"We're Not About Comfort, But About Results": How PlayDeck Produces Telegram Games Focused on Social Mechanics

Telegram is its own market with its own rules. In this space, the game thrives within the messenger, relying heavily on social mechanics while incorporating the full range of quality free-to-play features. Mistakes in onboarding or the absence of a social core can immediately ruin metrics. In an article for App2Top, the general producer of PlayDeck, Andrey Deltsov, explains why social mechanics are crucial for Telegram games, what requirements publishers have for projects, what mistakes studios make when launching games, and shares expertise that can simplify developers' work.

Andrey Deltsov

Working with PlayDeck and creating games for Telegram is no easy feat. When a studio approaches PlayDeck with a game, a lazy port won’t cut it—they must redesign the product to suit the platform. The team closely monitors metrics and forces changes to mechanics that have proven unsuccessful on Telegram, even if they performed well on mobile.

Telegram as a Separate Platform

The main feature of Telegram as a platform is that it primarily exists for user communication and interaction. Here, players can invite friends, share links in chats, and gather in communities centered around the mini-application. While mobile stores are essentially displays, Telegram is an environment where the game exists amidst user chats.

In mobile games, studios actively use social and viral mechanics—introducing clans, invitation systems, and joint events. Such interactions significantly increase retention and engagement depth. Telegram seems made for games with such mechanics, as these social interactions come naturally to it. Players can invite friends via referral links, chat, and quickly share the game right within their conversations. If a game leverages this, it gains a competitive edge over traditional mobile games. In this sense, Telegram is closer to the "Games" section in social networks than to mobile stores.

Many successful gaming practices from social networks have not migrated to mobile, yet there is still demand for a shared experience across all platforms. For instance, Steam has recently seen an uptick in cooperative projects within the friend-slop genre, where friends quickly gather to enjoy a few sessions.

Telegram integrates into this trend naturally: the phone is always handy, the messenger often open, and there’s no need to synchronize to all be at home on computers simultaneously. If a game offers short sessions and emphasizes communication, it meets the practical need of adult audiences—allowing them to play with friends whenever they have five to ten minutes, instead of one free evening a month.

Focusing on social mechanics is also economically prudent—a built-in audience helps attract new users, reducing the cost of audience expansion. Social mechanics transition from being a pleasant bonus to becoming part of the financial model. If you paid to attract one user and they bring in at least one more, the effective acquisition cost is halved. The better the friend-loop works, the easier it is to promote the project.

This is why PlayDeck prioritizes games with social mechanics. Projects where social interaction is embedded in the very structure of gameplay and where players cannot progress alone are considered first and foremost.

Port or Build from Scratch

If a studio merely ports a mobile project without considering the messenger’s specifics, doesn’t attempt to utilize social mechanics, or think about ways for organic attraction, the result is almost always predictable: at best, the game functions as just another mobile app, but with less favorable technical conditions.

A completely different story is with studios originating from the web, such as those on platforms like Crazy Games and Game Distribution. They already have experience optimizing for browsers, understand how to adjust for weaker devices, and if social mechanics are added to the mix, Telegram becomes a logical next step for them. In such cases, PlayDeck is willing to get involved at the soft launch stage: providing initial traffic, collecting metrics, and working with the team to achieve stable figures.

Technical Features

A Telegram game is essentially a web application that must perform well in a mobile browser. This imposes specific limitations.

Today, mobile web is viable, but a substantial part of the audience still has relatively underpowered devices. If the build loads too slowly, players won’t reach the gameplay and simply close the app, so games must be seriously optimized.

Here are a few technical requirements to consider when developing a game:

• It is important for the initial build to not exceed 30 MB in size; additional content can be downloaded within the game.
• When choosing a visual style, consider ways to lighten it: avoid resource-intensive effects, don’t create an overloaded particle system, and pre-select solutions that can be optimized.
• Pay attention to screen aspect ratios. PlayDeck has encountered situations where a game looks perfect on one aspect ratio but falls apart on another: important buttons become hidden, the interface shifts, and some elements vanish. If this issue isn’t caught before release, a significant portion of the audience won’t make it past the first few minutes.
• Telegram users typically hold their phones vertically and rarely rotate them for a mini-game. Projects designed in landscape orientation are at a disadvantage: users must change their habitual phone use. Hence, it's better to develop the game in portrait orientation.

How PlayDeck Selects Projects and What Collaboration Looks Like

As a publisher, PlayDeck engages in not only promoting projects on Telegram but also providing expertise to enhance results. If a team presents a game with potential, PlayDeck takes it on: assisting with monetization, virality, retention metrics, and providing recommendations for improvement. In some cases, the initiative even comes from PlayDeck: upon seeing an intriguing product in Telegram, the team reaches out to developers and proposes joint efforts to refine the game and reach desired metrics.

The strategic goal behind all this is not just to publish individual games but to consistently develop the gaming ecosystem within Telegram so developers start seeing the platform as a serious market, and players as a place for more than just messaging but also gaming.

An ecosystem approach yields numerical results. For instance, while working on State.io, the PlayDeck team reduced player acquisition costs not only through creative means but across the entire chain—from traffic sources to game launch. Some traffic came from other TMA projects (Telegram Mini Apps) and cross-promotion within the PlayDeck catalog. As a result, the player acquisition cost was 70% below market average, over 20% of new users tried at least two additional games from the catalog, and conversion from installation to launch rose to 96%.

PlayDeck considers several factors when selecting projects.

First, social mechanics. If the game is initially designed as a shared experience utilizing the messenger’s capabilities, it has a significantly higher chance of attracting the publisher's attention.

Second, the quality of the product itself. Even in Telegram, art and overall execution remain critical. The game should be visually appealing to a broad audience, intuitive at first glance, and function properly on targeted devices.

Third, onboarding. Someone barely acquainted with games could easily start a Telegram game. Therefore, it’s crucial to test with people unrelated to development to see where they get lost. It often turns out that the team is so immersed in their work that they don’t notice issues newcomers might face. Consequently, the tutorial might need reworking or the entry made smoother and more consistent.

If all looks good and PlayDeck is ready to test the game, developers are offered to integrate an internal wrapper. This shell connects payments, ad networks, and enables basic metric tracking: the number of sessions, player behavior, payments, ad views.

Telegram also allows for deeper analytics, tracking level progression, tutorial completion, and other targeted actions. Through these events, PlayDeck can see where the player’s journey breaks and give specific recommendations. Often, the problem lies not within the game itself but in the steps between clicking an ad and the first launch. For example, when working with the game Idle Legion, the PlayDeck team restructured the player journey: changed the screen order and rewrote texts. This increased the conversion rate by 25% without increasing the budget, the player cost remained about 70% below the market average, and retention stabilized.

After initial tests, the producer returns to the studio with analytics. At this stage, indicators are discussed, comparisons made with other projects, and problematic areas identified. Then the PlayDeck team offers concrete suggestions: what to adopt from genre leaders, which LiveOps elements to add, how to tweak the tutorial, and where to strengthen monetization. After refinements, traffic is poured into the game again, and the cycle repeats.

A successful outcome gives the project a chance to reach a broader audience. During scaling, PlayDeck continues to improve creatives until they yield desired results. For example, in the work on Epic Puzzle: Match 3 RPG, the publisher team shifted to behavioral targeting and completely revamped ad creatives so they received more clicks. This resulted in a 160% increase in active audience, while CPI remained at a minimal level. Optimization of creatives and target settings reduced player cost to 40% of the initial, while retention and average time in the game increased.

Payments via Stars

Switching to the internal currency Stars was challenging for some of the audience:

• many players do not have stars in their balance and do not understand what they are;
• when attempting to purchase something in the game, they face the need to first acquire Stars;
• the purchase procedure itself is complicated, especially for users from Russia, resulting in a significant portion dropping out at this step.

PlayDeck solves this problem through an infrastructure project: in games operating through their wrapper, purchases can be made via SBP, with operations underneath converting to stars. For the player, this turns into a simple "click and pay" scenario, eliminating the need to understand additional currency and find out where to buy it. This removes a fundamental barrier developers face when trying to monetize games through in-app purchases on Telegram.

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In conclusion, here are some common mistakes studios make when releasing games on Telegram.

1. Developers often bring an untested build for weaker devices. The game works perfectly on flagship phones, but it doesn't launch or behaves unstably for part of the target audience. Consequently, the metrics at launch end up worse than any forecast, with the problem stemming not from game design but technical issues.
2. Ignoring screen diversity. The interface is designed for one aspect ratio, but on another, critical elements fall outside the screen. This leads to massive drop-offs in the initial steps.
3. Poor controls: sometimes buttons and input zones are positioned so that players frequently pull down the system curtain or accidentally minimize the game. In a messenger environment where users are already surrounded by notifications, such issues are particularly critical.
4. Relying solely on ad monetization rarely results in a viable product. Unlike mobile stores, where a high number of purchased installs can boost organics and create an additional revenue tail, on Telegram, organics are heavily tied to social mechanics and word of mouth. Without this, ad views alone don’t cover acquisition costs.

Telegram is not just another channel for mobile ports; it is a unique environment with its own limitations and advantages. Social mechanics here are not optional; they form the foundation of a competitive game. The technical limitations of mobile web and device diversity must be accounted for from day one, not at release. Finally, a good publisher in such an environment is not just about traffic, but also about product expertise: the ability to collaboratively find solutions with the team, allowing the game to organically thrive within the messenger.