Build towers, formulate strategies, ward off your enemies, and most importantly, survive.

Survival Arena, a tower defense game by Game Insight, lets you build and customize your arsenal of towers, ammunition, and power-ups to race against an onslaught of enemies and win against all odds.

Game Insight wanted to increase engagement in Survival Arena, giving players another reason to come back to the app each week. To accomplish this, they integrated Amazon GameOn into their cross-platform tournaments, which allowed them include leaderboards and to award players real-world prizes fulfilled by Amazon.

“We researched the idea of rewarding players with real-world loot for a long time, but always hesitated since there were just too many logistical issues we’d have to take care of,” said Alex Zenciks, a producer on Survival Arena at Game Insight.

“With GameOn, it’s a match made in heaven. We organize the tournaments that our players love, they can win great prizes, and Amazon handles the shipping through their world-renowned system.”

Real-world prizes lead to a boost in engagement and retention

Game Insight runs tournaments in Survival Arena every week, offering prizes like game consoles and gift cards to players who top the leaderboard. The user flow is simple: a player enters the game, sees a tournament card with a special tournament, and presses Play to participate. They are automatically enrolled into the GameOn tournament and, after it ends, the winners can claim their prize from their inbox.

“The feedback we received from our players has been phenomenal. They could have never imagined winning a physical prize,” said Alex. “One of the players was very grateful for that opportunity, and has actually won a Nintendo Switch for his two sons to play with!”

Players are excited about winning real-world prizes, and it has led to real results. According to Game Insight, in the one-month window after implementing GameOn, the attach rate for Survival Arena increased by 400%, day 28 retention increased by 31%, and player session time increased by 17%.

“Players were compelled to compete for that sweet real-world swag, and played these tournaments over and over,” said Alex.
 

A “no-brainer” integration

With a set of flexible APIs built on the AWS cloud infrastructure and compatible with any operating system, GameOn was easy to integrate into Survival Arena's gameplay.

“Our game is built on C++, and integration was a breeze. It was split into two parts: server and client. Both were handled by just one programmer responsible for server and client, respectively,” said Alex. “The instructions are straightforward, and the results of the integration have been well worth the minimal effort required.”
 

Democratizing the esports experience

GameOn has allowed Game Insight to extend the traditional esports experience and offer it to both pro and amateur players.

“Esports is an initiative of huge importance for Game Insight as evidenced by Survival Arena’s participation in Amazon’s Mobile Masters, and in our partnership with ESL to put on an invitational tournament for Guns of Boom in Katowice in July 2018.”

“We’re excited to effectively democratize that esports experience – to be able to offer that experience to a wider group of our players in addition to the pros. Having actually competed and even winning tangible prizes in GameOn tournaments, our amateur players can implicitly understand the electrifying excitement that the pros feel when they square off for the prize jackpots at the invitationals. It just makes the entire scene better for everyone!” said Alex.

Get started with GameOn

Are you new to GameOn? Get started today in three easy steps: sign in or register for an Amazon developer account, register your game, and get your API key.

You can also learn more about how to integrate competitive mobile gaming by watching this webinar on-demand.

About Game Insight

Founded in 2009, Game Insight is a leading innovator of mobile and social games, creating exceptional gameplay experiences across casual to hardcore titles. With more than 300 million players, Game Insight is one of the largest games companies in the world. The company is pushing the boundaries of technology and graphics across all platforms to make the most entertaining and fun experiences for everyone. Game Insight is based in Vilnius, Lithuania with development studios around the world.