How to make users open the mobile operator's app every day: Tele2 Case Story

Tele2 is a major mobile operator with a strong digital focus. Around thirty percent of its subscribers have installed the Tele2 app, giving the company a solid base for direct communication. Yet this audience is not fully engaged. Most people open the app only once a month to check their balance or top-up. Many built-in features remain hidden because users leave the app within seconds.

What Was the Challenge?

Tele2 wanted the app to become a place customers visit every day, not just a monthly utility. The team set three clear goals:

1. Showcase more services
   
   The app offers loyalty rewards, content, alternative billing, and digital retail. Users needed a reason to explore these sections.
2. Lift retention with an experience users enjoy
   
   Research showed subscribers like simple games. Tele2 looked for a concept that felt familiar, sparked nostalgia, and offered real prizes for participation.
3. Run a low-risk pilot
   
   This would be a trial release. Success metrics would guide any future investment in larger game projects.

A Whole Game Inside an App

Tele2 partnered with InAppStory to develop a game based on the old-school electronic games series. This nod to nostalgia was intended to appeal to a wide range of users, both old and young.

The game they created involved a schoolboy character writing an essay on "How I spent my summer". Users controlled the schoolboy, catching summer memories that floated toward him. These memories included objects like a swim ring, a bicycle, a rake, a fishing rod, and a tent. For each item caught, the user would earn points.

The solution was not just about creating an engaging game but also about offering tangible rewards. For this, Tele2 established a motivation where users could win prizes based on their earned points.

Creating a nostalgic game with rewarding mechanics was just one part of the solution. The other was ensuring it functioned well on the existing mobile application. For this, Tele2 and InAppStory worked together on the creative plan, the game plot, and the technical aspects, including server load calculations, reward system design, and fraud protection. In this way, they ensured that the game would be not only enjoyable but also technically sound and fair for all users.

Why It Worked

Tele2’s game succeeded because it solved four telecom-specific problems at once.

1. It gave subscribers something to do in the two-minute window.
   
   Balance checks take seconds. Adding a quick, familiar game fills the leftover micro-moment and keeps the session alive.
2. It exchanged points for prizes that feel concrete.
   
   Mobile users already understand bonuses like extra data or minutes. The prize ladder mirrored that mental model, so players saw an immediate link between play and real value.
3. It lived inside the account environment, not beside it.
   
   Because the game sat behind the same login as balance and tariff tools, users stayed in Tele2’s ecosystem. After a round they were one tap from top-ups, promos, or support. No context switch meant no lost traffic.
4. It proved repeatable without extra dev effort.
   
   Marketing could swap prizes or holiday themes through the content console. That flexibility lets Tele2 run fresh campaigns without pushing new app builds, a win for both speed and cost control.

Business Results

The implementation of the game inside the Tele2 application led to a significant increase in user engagement and retention. More than 171,000 unique users engaged with the game, demonstrating its widespread appeal. The total number of gameplays exceeded 422,000 times, indicating high replay metrics and sustained interest among users.

Furthermore, on average, each user who opened the game replayed it 2.3 times. This reveals that the game was not only attractive enough to draw users in for the first play, but it also had enough appeal to encourage them to play more than once. A look at the more enthusiastic users shows even more impressive numbers: the most engaged user played the game 203 times, and 19 users played the game more than 100 times. These figures illustrate how effectively the game tapped into users' interests and encouraged repeated interactions with the app.

In terms of app usage, Tele2 observed an average increase in active mobile users by 40-50% when the game was launched. This significant increase indicates the game's effectiveness in not only attracting users but also retaining them. The fact that such growth does not depend heavily on specific game mechanics means that there is scope for further innovation and development of different in-app games.

What You Can Learn from Tele2

1. A lightweight, themed game can shift an app from monthly utility to daily habit.
2. Reward mechanics do not need to be complex; clear point-to-prize logic is enough.
3. Outsourcing game creation frees internal teams and speeds time to launch.
4. Early success justifies further gamification experiments without overhauling core services.

Partnership with InAppStory allowed Tele2 to concentrate on its core strength, while all game development stages were properly outsourced. The game was highly recognized not only by subscribers but also by the market in general. As a result of this bright success story, Tele2 decided to continue long-term investing in gamification in collaboration with InAppStory.

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