Pragma’s annual hackathon: integrating FirstLook, enhancing Operator Portal, and leveling up studio support.
At Pragma, we build tools and services rooted in real, live game development—then test and refine them in our own internal title, Zenith Heroes. This past Q1, our team of industry veterans—hailing from studios behind League of Legends, Destiny 2, Rainbow Six Siege, and more—gathered in person for a weeklong hackathon to tackle new features and product updates. Our goal was to deliver tangible engineering impact and development gains for both existing partners and new customers.
During those five days of hands-on collaboration, we created and refined several new solutions to tackle the real challenges of modern game development. Here’s a look at what we got up to:
FirstLook x Pragma: From Playtest to Live Ops
A major milestone this year was creating the first robust integration between FirstLook and the Pragma engine, designed to unify playtests, player management, and rewards:
Automatic Account Creation: When players complete FirstLook onboarding, a Pragma account is instantly generated.
Account link between FirstLook and Pragma: Linked Steam and Discord accounts flow directly into Pragma.
Unified UI: A single interface for studios to connect FirstLook with Pragma, set up player accounts, and manage entitlements.
Direct Entitlement Mapping: FirstLook rewards now map automatically to Pragma orders, making deliveries more reliable and transparent.
Reward Configuration: Community managers can assign rewards manually or tie them to specific in-game actions—such as wishlisting a game or hitting a playtest milestone
This integration bridges the gap between discovery/community engagement and live game operations, allowing studios to orchestrate an entire player journey from playtest to production.
Operator Portal: Unified View for Developers and Players
One of our most impactful initiatives was the latest iteration of our Operator Portal, a centralized dashboard that consolidates order management across multiple platforms:
All-in-One Tracking: Monitors transactions and rewards from providers like Steam and Twitch in one place.
Real-Time Visibility: Maintain and display clean logs on player purchases, coin packs, Twitch drops, and entitlements as they happen, offering a clearer view of player interactions and order fulfillment.
Seamless Reward Entitlement and Revocation: Streamlines reward systems, enhancing both the player experience and operational efficiency.
With these improvements, studios gain a holistic view of in-game economies and cross-platform promotions—enabling more informed decisions and better player support.
Unparalleled Studio Support for Development and a Successful Launch
We also reinforced our commitment to hands-on partnership with our studio partners and introduced:
Launch Readiness Program: We finalized our ‘Path to Launch’ playbook, a step-by-step guide that helps studios transition smoothly from onboarding to live release.
New Customer Support Model: We’ve formalized our high-touch approach to support by offering dedicated account managers, real-time Slack channels, and direct access to game service engineers. This ensures studios have expert guidance from day one of onboarding through full-scale live operations.
From our Operator & Player Portal enhancements to a seamless FirstLook integration and expanded support programs, our five-day hackathon was a deep dive into building tools that solve real challenges in modern game development. We’re excited to bring these features and solutions to our partners and look forward to seeing them power the next generation of live-service games.
