Retail Loyalty Programs Integrate Mobile Gaming, but Why?

Today’s shopper is a serial joiner: the average American belongs to 15 loyalty programs; the average European: nine. Yet they engage with only about half of those. 

While everyone is searching for loyalty and increased LTV, loyalty programs struggle to offer enough value and differentiation to the customer who’s seen it all. And just like that, brand loyalty ends soon after the welcome email.

It’s easy to see why: when every other retail business is trying a loyalty strategy, success comes down to daily, value-driven customer engagement. Beyond the shopping day. 

The secret ingredient that fixes the problem might sound unexpected at first, but it works: mobile gaming. Fetch has introduced Fetch Play, GasBuddy launched GasBuddy Games, and more companies have included mobile gaming in their loyalty programs to strengthen loyalty and drive daily engagement. It works. Now let’s explore how.

TL;DR

Customers Are Searching for Extra Value

A June 2024 eMarketer brief shows 62% of U.S. consumers go online in search of extra value, deals and promo codes before they click “buy”. 

RetailMeNot’s long-running survey adds the sting: 67% of shoppers admit they have completed an unplanned purchase only because a deal or a promo code surfaced. Yet all that effort yields thin results: industry benchmarks call a 7% redemption rate “good.”

Coupons and deals definitely shift baskets, but they also:

• Erode margin on every redemption.
  
• Train customers to wait for the next markdown.
  
• Offer little data beyond an email address.

Unused Loyalty Points Are a Problem

Unused currency is the loyalty industry’s quiet liability. A 2024 audit, citing multiple retail filings, pegs the global balance of unredeemed points at $48 trillion; the U.S. slice alone tops $140 billion, with 51.4 % of points idle. 

Idle balances inflate the retailer’s books and signal that the rewards program is neither desirable nor easy to use. Contrast that with another benchmark: members who do redeem at least once deliver 6.3x the lifetime value of passive members. In other words, redemption is a profit lever.

Basic Gamification: It Was Fun while It Lasted

Over the past decade most retail loyalty programs included spin wheels, scratch cards, or birthday pop-ups. These points-based program gimmicks reliably spike usage, but the curve flattens within two months, while the cost of the freebie lingers on P&L. Coming for the scratch-card thrill is easy; coming back weekly is harder.

For supermarkets, the pattern is painfully familiar: Wednesday weekly ads drop, digital coupons get clipped, a single free item inflates Thursday traffic, and by Saturday the cycle resets with no lasting change in brand loyalty.

// There must be a better way.

Straight-Up Mobile Gaming Delivers

What keeps customers loyal is immediate gratification, relevance, and simplicity. That’s why mobile gaming had to enter the frame as a mobile-first activity that draws billions of people to their devices daily. 

Yes, mobile gaming is no niche hobby. Roughly 2.4 billion people play, making for a massive audience overlap with retail and loyalty. 

Some companies have already started integrating rewarded mobile gaming as a way to earn points. Customers love it since it’s entertaining, aligns with their mobile habits, and requires no transactions or purchases to earn loyalty points from their favorite retailers.

For retail businesses with app strategy, embedding the habit of mobile gaming inside their customer loyalty program is able to provide:

1. Benefits based on ads, not margin: Players spend a couple minutes in a game and earn loyalty points; without the brand spending on discounts or rewards. Fetch Rewards’ implementation lifted app-open rates 5% month-over-month and pushed CLTV up 10%; all with zero extra coupon budget.
   
2. Long-form engagement loops: Taking adjoe’s Arcade as an example, the reward ladder for mobile gaming begins with the hook of easily achievable milestones and gradually stretches.
   
   Your customers are naturally going in and out of the app. However, with Arcade, they unlock bigger point bundles by playing games and are incentivized to return to your app more frequently; ready to redeem and engage.
   
   Each payout is paid for by the game advertiser, so the curve can keep rising without touching margin.
   
3. Weeks-to-market, not quarters: One SDK links the game lobby to existing points systems. 

The result is an engagement-based, not discount-based, proposition. Shoppers earn points and see progress every day for no extra effort; finance sees ad revenue instead of write-offs from the unused loyalty points.

Mobile Games’ Performance in Retail Loyalty

Fetch Rewards, United States
A public case study reports that after Arcade went live inside Fetch’s receipt-scanning app the company measured:

• +5.5% month-over-month growth in daily app opens
  
• +10% lift in customer-lifetime value among users who play games

Because every in-game reward is funded by a rewarded-ad impression, those gains arrived with zero incremental coupon budget.

DeutschlandCard, Germany
DeutschlandCard has logged 6 million+ downloads and lets members collect points for playing curated mobile titles. 

“From a strategic perspective, the decision to add mobile games to our loyalty app proved to be a powerful move. It strengthened our brand loyalty and gave us another way to better connect with our customers where they are, on their mobile phones. It gave us an edge in delivering new and relevant incentives to our users in a competitive market,” 

says Julian Wicht, Vice President of Marketing & e-Commerce, DeutschlandCard GmbH. 

GasBuddy, United States
In 2025, PDI Technologies announced an Arcade integration powering “GasBuddy Games.” Users now earn points (redeemable for gift cards) by playing recommended mobile games inside the fuel-savings app. 

“We’re creating an ecosystem that connects retailers, brands, and consumers through unique solutions, like GasBuddy Games, that are designed to benefit everyone across the fuel and convenience industry,” said Todd Gulbransen, SVP & GM, Consumer Programs & Marketing at PDI Technologies. “Mobile gaming is a key piece of our strategy to connect meaningful interactions with tangible rewards, driving value for consumers and measurable growth for our partners.”

What Do the Games Fix?

Because every reward in the game layer is created at zero cost to your loyalty program, the classic liability problem (unused points turning into losses) disappears. Brands don’t prepay for the currency; they only “issue” points when users earn them by playing, and the value is already covered by the advertiser. So there’s no financial risk if a user decides not to redeem.

In contrast, even premium, tiered loyalty programs like Amazon Prime and Kroger Boost feel the pressure of price commoditization. Free shipping was once a UVP, but now it’s almost the baseline. 

So Amazon added streaming, early-access deals; Kroger followed with same-day grocery delivery, double fuel points, and bundled subscriptions. The benefits keep stacking not because the strategy is evolving, but because the hook (price-based value) keeps eroding.

Rewarded mobile gaming breaks that cycle. Instead of piling on cost-heavy perks to stay competitive, retailers introduce ad-funded, non-transactional rewards. Users play curated games, earn points, and unlock special offers; without the brand sacrificing margin. 

This model shifts loyalty strategy towards engagement. It keeps the value perception high, without making every new benefit a race to the bottom.

What keeps users coming back is more than just the points. Take Arcade’s progress system: it’s not a flat incentive loop; it raises the challenge slightly over time while also increasing the size of rewards. 

A short game session might pay out 5 points today, 10 tomorrow, and unlock a good discount on day five. All by playing popular games from a selection tailored to each user’s preferences.

That structured progression works. Instead of chasing a random offer, users are working toward the next milestone. In the process, they’re engaging with the loyalty app far more frequently and meaningfully than they would through coupons or periodic discounts.

TL;DR

Loyalty programs aren’t short on members, but they are on engagement. Most customers join a dozen programs, but use only half. Because transaction-based and discount-first strategies are no longer effective. Everyone expects coupons; nobody remembers where they got them.

Instead of handing out margin-eating discounts, retailers embed rewarded games that fund loyalty points through ads. Customers play, earn, and come back for more; no transaction required. The business profits from an extra revenue source and increased daily app engagement. 

Fetch Rewards’ implementation lifted app-open rates 5% month-over-month and pushed CLTV up 10%; all with zero extra coupon budget.

The most effective loyalty tactic right now is rewarding presence instead of rewarding purchases. Integrate Arcade and turn your loyalty program into a daily engagement machine.