The new way to pay for games
Stadia is an entirely new way to play, but our research was clear that users also wanted a new way to pay. With movies, TV and music, streaming has largely moved towards a subscription business and it was clear that users wanted it for games. I lead UX and was on the core strategy team for Stadia Pro which grew to become the core business at Stadia.
Creating something both desirable and viable
The original goal from leadership for Stadia Pro was to focus on a limited amount of content and giving key features to users such as 4k and HDR. After reviewing our user research and conducting a competitive analysis I pushed for Stadia to focus less on features and more on content. This was a highly controversial pitch that required many months of development. It also required a big change to our budget and business model expectations.
Stadia Pro is the primary way that new users experience Stadia
The real value of Pro became clear as we pushed for it to be free for 30 days to new users. This design allowed us to get new users into Stadia and playing within minutes for free. This completely changed our business and was one of the most impactful projects I did at Stadia.
Start a Pro free trial during account creation
During account creation users are given the option to sign up for an optional 30 day Pro trial. We quickly found that the trial was the only effective on-boarding and we made it mandatory for all new users.
Sign up for Pro the transaction history page
If your subscription expires you can quickly restore it on the transaction history page. This page also gives you the ability to manage and cancel your subscription.
Sign up for Pro from a game detail page
Users without Pro can discover the benefits with an upsell on a game detail page. If a game is free with Pro you will be offered to start a Pro trial, instantly giving you the game free among many others.
Sign up for Pro from the store homepage
We created dynamic ad units that appear on the store homepage for Pro, showing the latest games and giving offers that are unique to each user state.
Discover Pro games from a programatic category
The store has a dedicated category for Pro games. This category automatically organizes the latest Pro games and makes it easy for Pro users to claim their benefits and new users to see what they are missing out on.
Claim free Pro games
Games with Pro benefits are clearly labeled in the store with a Pro badge. This is an example of a free game with Pro.
Get Pro discounts
Stadia Pro also offers exclusive discounts. We use a similar Pro treatment but with a sale price. These Pro badges are easily scalable throughout the store and allow users to see all the benefits they are missing without pro.
As the Pro catalog grew, we wanted a better new user experience
As Pro grew and the number of monthly games we were giving away became much larger, it was clear that we needed a new experience. We reinvented the Stadia home page to feature Pro games. This way new users would arrive on the platform and have a library full of games. We also created a “claim all” button which allows users to instantly add all Pro games to their library.
Notifications about new games were huge retention drivers
We created a series of notifications when new Pro games came out. These turned into major engagement moments.
Subscription hold and grace period
We offer users who fail payments a 7 day grace period to update their payment method. After that we will put their subscription on hold for 30 days. This helps us retain users while offering them a benefit.
Emails about new Pro games were among the most engaged emails at Google
A Pro newsletter is sent out monthly and it quickly became our most popular email and one of the most popular at Google.
Cancel and restore your subscription
We made it really easy to cancel and restore your Stadia Pro subscription. No dark patterns, just one tap to cancel and one tap to restart.