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PGC Digital: Why you shouldn't just "follow your GPS" and listen to your audience when designing live ops

GamePoint live ops manager Wouter Schrijvershof looks at the studio's work on GamePoint Bingo

PGC Digital: Why you shouldn't just "follow your GPS" and listen to your audience when designing live ops

As part of Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #1, GamePoint live ops manager Wouter Schrijvershof gave a talk on letting your community guide your game, not just your "GPS".

Specifically, Schrijvershof spoke about the studio's bingo game, GamePoint Bingo, which sees an average of 120 minutes of gameplay each day from its audience.

Explaining the title, Schrijvershof said that he had witnessed a news story recently about drivers crashing into a harbour because they were blindly following their GPS, which displayed an error and ended in accidents.

He went on to explain that GamePoint likes to be in constant dialogue with community managers and the support teams, even doing live Q&A sessions and surveys, all to find out what the community actually wants - especially handy with the "very opinionated" audience that plays its bingo game.

Rewarding players

The studio has even run offline events, including one where players who had met over GamePoint Bingo were treated to a Valentine's Day dinner on GamePoint to thank them for playing and sharing their story.

Schrijvershof also noted that the game has no progression system due to it being 15 years old, so the team has had to develop new strategies to introduce progression on top of the existing game, including a Candy Road event.

The first time this event was run, the studio received "great player feedback" and increased KPIs, but after running another two times, it saw diminishing returns. To work out why, the team sent out a survey direct to players, received a ranking from their feedback, and used this data to inform the next iteration of the event.

PG Connects Digital #1 is the best of our Pocket Gamer Connects conference in an online form, with an entire week of talks, meetings, and pitch events taking place from April 6th to the 10th. You can read up on all the tracks taking place through the week here.


Editor

Ric is the Editor of PocketGamer.biz, having started out as a Staff Writer on the site back in 2015. He received an honourable mention in both the MCV and Develop 30 Under 30 lists in 2016 and refuses to let anyone forget about it.