Reaching out to this important 'core gamer' audience has been difficult. Previous efforts made by brands, platforms, and game developers have been able to reach out to just 0.07% of this audience through traditional methods of marketing and brand activation. This is because this core gamer group is an elusive audience. The goal is to treat these gamers right and build relationships with them, but this usually requires brands to identify them in the first place. Core gamers tend to be very high-spenders for games, and thus prefer to be anonymous and elusive, as many prefer to keep their gamer lives secret from even their friends and family. The brief is to come up with a new idea to engage with this group that adheres to their situation, give them the experience they want and deserve, and enhance their loyalty to the Google Play brand.

The idea was to create a dedicated universe for Google Play's core gamers where they could have a great time doing what they loved: playing games. We worked on countless concepts and finally landed on the cyberpunk theme, which was a popular hook in 2023 thanks to strong thematic tie-ins with the most highly-performing games at the time. We then introduced the theme of 'Diamonds' into the mix, which was a direct reference to the Google Play Points Diamond Tier, the highest status in our loyalty program. The digital platform we built was named Diamond Valley, and we've created an entire pixelated universe from scratch that introduced a gamer-appealing narrative and journey, filled with quests, challenges, and hidden easter eggs. For this journey, all gamers were invited, but our Diamond Tier core gamers were given extra special treatment to reward their loyalty to Google Play.

We started with user insight. First, in order to properly draw the attention of this core gamer group, we needed to know what they wanted from brands and platforms like Google Play. We learned that core gamers:

1) strongly desired recognition for their dedication to games, much like how department stores reward their VIPs with valet service or other perks,

2) needed autonomy over their identity, availability, and channel, as their demographic were mostly older and leaning more towards self-employed professionals,

3) loved games, first and foremost, and each had their go-to games that they were fiercely dedicated to.

We then started to built something that gave special VIP experiences they craved, was incredibly accessible to the point of giving complete freedom to core gamers on how and when they want to engage with brands, and lastly, worked closely with the most popular game developers that appealed to this audience.

The ambition for this project was immense from the get-go. Nothing like this has ever done before in our brand. From the beginning, we wanted to built a digital game universe from scratch. We didn't want to borrow or copy anything, but lay the whole thing brick by brick, because that is what it truly means to show our love and appreciation to our core gamers. The craft itself was a labor of love that took months, and the web production that interweaved complicated gaming elements was a heated challenge as well. With strong support from leadership and with incredible partners, we were able to create something unprecedented and unique, and most importantly, something our shrewd core gamers saw and felt as an authentic gesture of love and respect to the gamers who have made Google Play into the platform it is today.

Previous efforts to engage with the core gamer audience was limited to just reaching 0.07% of the population. Diamond Valley ended up engaging with 10% of the total core gamer population in Korea, and nearly 15% of the total core gamer population in Japan. This was 130x more than what we and every other gamer related brand have ever achieved in these countries! Gamers were so excited to be able to enjoy a dedicated digital experience made specifically for them. They posted on their experiences on social and shared their achievements through word of mouth. We were surprised by this high engagement, but even more surprised by the business and brand metrics it drove. Diamond Valley ended up driving a 24% uplift in brand perception for Google Play, a 18% uplift in user satisfaction among core gamers, and even a 10% incremental lift in business metrics.