Fortnite Refer a Friend Case Study: Boosting Player Acquisition and Retention

INTRODUCTION

Activating Millions: The Success of Fortnite Refer a Friend

When Epic Games wanted to launch a global engagement and player acquisition campaign for the millions of Fortnite players it reached out to Ex Machina

Using our experience in developing fan & viewer engagement projects we collaborated to launch Fortnite Refer a Friend, a campaign that reactivates the player base and reaches new players.

Fortnite Refer a Friend: A Case Study in Boosting Player Retention and Acquisition

The campaign rewards existing players to invite friends and new players into the game through a web client, offering rewards for both players when they complete specific tasks.

Ex Machina's PlayTwo platform integrated with several game API's to track millions of friend connections and their task progress and reward participants with in-game rewards.

The Refer a Friend campaign was available in 12 languages and successfully reached millions of existing and new Fortnite players,

OBJECTIVE

Activating the millions of Fortnite players

The Refer a Friend campaign focussed on activating the millions of Fortnite players to invite their friends to play the game together. Driving community engagement and new player registrations. The campaign relied heavily on real-time progress and player data from individual players and friend connections.

Ex Machina created a platform with the following objectives:

Given the global reach of Fortnite the platform needed to support millions of visitors, registrations and friend connections and track all data in real-time without failure.
The web based client needed to provide an easy to use interface in 12 languages that guided visitors through the experience without complicated user flows or screens.
Results needed to be processed in real-time so players and their friends could be rewarded as soon as they completed the task.
Provide the Fortnite team easy access to a Producer Console to manage the campaign, lookup results and see real-time analytics.

SOLUTION

Driving Player Engagement: The Technology behind Fortnite Refer a Friend

Ex Machina developed the Fortnite Refer a Friend campaign using the PlayTwo platform to manage the millions of players and friend connections, securely integrate several external player, game and reward API’s and track all progress. All in real-time and without lag.

The platform consisted of:

Player Invitations The platform allows players to invite friends and new players via a web client and create connections.
Task-Based Rewards Players can complete in-game tasks to earn rewards, which are directly added to their accounts.
Sequential Tasks Tasks follow a sequential order, with some achievable individually and others requiring collaboration between the 'Referrer' and 'Invitee.'
Progress Tracking Players can track and share their progress using a unique, shareable URL, with options for keeping progress private.
Producer Console A user-friendly Producer Console manages the campaign, offering real-time insights into player data, progress, campaign tasks, rewards, and support game modes.
Full Control and Data Access The platform provides the Epic team with complete control over every aspect of the campaign and access to all data and analytics.

RESULTS

Activating Millions of Fortnite Players with Ex Machina’s PlayTwo platform

Over several weeks, the campaign reached millions of existing and new users. Participants created multiple friend connections to complete the tasks and earn the in-game rewards. This campaign drove engagement, promoted multiplayer gameplay, and encouraged new player acquisition.

Leveraging Ex Machina's PlayTwo platform, the campaign successfully managed millions of users in real-time, tracking friend connections, task completions, and handing out instant in-game rewards.

This high level of engagement was supported by the accessible design of the web client and the easy to use tools of the Producer Console, which provided the Epic team full control over the campaign and real-time analytics. The campaign served as a blueprint for seamlessly blending technology and community engagement to achieve outstanding results in player activation and new player acquisition.

Leveraging Ex Machina's PlayTwo platform, the campaign successfully managed millions of users in real-time, tracking friend connections, task completions, and handing out instant in-game rewards.