Friend Invite Reward System

The friend referral system encourages existing players to bring new players into your experience, increasing player retention and overall engagement. Players can access and share referral links from player invite prompts or directly from the default in-experience invite menu.

As a developer, you can use these shareable referral links to:

• Track which players have successfully invited other players into your experience.
• Track which players have joined your experience using a referral link invitation from another player.
• Create and distribute rewards to both inviters and invitees.

To implement a friend referral system, set up a referral event and create referral rewards. The ReferredByPlayerId property of GetJoinData() automatically populates for all types of invitations and gives you access to the user ID of the referring player. You can then access this data in the Players.PlayerAdded event to identify the inviter and grant rewards to the inviter and the invitee.

function onPlayerAdded(player)

	local referredByPlayerId = player:GetJoinData().ReferredByPlayerId

	local referrerEvent: RemoteEvent = ReplicatedStorage:FindFirstChild("ReferralReceivedEvent")
	referrerEvent:FireClient(player, referredByPlayerId)
end

Players.PlayerAdded:Connect(onPlayerAdded)

Set Up a Referral Event

To set up a referral event:

1. Set up a RemoteEvent in ReplicatedStorage to create a remote event to communicate with the client when a referral is received.
2. Retrieve the inviter's user ID using ReferredByPlayerId to track player joins and handle the referral logic in your server-side script during the Players.PlayerAdded event.

local Players = game:GetService("Players")
local ReplicatedStorage = game:GetService("ReplicatedStorage")

-- Create or get the RemoteEvent for handling referrals
local referrerEvent: RemoteEvent = ReplicatedStorage:FindFirstChild("ReferralReceivedEvent")

-- Function that triggers when a player joins
function onPlayerAdded(player)
    local joinData = player:GetJoinData()
    local referredByPlayerId = joinData.ReferredByPlayerId

    -- Check if the player was invited through a referral
    if referredByPlayerId and referredByPlayerId ~= 0 then
        -- Fire the referral event to the client, passing the inviter's ID
        referrerEvent:FireClient(player, referredByPlayerId)

        -- Additional logic for rewarding inviter and invitee can be added here
        -- e.g., rewardReferrer(referredByPlayerId)
        -- e.g., rewardInvitee(player)
    end
end

-- Connect the function to the PlayerAdded event
Players.PlayerAdded:Connect(onPlayerAdded)

Grant Referral Rewards

To encourage participation, grant rewards to both inviters and invitees. For example, you can give inviters a badge or in-experience currency when their friend joins the experience, and give invitees a welcome reward for joining the experience through a referral link.

local Players = game:GetService("Players")
local ReplicatedStorage = game:GetService("ReplicatedStorage")

-- Create or get the RemoteEvent for handling referrals
local referrerEvent: RemoteEvent = ReplicatedStorage:FindFirstChild("ReferralReceivedEvent")

-- Function that triggers when a player joins
function onPlayerAdded(player)
    local joinData = player:GetJoinData()
    local referredByPlayerId = joinData.ReferredByPlayerId

    -- Check if the player was invited through a referral
    if referredByPlayerId and referredByPlayerId ~= 0 then
        -- Fire the referral event to the client, passing the inviter's ID
        referrerEvent:FireClient(player, referredByPlayerId)

        -- Reward the inviter
        function rewardReferrer(referrerId)
          local referrerPlayer = Players:GetPlayerByUserId(referrerId)
          if referrerPlayer then
              -- Grant the inviter their reward
              -- Example: referrerPlayer.leaderstats.Coins.Value += 100
          end
        end

        -- Reward the invitee
        function rewardInvitee(player)
            -- Grant the invitee their reward
            -- Example: player.leaderstats.WelcomeBonus.Value += 50
        end
    end
end

-- Connect the function to the PlayerAdded event
Players.PlayerAdded:Connect(onPlayerAdded)

Manage Abuse Prevention

You can implement safeguards to prevent players from exploiting the friend referral system.

• Offer one-time rewards to track invitees and make sure they're only rewarded once.
• Introduce a cooldown period before an inviter can submit another referral.
• Monitor unusual activity and implement corrective measures like banning users or canceling rewards.

-- Table to track players who have already been referred
local referredPlayers = {}

function onPlayerAdded(player)
    local joinData = player:GetJoinData()
    local referredByPlayerId = joinData.ReferredByPlayerId

    -- Check if the player was invited and has not already used a referral
    if referredByPlayerId and referredByPlayerId ~= 0 and not referredPlayers[player.UserId] then
        -- Mark the player as referred
        referredPlayers[player.UserId] = true

        -- Reward inviter and invitee
        rewardReferrer(referredByPlayerId)
        rewardInvitee(player)
    end
end