Pley Connect | Cross-Platform Account Linking for Web Games
Pley Connect is one of the most important features I built. It’s discovery was a core pillar of Pley’s busines viability. Let’s review it.
In Brief
Pley Connect enables cross-platform account linking for web games, allowing players to sync their progress across mobile and web. While players embraced the feature with high engagement and conversion rates, adoption by game studios was limited due to implementation complexity. In retrospect, the solution prioritized player UX at the expense of developer simplicity, which ultimately constrained broader adoption. The discovery of the user behavior was more critical than the feature itself, leading to leaps in retention, engagement, and monetization for games.
The product unlocks a world of value for both Pley, the game studio, and the player. It was however difficult reaching a self-serve point where game studios implemented the feature without assistance, majorly increasing the cost of adoption.
Discovery & Hypothesis
Pley Connect was really discovered due to Pley’s core business strategy; DO NOT SPLIT THE GAME. Game studios should operate a single game across multiple platforms, not two separate games. To achieve this, players must be able to play the same game no matter where they enjoy it.
It’s also desired by the player. When a new game version launches, the first audience to target with it is the current mobile one. Without account linking, they would have to start over (which they’d never do, they’re seasoned players). We had many launches with negative feedback from the current playerbase whenever they couldn’t continue from the level they had already reached. Nobody wants to start over.
From other entertainment forms:
- Other forms of digital entertainment is cross-device. This is especially true for web-based ones. Youtube, Netflix, Spotify, Instagram, TikTok. All work seamlessly across users devices. This way, they become part of multiple sections of peoples life.
From other games:
- We had seen web games (even Airport City by Game-insight on our own platform) engage thousands of players by connecting game progress for them. It is a feature they built, but paid off amazingly. Bringing what works in one game to all games is core to Pley’s product.
From internal hypothesizes:
- We guessed that players who can play at many times during their days, when they access different devices would engage deeper, being gamers ourselves. As these games are built to turn engagement into monetization, the hypothesis value was clear.
Feature
The ability for players to link their progress cross platform. The player plays the game on one platform, and simply scans a single QR code with their phone to permanently connect their mobile progress with their web game. It was decided to prioritize player UX (minimize the frictions and conversion journey), at the cost of game studio implementation.
The feature was optimized to minimize the number of steps required for players. The goal was a single action.
Pley Connect has two flows. First one is mobile users inputting a code from mobile onto web. Two steps to convert.
Second method is web users scan a QR code. One step to convert.
KPIs & Success Criteria
Success Criteria:
- At least 5% of users in a game become cross-platform users by linking their games.
- At least 50% of game studios on Pley are willing to implement account linking.
Key KPIs:
- Account Linking Conversion Rate (% successful attempts. Over 75%)
- Average Revenue per User (cross-platform vs. single platform. 5x, due to bias)
- Median weekly playtime (cross-platform vs. single platform. 2x, due to bias)
It was already validated that cross-platform users overperform single-platform users by a landslide. Users who love the game are more likely to connect their accounts, driving up these values. However, even when normalizing for that, the analytics looked amazing.
Linked players are highly engaged, playing the game at more times in their life. They play at home on their laptop, and when they leave for work they continue playing on the train. It makes perfect sense for them, just like other entertainment works across devices. Success from Pley Connect was always going to come from: What % of games will implement the feature (sought: 100%) and what % of users will link their game (sought: 20%). We decided to start with 5% until we reached a benchmark, increasing it to 20% long term as we polished the feature with A/B tests.
In Retrospective
For players, the feature was excellent. Users had a high rate of completing the account linking, conversion rate being really high. Engagement for account-linked users became sky-high.
For the studios, less so. It is expensive and complicated for studios to meddle with authentication. It was easy to convince the studio of the feature’s value, but it is costly to get them to do the specific implementation. I think engaged players will account-link no matter what (nearly), so I wish we would have simplified the flow to make it easier for game companies to implement it.