Work / Reading the store: X8 monetization
Case 06 — Thirdverse, late 2023 – Dec 2024 — Weekly cadence

Reading the store: X8 monetization.

Weekly monetization reports at Thirdverse — SQL pulls, annotated charts, visual-merchandising decisions grounded in data instead of taste.

Role

Sole UX designer + de-facto monetization analyst

Team

Reports delivered to the X8 team weekly

Platform

Internal — data from in-engine telemetry

Tools

SQL (data pulls), Google Sheets / Slides (presentation), Figma (annotations)

Duration

Late 2023 – Dec 2024, weekly cadence

Status

Adopted as part of team rhythm; informed live store decisions

The data was right there. I ran the queries.

Owning the in-game shop database (previous case study) put me close to the data. Close enough that running my own queries against in-engine telemetry was a smaller leap than waiting on someone else to pull numbers. I started writing weekly reports for the X8 team — what sold, what didn't, what the store was doing that we hadn't designed it to do.

Most UX designers don't run their own BI. I did, because the data was right there.

Weekly cadence. SQL against in-engine telemetry.

Every week, a deck. SQL pulls against in-engine data covering top sellers, currency hoarding (Bytes and Coins), store rotation performance, and item-class comparisons over rolling 7- and 30-day windows.

Useful insights

Having a close eye on monetization reports allowed us to see interesting patterns. Items with teal or green palettes, for example, consistently outsold comparable items at similar rarity and stat lines. The pattern was real, not a one-week blip. This allowed us to confidently give our artists better direction.

Adopted as part of team rhythm.

The reports were used to make all sorts of monetization-related decisions. Everything from how we handle currency hoarding, to what themes we should be aiming for, sales and offers we could work on etc.

Bridging design and data.

II wrote the queries, drew the conclusions, and adjusted the design. Their interplay allowed me to deliver better designs in the IAP store, the artists better direction for making purchasable items, the marketing team better opportunities for upsells.