In case you missed it, we’ve added a tool on the Creator Hub to make creating and updating high-quality Room thumbnails easier!
You can visit your rooms page and click the gear icon to check out the Thumbnail Uploader.
One way to get more players excited to try out your room is to create an eye-catching and unique thumbnail.
Changing thumbnails can have a meaningful impact on visit rates, so we gathered these tips based on what we’ve learned from the data.
Visits increased over time as ^HeavyFire experimented with different thumbnails while other Rooms’ visits were trending down.
Incite curiosity
Your thumbnail is your first impression. Make it count! Think about a single idea or emotion you want to express that would catch a player’s eye and spark their curiosity. Is it the epic battles, the novelty of something new, or the chaos of a hundred dancing Gribblys?
Showcase what makes your room unique, and give a specific kind of player a reason to click in and explore!
Be deliberate when using text
Since room names are under each thumbnail when browsing on the watch, you don’t need to include the room’s name on the image itself.
Simple words, phrases or questions can give a better impression of what to expect in your room, especially when you have new updates.
Use high contrast and simplify
Complicated details tend to get lost in thumbnails. Make yours more compelling by using simple objects in front of a background, or highly contrasting colors in the background and foreground.
^GunEvolutions saw a noticeable increase in visits and sales when they found the right thumbnail.
Use the Safe Zone
Some features in-game will crop your thumbnail into a square ratio rather than the full landscape image. We also overlay badges to recommend certain rooms.
The area that is not cropped or covered by the badges is the “safe zone” and we recommend you keep the most important content of your thumbnail there, such as text:
| Example thumbnail optimized for the safe zone | Example thumbnail not optimized for the safe zone. |
|---|---|
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Before uploading your thumbnail, download and overlay this PNG with your own thumbnails to ensure your designs are within the safe zone:
Best Practices
Not all changes in thumbnails result in massive gains, but following these tips can have a meaningful impact on your room traffic. The more you test, the more you’ll know!
When testing out these tips for yourself, you might need to change the thumbnail at least once per week. You can usually gauge the success of a thumbnail change within the first day in your room stats. Updates can be as simple as tweaks to the color and positioning of your elements, or complete reworks due to changes in the room.
Remember to always be mindful of the Creator Code of Conduct and thumbnail policies;
Thumbnails should relate to the content of the room and not be misleading.
Please leave your feedback, questions, and any bugs you find in this post.