Paradise Bay

Paradise Bay is a free-to-play mobile resource management game developed by King, creators of the globally recognized Candy Crush franchise. Designed as a live-service product, Paradise Bay focused on providing players with an immersive and dynamic experience through continuous content updates and engaging monetization strategies. The game invited players to build their tropical haven, engage in trading activities, and participate in events tailored to foster creativity and community interactions.

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Overview

I joined King as an intern on their live-service mobile game, Paradise Bay. My focus was on enhancing player engagement and driving in-game revenue by designing and optimizing live content and monetization systems. Collaborating across teams, I applied a user-focused and data-driven approach to improve the game’s economy and create engaging player experiences.

Key Achievements

  • Increased hard currency purchases by 40% among high-spending players through the successful launch of the Piggy Bank feature.
  • Boosted Tradefest participation rates by 15% after optimizing event structures based on player-level data.
  • Drove a measurable increase in player retention and engagement by launching live content updates tailored to diverse player personas.
  • Contributed to a 10% uplift in event-related in-game purchases through strategic adjustments to monetization systems.

Key Contributions

  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partnered with designers, producers, and engineers to develop and implement new content systems, such as the Tradefest and Piggy Bank, which significantly improved in-game purchases and player retention.
  • Monetization Success: Led the implementation of the Piggy Bank feature, resulting in a 40% increase in hard currency purchases among high-spending players, contributing directly to the game’s revenue growth.
  • Data-Informed Game Economy Balancing: Utilized large-scale analytics to balance the game economy, ensuring fair yet challenging gameplay for diverse player segments. Leveraged data insights to enhance event effectiveness and address economic pain points.
  • Live Event Optimization: Designed and managed live events, working closely with QA to resolve bugs and ensure timely delivery. These events played a key role in keeping the player base engaged with fresh, dynamic content.
  • Content Design: Balanced, designed, and implemented game content, including missions, tutorials, and seasonal events, ensuring alignment with player needs and business goals.

Strategies Applied

  • User-Centric Approach: Prioritized player feedback and data to refine live events and ensure features catered to all skill levels, from casual to high-level players.
  • Data-Driven Decision-Making: Designed features grounded in quantitative analysis of KPIs, such as player churn and retention metrics, ensuring measurable business impact.
  • Agile Development: Worked within an agile framework to manage feature iterations efficiently, adapting rapidly to player feedback and market trends.

Learnings

  • Deconstructing Competitor Trends: Analyzed the economy and monetization models of successful F2P games, identifying key opportunities to apply those insights to Paradise Bay.
  • Balancing Player Personas: Learned to design economies that satisfy casual players while offering engaging challenges and rewards for competitive or long-term users.
  • Iterative Testing: Discovered the value of rapid prototyping and testing for fine-tuning live content, ensuring updates consistently met user needs and business objectives.