Win Streak: the Gift That Keeps on Giving
Written by Ahmetcan Demirel, the maestro of product management and a podcast host (Game Dev Diary) from Germany! With a knack for puzzle, arcade, and simulation games.
When Ahmetcan isn’t busy crafting analysis or designing killer features for consulting clients, you’ll find him exploring Berlin's vibrant tech scene or writing for Deconstructor of Fun in one of the hipster cafes of the city.
Puzzle games have a simple yet addicting core loop: playing levels. Since playing levels is the core action, beating them becomes the primary goal for players as they continue enjoying their favorite puzzle game. However, having a simplistic target like "beating levels" brings joy only to a certain extent. Experienced players who churn through dozens of levels every day aren't satisfied with this simple target; they expect more in return for their investment of time and, hopefully, money.
This is where the most crucial player motivation for puzzle games comes into play: Win Streak. The main goal is still beating levels. It is your core action and you are expected to repeat it again and again indefinitely. But by creating new rewards tied to the success of that core action, players are incentivized and rewarded in multiple ways, enhancing their experience. Some rewards are simple, table stake features, while others introduce groundbreaking changes to the game rules.
Since the End Game Offer (EGO) is the most powerful tool in a puzzle game’s monetization arsenal, enhancing its value is crucial for driving higher conversion rates. When the sole objective is to beat levels, players quickly adapt to this goal and may lose interest in purchasing 5 extra moves to beat another level. However, when there are additional rewards tied to their win streak, the stakes suddenly increase. And the higher the stakes, the better the EGO conversion is expected to be. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should overload the game with high-stakes rewards that expect players to consistently achieve extraordinary success in exchange for extremely valuable rewards. Successful games strike a delicate balance by offering a mix of high and low-stakes rewards to keep players engaged consistently.
So, let’s take a look at the most popular practices for utilizing win streak:
Beginner Level: Short win streaks for power ups
Providing power-ups in a progressive manner is the most common reward that puzzle games offer for win streaks. Almost all successful puzzle games use this method, typically in the form of a ladder-style reward progression for 3 or 5 consecutive wins. It increases the number of power-ups rewarded up to those 3 or 5 wins, and then caps, giving the same reward after each subsequent win.
This creates a straightforward and quick feedback loop, instantly rewarding players for their win streak. Players don't need to do anything other than beating levels; the rewards are automatically given at the start of each level. It's also easy to track, as players can clearly see the power-ups they earn from their win streak and how it improves.
Fishdom (left) using win streaks in a simple way while Triple Match 3D (right) mixing things up with time limited opportunities.
Another perk of these power-up rewards is that they make the game more enjoyable! Starting a level with a couple of bombs and propellers gives you a head start in beating the level and also starts it with a bang that feels good. Finally, this reward mechanism subtly yet effectively onboards players, teaching them how power-ups work individually and in combination. Although power-ups are introduced early in their respective levels, repetition is key to mastering them, and win streak rewards provide an excellent opportunity for this. Once players become accustomed to starting levels with power-ups and using them to overcome obstacles, they are more likely to consider spending in the future for additional power-ups, having already experienced their effectiveness.
Intermediate Level: Long term goals and badges
Our capacity to swiftly adjust to new realities as humanity is both a blessing and a curse simultaneously. Initially, receiving power-ups for 3 or 5 wins feels satisfying, but it can become predictable and monotonous over time. That initial progression and consistently earning maximum rewards empower the player. However, you can't rely solely on that in a market worth over $5 billion/year.
King is a great example of mixing things up a bit without going overboard. Their flagship title, Candy Crush Saga, provides players with an endless power-up reward track similar to the Saga Map they employ for levels. Players continue receiving the maximum amount of power-ups after each win once they have reached the cap of their 5-win streak. If players continue to build their win streak, they encounter reward bundles along the way for them to collect. Once a player reaches their 5-win streak cap, they are shown the next milestone they can achieve by continuing to beat levels without failure. So, players are always enticed with the promise of the "next thing" even after reaching the initial win streak limit.
How Candy Crush Saga (left) and Candy Crush Soda Saga (right) use win streak for power up rewards.
The second largest King title, Candy Crush Soda Saga, uses a straightforward badge system prominently displayed in the level menu for players to track. Players are provided with a clear indication of their current win streak length, enhancing the intrinsic value of each level. It actually mirrors the system from Candy Crush Saga, but the badge of honor holds more significance than the reward bundle. To see that there are rewards at certain milestones, players must tap on their badge and read the instructions. AppLovin’s Project Makeover also displays the win streak count similarly, but their UI design subtly emphasizes the badge and focuses more on the power-up rewards.
Candy Crush Soda Saga doesn’t bother with showing you the next reward, but still informs you if you insist by tapping on your badge.
Both methods are excellent at fostering intrinsic motivation for the player. The first method, with reward bundles, is more practical, acting like a loot box earned periodically. The badge displayed on the level menu, on the other hand, strongly ties to the player's sense of status. Even though you can’t show it off to other players, it intrinsically boosts your sense of skill.
Advanced Level: Events focused on win streak
So far, we’ve focused exclusively on permanent features, but there’s another crucial aspect: LiveOps. Every top-grossing game must run a healthy number of events consistently to maintain its success and player engagement. Since win streaks are crucial for player motivation, it’s only natural that many events focus on leveraging them.
Without delving into the specifics of each event, one common theme stands out: They all appeal to the competitive nature of players. Whether it's a last-one-standing race where only the best can survive or a time-limited challenge to reach a certain number of levels before others, these events always pit you against other players. And don't think you can breeze through those races; they typically ensure you encounter a few challenging levels along the way. If you aim to compete with others while improving your win streak, you'll likely need extra help in the form of power-ups and/or additional moves.
Candy Crush Saga (left) and Royal Match (right) using arguably the most popular win streak event type: don’t fail for “x” amount of levels.
While the previous features use win streaks in isolation to create intrinsic goals, live events that focus on win streaks do the exact opposite. They take the player out of their isolated experience and immerse them in a social context where they interact with others through competition. And they naturally have extrinsic goals since the objective is to surpass other players and claim the top spot on the leaderboard. Just as power-up rewards serve as a gentle introduction to using continuous power-ups, these events act as a gateway to social gameplay, creating opportunities for players to add each other as friends or join each other's teams.
In terms of retention, these events are certainly more effective than the more intrinsic and easily-capped features. They increase the stakes further by involving other players and encourage them to return for more of these events. Certainly, maintaining a balanced variety of events with slightly different approaches remains crucial. Some players prefer time-limited events where achieving a specific goal matters more than speed, while others enjoy giving their all in a single session with goal-based events. Once players experience each event type and understand their mechanics, they often return to participate in their favorite events and compete against others.
Ultimate Level: Changing core gameplay
Although all of the features and events discussed here are innovative and boost game performance, they don’t alter the core essence of the gameplay. It is also hard to see any of them creating a massive monetization impact on their own. Players engage with the same levels in the same way through different events and rewards, which is beneficial for the game but not groundbreaking. To shatter the game rules and redefine what increasing the stakes means, Royal Match introduced the Super Light Ball last year. It continues to influence other puzzle games that are trying to follow suit.
Top puzzle games that currently use Super Light Ball: Royal Match (top left), Toon Blast (top right), Homescapes (bottom left), and Matchington Mansion (bottom right).
Every Match-3 or Tap-to-Blast game features an ultimate power-up, and in Royal Match, it's called the Light Ball. When used on its own, the Light Ball clears every item of its color from the board. Combined with another power-up, it transforms every item of its color into that power-up. And when two Light Balls are combined, they clear the entire board. And Super Light Ball in Royal Match doubles the effect of the Light Ball power-up, making it simple yet highly effective in gameplay.
This addition introduces another layer of depth to the core gameplay experience by doubling the effect of the most powerful power-up available. With the Super Light Ball, players can beat levels more easily and quickly. This helps players play hard and super hard levels more frequently, potentially increasing conversion rates. Since players using the Super Light Ball beat more levels per unit of time, they encounter more hard and super hard levels, potentially boosting conversion rates due to these levels having higher failure rates.
Homescapes (left) and Toon Blast (right) letting me beat levels with 20+ moves left.
This feature's effect not only makes sense from a design perspective but is also supported by evidence. Harshal Karvande’s article demonstrates how it helped both Royal Match and Toon Blast achieve impressive increases in their revenue after this update. Both games immediately saw the impact of the Super Light Ball upon release, prompting other games like Matchington Mansion and Homescapes to follow suit. It wouldn’t be surprising if this feature becomes a common practice, much like many of the events discussed earlier.
Another advantage this feature brings to the table is that it enhances player performance across all the features and events mentioned before. After unlocking Super Light Ball, beating 7 levels in a row in Lava Quest, for example, becomes much easier and more enticing. So, this super powerful tool also encourages players to engage with other events and build up their win streak by making it easier to do so.
Every feature and event utilizing win streaks has focused on increasing the stakes, but this one truly takes the prize. After unlocking Super Light Ball (or its equivalent in the game you're playing), the returns on your time, effort, and money invested compound significantly. Considering its significant design change to a decade-old genre, we can say this represents the state-of-the-art in leveraging win streaks at the moment.
Is there another level?
As it must be clear by now, puzzle players love win streaks, and puzzle games use this feature unabashedly. It's one of the first things you encounter after onboarding and follows you from level to level through various features and events. It's so important that even the core gameplay can't escape its influence. So, is that it? Have we seen everything that can be done with win streaks?
The answer is an obvious no. As long as puzzle games keep competing for one of the most valuable player groups, we'll continue seeing new features and events using win streaks to raise the stakes even further. Although it's difficult to predict what those features and events will be, here are a few possibilities we might see in the future:
Bragging rights: To reinforce the intrinsic motivation created by the win streak badge, a simple update to display the badge on the player profile seems quite logical. Players who are positively affected by seeing their win streak badge in the menu will be even more motivated if they see it on their profile. Especially for members of competitive teams, the win streak badge could effectively showcase consistency and skills.
Win streak passes: Everybody knows that season passes work great for almost any game. They reward players for their engagement and allow them to double down on it by purchasing higher-tier rewards. A parallel reward track can be explored using win streaks, akin to Candy Crush Saga's Saga Map style. Players would earn rewards based on their win streak and could purchase higher-tier rewards, similar to a season pass model. It would essentially serve as a more intense version of a standard season pass, given its higher-stakes approach, likely appealing greatly to highly engaged players.
Win streak freezes: Duolingo is a great example of gamification, showcasing how apps and businesses can draw lessons from gaming. While that is certainly true and they do prioritize candidates with gaming backgrounds, yet they're also innovating in ways games could emulate. Duolingo offers a popular feature called "Streak Freeze," allowing users to maintain their streak by spending in-app gems on days they miss their learning goals. Following a similar concept, puzzle games could introduce a "Win Streak Freeze" item, enabling players to maintain their streak when they fail to beat a level. In situations where players face a level they can't win and prefer not to use extra moves or boosters, offering a "get out of jail free card" could be compelling. This item would enable them to preserve their win streak while allowing them to return to the level more prepared for future attempts. Certainly, implementing such a feature isn't straightforward as it might impact EGO revenue or its overall value. However, it's worth considering for its potential benefits.
