SYBO Games boosts engagement by 45% with Leagues

Subway Surfers is one of the most downloaded games in the world, with over a billion Play Store downloads and more than 100 million monthly players. Developed by SYBO Games, their success is based on a commitment to player engagement, driven by frequent updates and continuous innovation.

“To keep our audience engaged, we deliver fresh content every three weeks,” says Rafael Rodrigues, Studio Director at SYBO. The studio also “stays at the forefront of platform features, often through close collaboration with the Google Play team, with the Level Up program being our most recent success.”

Because of SYBO’s dedication to keeping players engaged and excited, they're a perfect fit for Leagues. Currently available to select partners, Leagues are sponsored competitions that reward players with Play Points for their in-game performance.

Leagues is the first advanced engagement mechanic designed to be powered by data from the Game Stats feature using the Game Stats API, a foundational integration that enables Google Play to power a broader roadmap of social and competitive features. Game Stats powers features like leagues and will power new mechanics by providing a reusable data model that allows developers to share player events and state once to seamlessly unlock future experiences. By meeting Level Up’s user experience guidelines and sharing data for the Game Stats feature, developers position their titles at the forefront of the next generation of player engagement spaces across the Play ecosystem.

As early adopters of Level Up, SYBO was excited to partner with Google Play to launch the first Play Games League. Leading with their most familiar title, the goal was to explore how an out-of-game leaderboard could help them continue to drive player engagement, as well as drive installs and engage high value players.

“The implementation required minimal development work,” says Rafael Rodrigues. “After updating to the latest Google Play Games Services, we simply directed existing data (like coins collected and run time) to the Google Play plugin. Since we already tracked these metrics for our internal analytics, integrating them into our existing flow was seamless.”

Participation was open to adult players in 33 countries, with rewards of up to 120M Play Points up for grabs. The Subway Surfers League ran from October 10-23, 2025, with pre-registration for Gold+ members from October 3.

Google Play promoted the League to 156M unique players across Play surfaces. This drove outstanding results:

• 1.1M players enrolled, including 75% of the game's high-value users.
• The event drove a 3% lift in new installs across the total audience.  
• 75% of spenders during the event were first-time buyers, expanding the buyer segment for in-app purchases.
• Engagement surged by 45% for enrolled players, measured by total time spent in-game.

“We are excited about the Level Up program, as it highlights the experiences that matter most to our players,” says Rafael Rodrigues. “Achievements, Leagues, and Play Points are just a few initiatives we’ve integrated and plan to optimize further. Looking ahead, we see great potential for Sidekick and cross-device gameplay to further unlock value for our global audience."

While Leagues is currently available to select partners, it represents the first of many engagement mechanics launching through Level Up. By integrating with the Game Stats feature through use of the Game Stats API, developers can take advantage of the next wave of engagement mechanics coming soon. Visit the Level Up program page to get started.