Conduit - A Personalized Toolbar for your games!

[codestryke]

Recently discovered this little gem on another forum www.conduit.com

You can basically create your own custom toolbar for your game, forums, basically anything you desire. The power really comes from the ability to create custom content for the toolbar. We are running a test on one of our games now to see how it goes over with the community.

The toolbar has a login, once they are logged in it gives them basic game stats on what is going on with there accounts. We also customized it to show game alerts, forum posts (via rss), quick button to the games chat and the game menu.



I will say it doesn't do everything I wanted, couple little quirks but for the most part it's good enough.

[Hypemaster]

Looks nice, i'm going to check that one out. Does it also autologin or do you always need to login every time you start browser?

[codestryke]

You have to re-log in, least that's what I've found so far.

Update:
The login uses a cookie, for me I got logged out, for my partner she didn't. If the login cookie is still active it will automatically show the information, if you lose the cookie (like me) you have to login again.

[Helderic]

Looks good, you should also have a look at http://freecause.com/toolbar.

[Mufasa]

Thanks for these guys 

[JGadrow]

Awesome! I hadn't even thought to look for such a thing! I've already recommended it to our acting IM Director and CEO.

Thanks for the links!

[jannesiera]

Wow, certainly looks intresting!

[Blacklava]

Sorry to bump an old thread but what's the result after a few months?
Wondering the % of players trying it, not sure why people would install it...

[MystressNyx]

Just glancing at the stats overview that Conduit provides (woefully inadequate), it looks like about 30 - 40% of our users have at least tried it. Mind you, it's only posted in our forum and not actually linked inside the game anywhere, so the newest players aren't readily aware of it.

As to the why, there are lots of reasons. For that particular game, the most valuable element is being able to see if your Auto Join is active and if your Node Manager is installed. I won't try to explain what that means, but the gist is that either of those being disabled without the player realizing it can have very detrimental effects for them. With the toolbar, that status is available at a glance no matter where you are browsing.

Also, our players tend to be lazy. lol The toolbar keeps them logged in and allows them one click access to most areas of the game, some which may take *gasp* up to 3 clicks to access from the main page! hehe

So, while it's not for everyone, those that like toolbars are quite enamored by it. Given that it doesn't hurt us any to make it available and it has benefits for a decent % of players, we consider it a success.

[Blacklava]

I see, interesting!
Do you mean there is an effect on retention and players who've installed the toolbar will more likely stay active for a longer time? Or have you find a way to monetize those toolbar installs/uses?
I've seen toolbar paying for install (even customized a bit) or paying you for searches done by surfer, not sure which is the best goal between money or retention but 30-40% installs sound huge for sure!

[MystressNyx]

I don't have the numbers I'd need to make any calls on its effect on retention, but I doubt it has that kind of impact in its current state. If anything, it's geared more toward giving the long time users a shiny new toy that simplifies their game play a bit. Though it definitely does act to keep bringing a player's focus back to the game with it staring them in the face all the time lol. 

Conduit does have a monetization option, but honestly we haven't really looked into it. That just wasn't our goal for exploring it and doesn't really fit into our overall monetization scheme.

[jannesiera]

Though it definitely does act to keep bringing a player's focus back to the game with it staring them in the face all the time lol.

Yeah, I recently started playing a new browser game but I always forgot about it . So a toolbar would really help with that (personally I like the non-toolbar simplicity I have with google chrome atm though).