The Case for More Friction: 7.93M Players, 71% Conversion

Every additional step in a branded experience is supposed to cost you players. The World Gold Council campaign had five. Conversion was 71%.

The World Gold Council ran a 30-day treasure hunt across 24 Roblox games.¹ Players discovered ore hidden in each game, collected at least 5 pieces, then chose to smelt it into gold bars — learning about gold careers along the way. Gold bars could be redeemed for free UGC items and prizes. Every step was optional. The campaign reached 7.93M visits and 32 years of total playtime.

The conventional expectation: more steps means more drop-off. A treasure hunt across 24 games, requiring players to find 5 ore to make 1 gold, and doing that ore to gold conversion in a separate game sounds like a big ask. It wasn't.

Across the full 30-day campaign, 71.1% of all ore mined was converted into gold bars — 4.09M bars from 28.7M ore.² The cumulative conversion rate held above 71% for the entire campaign duration.

That conversion rate is a measure of intent. Finding one piece of ore is passive — it happens as part of normal gameplay. Collecting five, navigating to the smelting mechanic, and converting them is a series of deliberate choices. When a branded experience is designed to feel native to both the platform and the brand, those extra steps become participation rather than friction. A gold treasure hunt on Roblox feels like playing Roblox.

The timing data reinforces this. Weekend ore mining was 56% higher than weekday averages. Friday through Sunday accounted for 58% of all weekly activity. Saturday saw the highest engagement — average daily ore mined peaked at 1.22M, compared to a weekday average of 829K.

A pre/post brand lift study with a control group measured the outcome: 89% brand lift.³ The game design explains the engagement. But the educational content — how gold careers were framed, which terminology was used, how information was presented in the World Gold Day lobby — was shaped by research we ran before the campaign launched: a nationally representative survey of 898 Roblox players aged 13–17 and face-to-face user testing sessions that validated both the mechanics and the messaging.⁴ The engagement data shows players participated. The brand lift shows they learned something.

Footnotes

1. The World Gold Council "Become a Gold Hunter!" campaign embedded gold education into adventure gameplay across 24 Roblox games, supported by creator collaborations. The goal was to inspire young people to consider gold-related careers — from mining to technology to finance. ↩

2. Conversion calculated as total gold bars created / total possible gold bars (total ore / 5). Cumulative rate tracks the running total across all campaign days. Daily rates vary due to collection-to-conversion lag — players often collected ore across multiple sessions before converting. ↩

3. Off-platform brand lift study (n=898, US, 13–17 year olds) with pre- and post-campaign measurement and a control group of players who did not engage with the campaign. ↩

4. Phase 1: nationally representative quantitative survey (n=898, US, 13–17 year olds, weekly Roblox users) establishing baseline awareness and testing concept appeal. Phase 2: face-to-face user testing across 12 sessions, with UX and game designers observing live alongside moderators — validating mechanics, comprehension of educational content, and recall of gold career messaging. ↩