LiveOp Events
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not reflect the views of Big Fish Games.
OVERVIEW
Big Fish Casino, an eight-year-old game, has been investing heavily in its liveops capabilities to establish best practices and meet market standards. Prior to Treasures, players had limited chances to win additional types of rewards outside of chips, so the team was tasked with developing new ways for our players to win unique prizes independently from the existing Treasures set progression.
RESEARCH
Coin Master's disruption of the social casino space in 2019 set a new precedent for stackable live ops events. Working with our insights team, a deep analysis of Coin Master and social casino competitors helped identify best practices and cadence strategies that could enhance our core gameplay.
Slotomania, a more mature game, maintains an increase in revenue with a large number of staggering events. These events make players feel they are playing a new game.
Coin Master surpassed Slotmania's revenue by introducing an event loop. The game runs 2-4 events constantly; once one has ended, another begins. This makes players feel like they're playing more than just a game of luck.
PROBLEM
While progressing through Treasures content some higher-betting players could go days spinning and opening chests without claiming any set rewards. This could lead to feature fatigue and demotivate players from continuing to spin during a season.
APPROACH
Our product team theorized that creating shorter, more achievable events, both during and in-between Treasures seasons, could increase the number of rewards for players while maintaining an urgency to play. Treasure Rush would leverage the existing chest collection mechanic, correlate with the Treasures brand, yet have its own separate progression track with unlockable levels of chip rewards and cosmetic items.
GOALS
Motivate players to continue spinning with shorter-term goals & rewards
Reinforce the Treasures core loop of collecting chests throughout the season
Increase bookings while events are live
UX ARTIFACTS
I created wireframes and prototypes to help define proper event surfacing and various player flows. Given limited developer time and resources, iterating on these artifacts helped align stakeholders and made sure both player and product needs were met.
The first iteration of the tray surfaced event rewards directly in the tray. This would allow players to claim their rewards without having to open another popup, but it introduced technical complexities around showing rewards flying to their proper homes (cosmetic items to a player's avatar, coin rewards to a player's coin purse, etcetera). The horizontal scroll list also provided a glimpse into all the event rewards to excite and motivate players to spin.
A later iteration of the tray landed at the intersection of product needs, developer bandwidth, and the best possible experience given those circumstances. By pulling reward claiming out into a separate popup, we were able to reuse the same Treasures claim flow players were already familiar with. That left real estate in the tray to better highlight the exclusive rewards and even provide some instructional text about how to earn them.
Layered on top of chest earning, players earned tokens to eventually unlock unique rewards independently of existing Treasures set progression.
To not be too obtrusive of slot-play, the event tray only opened once at the beginning of the event unless otherwise triggered by a player. Spinning also automatically dismissed the tray.
UI DESIGN
I was responsible for designing several interface assets for the event. These included the progress meter states that would live in the slot machines, the informational event tray, and the reward claim popup.
Working closely with graphic designers and technical artists, I created Photoshop templates that would allow artists to easily generate and integrate assets for any future Treasure Rush events.
*Reward illustrations created by art team.
*Treasure Rush branding elements developed by graphic design team.
THE RESULTS
The launch of the Treasure Rush feature in Big Fish Casino was a success!
It confirmed our original theory that live ops events could positively affect metrics while encouraging engagement with other core features.
+15%
SPINS PER HOUR
+20%
D1 BOOKINGS
+4%
AVG. BOOKINGS
INTRODUCING GOLDEN EGG MAGIC
OVERVIEW
To further diversify the types of stackable live ops events in Big Fish Casino, we aimed to add another event that could lay the groundwork for a persistent gacha system by creating a new delivery flow for collectibles.
GOALS
Increase bookings by offering unique limited-time rewards
Increase chip sink during the event by linking Golden Eggs to larger bets
Test player interest and engagement in new delivery flow for rewards
UX ARTIFACTS
I created wireframes and prototypes to help define proper event surfacing and various user flows. These artifacts helped to garner final stakeholder buy-in for the feature and later helped to inform scoping and developer costing conversations.
Earning and opening via slots.
First-earn educational messaging.
Golden Egg Magic differs from Treasure Rush in that there is no persistent progress in-game while players spin. Instead of tokens appending chest drops, players earn golden eggs directly from spinning, which streamlines reward claiming.
*Golden Egg Magic branding elements developed by graphic design team.
