Beat the game!

Completing video games is a challenge for gamer enthusiasts because there are too many games out in the market that they want to play, with not enough time to invest.

This app would be a success if it increases the motivation and completion rate of video games for gamers. A success would be that gamers would be able to maximize their “game time” and have more time to for other activities to be included within their daily routine. Gamers see an increase in their positivity because the gain a sense of completion because they finished something.

What are the potential pitfalls?

The biggest technical challenge would be having the app sync to everyone’s platform, and having all companies agree to the data share. Other pitfalls would be that gamers could be overwhelmed with their current game library and may not know where to start.

Strengths

• Able to sync cross platform
• Multi-platform across iOs, android
• Collected data from game progress from user platform (no manual input from player)
• Able to monetize from small banner ads, or a pre loading screen for a new game.

Weaknesses

• Dependent on stability of gaming platforms and data syncs
• Users that only play online multiplayer competitive games

Opportunity

• Paid app/ad free with a lesser price. Ads built in, to help buy in from developers and platforms.
• Games are an ever growing commodity and video gamers are increasing in population. App will always have users.
• Be able to pull data for marketers to show what games are being played the most to the end, and what’s losing interest. Certain aspects in games that shows more active play.

Threats

• Backlash from developers and gaming platforms pulling out
• Copy cat apps pushing into the market and causing problems with data sync

I want to learn that this app has a place in the gaming community because with so much saturation in the video game market, and with everyone’s lives getting more hectic. Having something to help with time efficiency for gamer enthusiasts would be a tremendous help.

Interviews

A variety of interviews were conducted to established a wide variety of video gamers from young single female gamers to establish family gamers.

• Sam //  mid 30’s  // established family man, avid gamer
• Jeremy // early 40’s  //single, avid gamer
• Glen //   40’s //  early family man, avid gamer
• Azriel //  early 20’s  //single female gamer
• Yanna  //  early 20’s  //  single female gamer

• Play games for a sense of accomplishment
• Play games for stress release
• Will play a game all the way through if it has an engaging story
• Unplayed or unfinished games just sit there
• Will lose interest if the game is boring and repetitive
• I play games for the social interactions with my friends
• Too many games on the market that I want to play
• Either selective of games, or just buy all of them
• I play  games to entertain  and kill time
• I play 2-3 hours a day
• Dont have time to beat them all
• Took time to remember where I was on a game i haven’y played in awhile
• Starting over to remember the story and game

An online survey of 5 questions was developed and a total of 57 gamers took the survey. This survey was posted in related gaming forums and social media outlets. It was open from October 2, 2018–October 9, 2018.

My overall conclusion from the data that I’ve gathered that there isn’t an app like this on the market. There is a couple websites that do take this approach, but they’re data is taken from player input. My app would succeed on the fact that it would auto sync with the platforms so that there is no need for manual input.

Other research that I have gotten from interviews and surveys is that people do like to complete games because it gives them self-satisfaction of crossing something off a list. However, with such a high saturation of games out there, a lot of gamers get side tracked by other games and they tend to forget the other games they were playing. They would forget them completely, as if they ever owned them. They would forget them as they don’t remember where they last were and have to start over, or they would just don’t remember how to play.

Research does show that they would go back and complete games, and it’s something always on there list, but it seems time efficiency for them gets in the way. For the most part, these games just sit there on their shelf or harddrive, with the intention of being going back and played.

Howlongtobeat.com

• Website
• Player Input Driven
• Clunky Filter Options
• Game Times

CLZgames app

• App and Desktop
• Inventory Tracker
• Barcode Scanner
• General Info on Game

Completionator.com

• Website
• Player Input Driven
• Inventory Tracker
• Game Times
• Game Completions
• Try to do it all

What content is valuable to the user?

What content we have?

How do we make it & how often do we update it & what is the main format?

Tone of voice

User 1

Filter choices are good, i can see what has the shortest time left or what i have played most recently, those seem like they would be helpful in deciding what to pick up again

User 2

Perhaps highlight the current active filter (diff color perhaps) and provide a means to exit (even though I assume choosing a filter close, providing an exit would possibly be more clear for those who don’t want to chose a new filter). Also, “Shortest Time” is misspelled.

Just another minor comment, might be worth having alpha-sort for those with epic libraries.

User 3

One piece of functionality that would be very helpful for “completionists” is a checklist of remaining things to collect for specific achievements.

Response: Will add a visible exit button, and add A-Z, Z-A filter option. Will take note for a checklist for specific achievements in a game for future release of the app.

User 1

The page of glory!

User 2

Nice spectrum of games, from Lego to Skyrim/Witcher. 🙂

User 3

Another cool thing to show here might be number of people who have completed each of the games that you have. Or some other benchmark. Gamifying things in app tends lead to prolonged usage.

Response: Great idea for adding comparisons to other players on what games they have beat as well. I will add to the trophy section.

User 1

Details and game story info look really helpful if you’ve been away from the game for a bit and need a refresher.

User 2

Is completion based on # of trophies and/or achievements that have been collected? How would this work on a game like Destiny/Division where it is constantly update as a Live game and those updates don’t have trophies tied to them? Maybe as simple as adding a metric for those similar to time, i.e. Level 60/Power 600.

User 3

What would the UI look like if there are no checkpoints in the game? Would it use an indicator specific for that game? Maintaining that for every possible game might be tough.

Response: Will add wording underneath the percentage to help clarify that this is for finishing the game and not geared towards game trophies or achievements. Multiplayer games or MMORPG style game will have to be excluded from this. Good point to bring up and make this call now.

I agree maybe checkpoints will be hard to maintain. I will look into a simplified approach, and maybe just a last activity approach.

gg prototype

This concludes gg’s UX research and design. Please click the link above to try out the prototype! Enjoy!