About GAME
GAME is one of the UK's most recognisable retail brands. For 12 years, we were their mobile app development partner, building and maintaining the Reward App that millions of customers used to engage with the brand, browse products, access promotions and collect rewards.
The app started as a replacement for the in-store Reward Card and grew into a content-rich platform supporting trailers, prize draws, news, promotions, voucher codes and features that pushed the boundaries of what mobile apps could do.
The Challenge
Building a consumer app for a national retailer isn't just about writing code. The GAME app had to serve millions of users, integrate with constantly changing backend systems and deliver a smooth experience across hundreds of devices and screen sizes.
But the real challenge was longevity. Mobile platforms evolve every year, deprecating APIs, changing design guidelines and breaking things that worked last week. Maintaining a consumer app at this scale for over a decade means adapting to every change while keeping the experience consistent and reliable. And it means staying relevant, continuously introducing new features and capabilities as both the technology and the business evolved.
The consequence is inconsistent clinical compliance. Best care protocols exist but checking every consultation against them manually is impractical. Practice owners and clinical leads have no realistic way to monitor compliance across their team without adding hours of admin to an already stretched day.
Sweetfish identified an opportunity to solve this with AI. A system that reads clinical records as they're created, understands what happened in the consultation and flags where protocols may not have been followed. Quietly, in real time, without adding any work to the vet's day. They came to us to build it.
"They share our vision of building a compelling and engaging app whilst ensuring the best customer experience"
- Danielle Beard, App Product and Experience Executive, GAME
What we delivered
Over 12 years, the GAME app evolved through multiple technology generations. Here's what we built.
Content-Driven Mobile App
The core GAME Reward App for iOS and Android. Built as a native app with a custom Umbraco headless CMS implementation, giving the GAME team full control over content, promotions and messaging without needing a release for every update. Supported trailers, prize draws, news, promotions and voucher codes.
Augmented Reality
The first app in the UK to use a native/Unity hybrid approach for AR. Customers could scan video game packs in-store to see trailers and local pricing, or scan markers around the store to generate large AR characters. Pushing the boundaries of retail mobile at a time when AR was still emerging.
Beacon Technology
In-store beacon integration that detected when customers approached the till and automatically surfaced their reward card. Location-aware content and offers triggered as customers moved through GAME stores, bridging the gap between the physical store and the digital experience.
Wallet and Platform Integration
Google Wallet and Apple Wallet integration for seamless reward card access. Combined with the headless CMS, the app became a complete content and loyalty platform that the GAME marketing team could manage and update independently.
"An excellent service from initial concepts to designs, build, testing and delivery. Communication is always 1st class with no missed deadlines."
- Danielle Beard, App Product and Experience Executive, GAME
12 years of evolution
We didn't just build the GAME app and hand it over. We maintained it, evolved it and adapted it through every platform change, every business requirement and every shift in mobile technology for over a decade. A major rebuild in 2016 introduced the headless CMS architecture that gave the app its content-driven foundation. Hundreds of releases followed, each one handled by the same team.
What longevity teaches you
A 12-year partnership teaches you things that short projects don't. How to maintain code that's been through a decade of iOS and Android releases. How to manage technical debt without starting over. How to keep a team aligned with a client through multiple stakeholders, strategies and market shifts. The partnership ended in 2023 when a parent company acquisition led to a technology consolidation. Not because of the work or the relationship.
The Numbers
The GAME Reward App was one of the UK's most-used retail apps for over a decade. From its origins as a digital reward card to a content-rich platform with augmented reality, beacons and wallet integration, the app evolved continuously while maintaining the reliability that millions of users depended on.
1
Highest App Store Ranking
4.8/5
Review rating
4M+
Users across iOS and Android
12 Years
Continuous partnership
Related content
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