Situation/Challenge
Electronic Arts Montreal, developers of the popular Scrabble app for Facebook and mobile, needed assistance designing, producing, and product-managing the first complete overhaul to the game in years. Scrabble had been surpassed by Zynga’s Words with Friends and was in dire need of UX and feature upgrading.
AC+A’s Solutions
AC+A performed an extensive competitive analysis to understand the current state of the word-game market, player expectations, and trends vs. truly sticky features. In a presentation to the core Scrabble team, AC+A outlined Competitive Intellectual Social Game best practices that we would later help the team take action.
Over the course of eight months, AC+A worked on- and off-site with the Scrabble team, providing product management and production and design leadership. AC+A identified and addressed weak spots in the product’s UX, introduced social and sharing features, and designed key monetization opportunities.
Over the duration of AC+A’s engagement with the Scrabble team, we produced the Scrabble Beta and oversaw the launch and full deployment of the new version of Scrabble.
Results
AC+A directly contributed to KPI improvements across the board, most notably DAU, MAU, and retention increases that hadn’t been seen on the product for months. We provided a solid roadmap for ongoing development, including a prioritized server-reliant features list. We also successfully integrated the first sponsored content into Scrabble, with Toyota as a partner.
