Context

EA Connect is an in-game social layer that lets players connect, party up, and play cross-platform. But unless they searched manually, sent direct invites, or had just played with someone, expanding their network was difficult.

Our insights showed players wanted easier ways to connect, but lacked confidence without some shared context.

The data backed this up: cross-platform friendships made up less than 2% of all connections, clear evidence that players weren’t expanding their networks beyond their primary platform.

Challenge

We needed to create a better experience that helped players discover new friend connections with low barriers to entry, one that felt intuitive, trustworthy, and non-intrusive across titles and platforms.

Goal

Design a lightweight, scalable way for players to discover new connections, something personal, contextual, and easy to act on.

Approach

Speak with our players to understand their motivations, expectations, hesitations and needs when it comes to adding a new friend.

Competitive analysis to understand the established patterns across game and social platforms

Sync with engineering to identify what data signals we have available to us now and what we can unlock in with some work.

Created wireframes for a system that could scale across titles and behaviours

Designed a lightweight MVP using existing components

A/B test placement to maximise visibility.

Partnered with Product, Research, Engineering, SDK, and Design Systems to launch with tracking and feedback hooks for iteration

Outcome

The feature drove a 12% increase in new friendships and quickly became one of EA Connect’s top drivers of social connections. It laid the foundation for a broader recommendation strategy — proving that lightweight, contextual suggestions could meaningfully expand player networks.