A study to learn how best to present rewards to the casino mobile game audience.
Games: Big Fish Casino and Jackpot Magic Slots.
We discovered in varying features, reward presentation provided positive and negative impact in connection with the approach of how we presented them. Over the course of multiple projects, we had begun a dive into figuring out how best to show rewards to increase incentives but also, lower misunderstandings and friction.
In most games the retention mechanisms of rewarding players is crucial, but in casino mobile games, it is even more important as the rewards are the only means players have to keep playing slots. Other games can have energy or other mechanisms to limit or promote play time. If a player sees the reward isn’t up to their requirements for spins, they will choose not to interact at all and use their mobile game time with mechanics that increases their spin time.
Teammates
Research team - Stephen Boutin & Sarah Espinoza
UX Designers - Patrick Khachi & Howard Hsing
Product Team - Kasra Farivari & Maryna Mitna
Art Leadership - Luz Tuscano, Shelley Humphries, Edouard Sitbon, Fatima Dominguez
As a UX design lead and Individual contributor, I would either be working directly on the craft of each of the projects mentioned in this case study, or influencing the results of the projects mentioned by working with the UX designers and team members to guide them in a direction that would enable us as a team to understand our users and enable a successful product.
My Role and Duration
Tools and Methods
Usability testing, Surveys, User Interviews Competitive Analysis, Wireframes, Clickable Prototypes. Figma
We found a discrepancy in how players perceived rewards and their value as utility.
In the process of building two in-game events, we found players percieved the value of participation was heavily determined by how we presented rewards. In order to fully understand this, we began creating some studies to find how to present rewards in a manner that players respond well to. The outcome of the first project that sparked our interest in the effect of how rewards are presented was a shopping spree.
This mission has the player collect a currency through slots play and then the player can spend that currency on provided rewards. In most of our previous missions, we have always presented players rewards as they completed previous rewards. This was one of our first times presenting rewards up front and also giving players agency to work toward the prizes they want.
Shopping Spree
We learned from this experience that players are engaged by the mechanic of being able to save up toward a reward they value. As long as players find value in the reward they are pushing for, there is solid engagement.
We also had an event called “Game Night” feature that we were renovating and after releasing this feature, we realized that the real culprit for this mission’s success and failure was in how we presented rewards.
User Interface by Shelly Humphries
In the “Game Night” feature, players collect progress toward getting event currency which allows the player to roll dice and move around the board and collect rewards on the places they land after the dice roll. Rewards are presented in a way that they are not presented anywhere else in the game. The rewards are built into the board spaces and do not provide a value to what they are landing on before landing on it. Also, the symbolism doesn’t necessarily help the player make a connection to the way those currencies are usually presented.
We learned that, when we change or abstract rewards away from their more traditional representation, the player has a hard time connecting them from the trained symbolism they already understand. We made sure in future projects we carefully considered how we altered traditional representations of the rewards.
Game Night
We also learned, players are incentivized by understanding the exact value of the prize they are trying to receive. If the prize’s value is not presented, they are not incentivized. For casino mobile game players, the coin/chip values are connected to the ability to spin in slots. If the values are not up to a certain level in comparison to their needs to spin in slots, they will not have incentive to participate. They will spend their time connecting with features that are a better use of their time to enable more slots play.
Because of our understanding of Game Night, the creation of a new mission type which is fairly common in the mobile game space was started. We called it “Treasure quest.”
User Interface by Fatima Dominguez
In Treasure quest, a player will complete in-slot objectives to move along a track. As they move along the track they receive rewards. The theme and length for these events are very flexible for development. Players at each point where they would get rewards, would see the exact reward and value they would receive. The player also saw the rewards they would receive in exactly the order they would receive it. The player could scroll and view the reward farther down the track.
Players responded well to seeing and understanding exactly the rewards they would receive. They liked seeing the exact value of the rewards if they were chips/coins. Players also responded well to being able to see what they would receive farther down the track. It incentivized them to keep playing the event to reach those later rewards because even if the current reward wasn’t amazing the later rewards made it worth the “quest”.
Treasure Quest
The Success of treasure quest led us to wanting to revitalize our older missions by seeing if we could renovate them to achieve similar success. The challenge we faced was how we could create a blanket method to create a track of rewards that players could clearly see the value of the rewards on every mission without having to develop unique solutions for each.
User Interface by Shelly Humphries
We created an attachment to our usual layout for missions, that would not adjust the space of the mission too dramatically. We added a rewards drawer/ flyout that would slide out every time a player would receive a reward to present the reward they would receive. The player can also tap on this feature and see the rewards outside of this flow to allow them to view the rewards they would eventually receive in their own time.
Reward Tracker
Wireframes / UX design expanded and completed by Howard Hsing. User Interface by Edouard Sitbon
Overall, this feature gained very positive feedback in qualitative and quantitative testing, and provided a nice boost to some of our older mission types. We finally created a broad solution that brought new life into our older missions and saw the results of all of our findings over the course of all of the experiments and studies we had done up to this point.
The research we did across these events help us have a game plan for how we “show rewards.” We have begun to also be more considerate about rewards in whether we want to “show rewards” or “hide and have some mystery”.
1. Have players view prizes clearly that they can work toward.
2. Make sure prizes clearly show the value they represent.
3. Don’t alter heuristics that have already been established in how the game presents rewards.
4. Giving them the full picture of the progress they can make in an event.
5. Create a linear predictable path for players to see when they are going to get the prizes over the course of an event, or allow the player to manage the path themselves to give them agency.
4. Do not make it ambiguous when or if the player will get rewards. This is ok with short experiences like single wheel spins, but longer features with consistent engagement need clear pathing that allows the player to plan their attendance and guarantees a return.
The only caveat to all this is, if the prizes / value are worth the player’s time, then all of these practices are good to follow. If the prizes are not of a value that the players would appreciate, (economy issues) they might choose to not partake in the event. In which case, you may choose to not show the prizes as clearly. Mystery prizes may lower engagement over time, but there will be more upfront engagement as they are observing what to expect from the “Mystery” prizes.