Leverage Users Relationships For Growth
Game time is better with people you know! This design is a simplified path for users to register, then invite a friend for a unique shared experience.
To create hype around their launch on Playstation and XBOX, VALORANT wanted to drive engagement through trusted relationships.
What methods would help a historically PC game like VALORANT, maximize outcome when expanding to a new console player-base.
There were some core goals:
Drive users previously unable to play the game, to a new experience alongside players they know.
Increase an already strong VALORANT community.
Engaging with friends = Happy Players.
This leads to play growth via engagement and retention.
The more they are happy playing, the more they spend hard earned money!
The "Perfect Experience" would be something that was simple, safe and reliable, scalable, and gave us the control levers to easily deliver this experience to a huge audience.
I focused on flows that allowed us to reuse functionalities in multiple instances. This reduced the scope of unique logic and one-off situations our engineers needed to build.
The landing page was designed not only for registration details, but also to provide links to content about the game, and account for getting new and existing players hyped.
The ideal experience hit a snag wanting to rely on our internal system logic, to control and validate user access, reducing friction to get in game. But our external partners needed us to use a flow with access codes, which added a little user friction. This turned out fine given it's an expected experience on other products.
Early on, I made a point to attempt to reduce bad actors selling unusable codes to excited players, by bringing the invitation process into the user account management. Unfortunately upon exploration, this would greatly increase the project scope, so teh concept was punted the capabilities to a future project.
Sharing The Invite Code
To make MVP launch dates, the simplest version allowing users to share access codes with friends was landed on. The result was a responsive flow, which provided users access through our system registration, and the ability to share an access code through their chosen method. Had we forced this experience through the console flow, it would limit user options. This solution allowed users to chose their own share path - be that email, discord, or text (as seen below!).
Redeeming A Shared Code
Redeeming a code shared by your friend, needed to be as simple as registration. The flow was the same, except the landing page had a unique code tied reflecting the registered user it came from. The friend just needed to log in, choose their platform, and you're ready to play!
What was the result?
The launch on console was a HUGE success. The hypothesis that users would play longer when they have a unique experience to share together, was validated. The game recorded huge growth in user base, time spent in game, and revenue - all directly tied to ease of use.
