Forza Hub increased retention of Forza gamers and became an indispensable app for the Forza gamer.
In games, a franchise hub is a destination for gamers to interact with the game outside of actual game play. Work at Play partnered with Turn 10 studios to conceive, design, and build Forza Hub and it delivered immediate results.
The Challenge
Turn 10, a division of Microsoft Studios, enlisted Work at Play to create an application that would act as the franchise hub for Forza fans on Xbox One.
Objectives
Our goals for Forza Hub were to:
What We Did
Designed and built a franchise hub for Forza
In games, a franchise hub is a destination for gamers to interact with the game outside of actual game play. The goal is to provide gamers with more touchpoints to engage with the game IP and content they love. The benefit of a franchise hub is that it extends game play and increases affiliation with the game franchise which helps to keep gamers engaged with the franchise between title launches.
Building upon Window’s Universal App Platform
“Windows Universal Applications” are built for Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox One at the same time sharing code, user controls, styles, and other assets between the projects. This ecosystem is ideal for creating a franchise hub, so, naturally we embraced Microsoft’s universal app platform and philosophy to create Forza Hub.
Strategy
Our strategy to achieve the immediate goals was broken into 3 main components:
Build Viewership
Content Forza Hub is a perfect platform for helping fans and gamers get their car fix. The Forza Hub brings weekly car culture columns like “Heavy Metal Affliction” and “Rear View Mirror” to the Xbox experience for gamers.
Content to enhance the Forza game experience When Forza gamers are finished or taking a break from playing, the Forza Hub offers gamers interesting content on the Xbox while Forza is still top-of-mind.
The “Week in Review” with all things Forza
Forza career dashboards
Community spotlights
Up-to-the-minute news flashes
Tips on the quickest way to increase scores across Forza titles
A “Friends Compare” feature for friendly motivation
Community car galleries
Integrate Rewards Redeeming rewards enhances and extends the gameplay experience for Forza gamers. Previously, gamers needed to interrupt their play and go to the Forza website to redeem rewards. Since Forza Hub is an Xbox One application, Forza gamers can now quickly claim rewards and get back to racing without leaving the console experience.
Highlighting and Promote Horizon 2 Whether gamers visited Forza Hub to collect rewards or consume the latest car news, the launch of Horizon 2 was front and center. Through hero images, news feeds, or sponsored content, gamers saw that Horizon 2 had arrived and was ready to play. With just a single click, gamers were taken to the Xbox store to download the award-winning Horizon 2.
Working with Work at Play has been a pleasure. Forza Hub is a fantastic addition to the Forza franchise for our always-expanding community. Work at Play’s domain expertise, collaborative approach and outstanding professionalism were instrumental to Forza Hub’s inception and its continued evolution.
Michel Bastien, Executive Producer, Turn 10 Studios
Results
We can’t share all the results, but here’s a few we can share.
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