A community platform for a gaming cafe, with built-in parental consent

Featured
Custom Web Application
Customer Engagement
Loyalty and Rewards
Youth Safety and Consent
Gaming and Entertainment

A gaming cafe serving a young audience needed one system to manage its members, check-ins, competitions and rewards, and to do it responsibly for players who are minors.

The client runs a gaming cafe whose customers are mostly young. Running it on paper, memory and messages made it hard to know who was visiting, keep competitions organized, or give regulars a reason to return. Because many customers are under 18, any system also had to deal with parental consent from the start.

Objectives

Give the cafe one system to manage users and check-ins
Increase repeat visits and engagement through challenges and tournaments
Introduce gift cards and redeemable rewards to encourage loyalty
Handle parental consent and controls for younger users
Free the team from manual administration

Outcomes

User engagement increased after launch
Challenges, tournaments and rewards ran inside one platform instead of ad hoc
Parental consent and controls were built into how younger users sign up and take part
The cafe began finding new opportunities as a result, including adding photocopying and printing services

The opportunity

A gaming cafe is a community as much as a business. The opportunity was to turn walk-in customers into known members with a reason to come back, and to do it in a way that parents could trust. A system built for that audience would also show the owner who their customers were and what else they might need.

Approach

We designed the platform around the player journey: signing up, checking in, taking part in challenges and tournaments, earning rewards and redeeming them. Because of the audience, we treated consent as part of the design, not an add-on, so that younger users could take part with a parent's approval and appropriate controls.

Overview of the solution

Member management: user accounts and profiles for the cafe's customers
Check-in system: a simple way to record visits
Challenges and tournaments: organized competitions that give players reasons to return
Gift cards and redeemables: a rewards layer that encourages loyalty
Parental consent and controls: consent and oversight for younger users
Admin tools: a back office for the team to run it all

Technology highlights

Custom web application
Role-based access for members, parents and staff
Consent management and user data controls

Impact

The cafe moved from a venue people visited to a community they belong to. Engagement rose, parents had a clear way to approve participation, and the owner gained the insight to add new revenue lines, including printing and photocopying.