Team
Client
Timeline
Deliverable
OVERVIEW
From record setters to player decline
Sea of Thieves (SoT) is an action-adventure game where players become pirates taking on voyages and exploring the open pirate world. The game is developed by Rare Games, a video game developer. My team collaborated in this project with Xander Ashwell the UX Design Lead at Rare.
Problem
Sea of Thieves was launched in June 2020. They reached peak success in June 2021 with 4.8 million players logged in, setting a new record. Since then, their numbers have been on a gradual decline.
Rare wants to maintain their SoT players, while bringing more attention back to the game utilizing their prior research:
players who play with other people tend to remain engaged for longer
streamers are an important fulcrum point in maintaining relevancy and share of voice in the saturated gaming market
Business Goals
⟶ Increase player retention
⟶ Increase brand relevance
Design Constraints
design cannot alter the gameplay
design cannot give any users unfair advantages
design cannot affect in-game matchmaking
DISCOVERY
Seeking connection and community
To get a better understanding of their users, we conducted interviews (5) and surveys (26) with SoT streamers and viewers around gaming styles, streaming, and general frustrations.
User Insights
Viewers often play after or while watching a streamer
Streamers want more ways to engage people in the chat
Streamers bond most with their viewers during lulls in their game
Streamers have difficulty to finding ways to bond with their chat
Community is important to both streamers and viewers
Tasked to build bonds
We used a Jobs-to-be-Done framework to get to the what and the why of the tasks our users wanted to accomplish.
Streamers want to interact with viewers to strengthen bonds with their community.
Viewers want to engage in fun activities with other to feel part of a community.
IDEATION
Capitalizing on an open world concept
Our design team used the Crazy 8 method for a rapid ideation session. After narrowing down our options, we regrouped with our client to discuss the feasibility and effectiveness of the remaining ideas. Filtering through ideas from a Captain's Log, Pirate Cheersquad, and a Pseudo-Pirate Raid. We ultimately decided on the Sea of Thieves Challenges Twitch Extension that allows streamers to host mini-challenges for their viewers, an idea that takes advantage of the game's open world concept.
The storyboard below illustrates the streamer's user flow while using the SoT Challenges extension.
UI DESIGN
Style extraction to application
We were provided with a brief style guideline:
pirate themed
cartoonish without being too childish
no straight lines
We filled out the style guide by pulling and observing the colors and assets from their game and website.
warm earthy tones and sea greens
weathered and aged textures with cracks and worn edges
playful interactions
glowing elements used to draw attention
style is whimsical, funny and quirky
From these features, we compiled a color palette and created components for the SoT Challenges extension.
FINAL DESIGNS
How it works
SoT Challenge Twitch Extension is designed to increase multiplayer gameplay, building out the Sea of Thieves' network amongst users to increase engagement and bring more awareness to the game.
A tool for streamers to amp up activity and engagement
Streamers can host mini-challenges for viewers with SoT Challenges Twitch Extension.
They can choose from a list, randomly choose, or create their own challenge to host.
They can dictate the length of games.
They are in control of who can participate and who walks the plank.
A bonding opportunity for viewers
They can accept a mini-challenge from their favorite streamer.
They choose their own teams. Team chats allow players to strategize and build camaraderie with their teammates.
They can see where they stand in challenges against fellow players.
Watch a walk-through of the prototype on YouTube: