Shogun Wars Case Study

2022

Turning around a crypto play-and-earn game increasing revenue by 90%

Video walkthrough of one of the prototypes I designed and tested with users.
summary
I led research, the total revamp of the visual design, and co-developed a design system for a new play 2 earn crypto game on the Arbitrum blockchain.
Role
UX Researcher & Product Designer
SKills
  • Visual Design
  • User Testing & Research
  • Design Systems
  • Prototyping
Design Team
  • Myself
  • Project Manager
  • Smart Contract Developer
  • Frontend Developer
Challenge
The game faced a dire 70% drop in revenue due to usability and UX flaws causing increased frustration and players quitting.
solution
I was able to pin point and fix player pain points and spearhead the visual design overhaul boosting player satisfaction and retention.
result
Players were able to complete tasks in the game easier and faster boosting retention, transactions, and revenue by over 90%.
How we got there

Players were confused & couldn’t complete the needed tasks to advance.

Slideshow showing personas and user stories developed after interviewing players.

Insights gained from talking to players.

I leveraged the existing discord community with 1,000s of players to conduct surveys and user interviews where I gathered data from a wide range of players. Synthesizing the data I uncovered 3 main types of players all with different needs, and creating users flows showed the different pain points they faced.

2 key player archetypes
‘Traders’ & ‘Collectors’ drove almost all revenue and provide key secondary market support.
“I hate the navigation & how hard it is to manage my rewards.”
Frustrated with the broken navigation, unable to find where to go, & wanted to be able to search or filter.
60% of players didn’t know about in game items to buy.
These items drove most revenue needed to continue development of the game.

Crafting a bold visual design with advanced  features players were craving.

Slideshow looking at wireframes created to test with users and sections of the design system created.

Testing our assumptions.

I organized a collaborative sketching session to helped us create and test different navigation concepts, layouts, and component designs. Focusing on the projects principles I created low fidelity wireframes to test with users to see how well they could complete a series of different tasks.

90% task success rate
90% of critical tasks were completed by players.
2+ min faster
Average time on task reduced by over 2 minutes.
“This is great! I’m so excited for what’s next.”
80% of critical tasks were completed by players.

Project Outcomes and Future Vision.

Slideshow showing different screens of the final design on various screen sizes.

Design impacts.

The final design update I led created much needed improvements from the navigation, consistent visual design, and new features players were asking for to address significant pain points. This lead to a complete turn around driving revenue, player growth, retention, and player satisfaction allowing the project to continue and grow with the release of even more new features and areas.

90% increase in revenue
Players were now able to find in game items to buy driving huge revenue growth.
30% increase in player retention
Player satisfaction increased leading to more active players that continued playing.
50% increase in secondary sales
Strong indication of the projects strength and health providing a key source of revenue.
Growing & expanding
The redesign successfully turned around the game, revenues dramatically increased along with player growth and retention. This made the game profitable allowing the team to continue building new features.
Player satisfaction at all time high
After design updates player satisfaction and excitement reached all time highs. Discord, Twitter, and other online communities saw rapid growth and activity, and support tickets that had taken most of the teams time fell allowing them to focus on future development.
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