Vodafone Play

Overview

Vodafone Play (VF Play) is a shop for in-game items and currency across 90+ games, including PUBG, Valorant, PS Plus, and EAFC, built inside the Vodafone Egypt app. The design drew on the product brief, catalogue behaviour, and the conventions players already know from game interfaces. Its signature feature is a floating navigation button styled after an old console D-pad: press it, and a round menu opens with the physical cue of a controller input.

Problem

In-game purchase shops usually borrow generic e-commerce patterns, category grids, search bars, a cart, that do not reflect how gamers actually think about buying credit or items for a specific title. A gaming-literate audience notices the difference between a shop that feels built for games and one that feels like any other storefront with game logos pasted on it.

Goals

• Cover a wide catalog (90+ games) without the browsing experience feeling like a flat, undifferentiated list.
• Make the shop’s core navigation feel distinctly “gamer,” not like a repurposed retail template.
• Surface recently purchased items and personalized recommendations prominently, since repeat purchases are a core use case for in-game currency and subscriptions.
• Ground every major decision in real player behavior and expectations, not generic e-commerce assumptions.

Business Context

In-game purchases and subscriptions (PS Plus tiers, EAFC currency, and similar) are a recurring revenue category for Vodafone Egypt, and player trust in the shop experience directly affects repeat purchases. A shop that feels generic risks losing that trust to platforms gamers already use and recognize as built for them.

Research

Constraints

Discovery

The clearest opportunity was in navigation itself. A standard menu icon that opens a flat list would have worked, but would not have signaled “this shop understands games” the way a control modeled on an actual game controller’s D-pad does.

Strategy

The home screen leads with a bold, game-controller-themed hero banner and a direct “Buy 90+ in game purchases” call to action, followed by Recently Purchased and Recommended for You sections so returning players land on relevant content immediately. Layered on top of the whole shop is the floating navigation button: tap it, and a circular menu of shortcuts expands outward from the button itself, mimicking the tactile, radial feel of pressing a direction on a physical controller.

UX Decisions

Wireframes

The radial menu’s structure went through several passes purely on interaction feel: how far the sub-icons should travel from the center button, how much resistance the motion should have, and how it should settle into place, since the entire point of the feature was for it to feel physical rather than purely graphical.

UI Design

Motion

The radial menu is the centerpiece of the motion work: pressing the floating button triggers a circular expansion of icons around it, tuned to feel like a spring-loaded controller input rather than a standard app menu animation. Interaction physics, alongside visual polish, was the design target.

Design System

VF Play uses a darker, more saturated visual treatment than Vodafone Egypt’s general app shell, borrowing color and energy cues from gaming culture (bold gradients, controller iconography) while keeping typography and card structures consistent enough with the rest of the app that it still reads as a Vodafone product.

Engineering Collaboration

Accessibility

Testing

Validation focused on direct iteration of the floating menu, checking that the radial expansion read as intentional and controller-like rather than as an unusual, unexplained animation.

Business Impact

Results

VF Play shipped as a full in-game currency and subscription shop spanning 90+ games, with a signature floating radial navigation menu as its most distinct interaction.

Videos

Learnings

A single, well-built interaction can carry more credibility with a niche audience than a full visual overhaul. The radial D-pad menu works because it borrows a physical, familiar gesture from the exact audience the shop serves, instead of trying to signal “for gamers” through color and iconography alone.

Reflection

VF Play is a reminder that a product for a specific audience needs to respect the interaction conventions that audience already understands. Making the menu echo a controller input mattered as much as any individual screen layout.