth.
Similar to what I previously shared,
Etermax took a second glance at their purchase flow
to make sure that, when out-of-turn, players follow a unique user experience.
As an example, when players are out-of-turn,
they’re shown how much rewards they’d lose and how much is needed to continue.
The players are then led to a second screen
where the SKU is highlighted for them to consider.
Finally, the flow ends with the last chance
to continue the turn with an additional option
of payment with video impression.
If this flow sounds familiar to you,
it’s probably because we now see this frequently across multiple platforms,
whether it’s us canceling an email subscription or video streaming services.
If it's a common user flow that we as consumers are used to,
it’s definitely worth considering adding
this intuitive experience when designing your game.
To conclude, I would encourage everyone to revisit your game with the new player’s lens
and ask the following.
As a new player, would you be able to navigate your own in-game store?
And, as a new player, do you know what you should be purchasing
when you're running out-of-turn?
And number three, when you do decide to spend,
which SKU or bundle are you intuitively drawn to?
Finally, when you proceed with the purchase, are you able to smoothly finish your buy?
Providing a smooth and controlled player experience through UX enhancement
is a foolproof way to boost conversions.
I hope the different categories and examples shared today
can be a helpful checklist for you and your team.
For more ways on how Etermax has enhanced their UX
and another case study with Korean developer Bitmango,
check out our Medium articles on this page.
Thank you everyone for your time.
(upbeat music)