Optimising an arcade classic for mobile game players

SEGA Hardlight

SEGA Hardlight produce mobile-ready versions of classic arcade and console games, most notably the iconic Sonic the Hedgehog and Crazy Taxi. They asked us to look at one of their leading games, Sonic Dash, and make recommendations on how UX could be used to help them improve player retention and monetisation.

We carried out three streams of activity: first off, a stakeholder workshop where we met with the design and development team to discuss the game in detail and where they thought improvements could be made; next we conducted peer research – Sonic Dash is an ‘endless runner’ game so we spent a bit of time playing the most popular endless runners on the market to learn what works and what doesn’t (tough job, eh?); we finished up by developing a mobile-enabled interactive prototype to demonstrate how we thought the game UX could be improved to offer a more rewarding user experience, validating our approach with SEGA Hardlight’s internal design and development teams.

Many of our ideas for improved UX have been implemented over the past 12 months and, although we can’t share specific details, SEGA have seen an increase in player retention and monetisation.