Projects… Really?

As people who often play games and are involved in the community, we have realized a situation that’s recurrent on the Internet. There’s no place where you can consult all available information regarding games: want to know the latest news on certain game or company? Better go to Twitter or to their official websites. Want to read reviews or opinions? Let’s go to a specialized page or maybe YouTube. Ratings? Another specialized page should do. Want specific information about certain game? Like number of users, downloads, developers or more? The best option is to look it up on the Internet or on their respective page in one of the many launchers there are now.

Another thing that happens often is that you may not recall what games you have played at some point or another. Many of us want to record everything we have ever played, whether it was enjoyable or not; we may even want to keep track of all the upcoming games we are waiting for. There already are platforms that keep a record of what you’ve played and have implemented a wishlist feature for games you want, but they often only work for the games they have available so, outside of that, the best option for a similar list is a classic notepad. 

We want a site where all of the information above has been put together, where all we could possibly want to know about a video game is available in the same place. That’s why we have come up with this project, we intend to solve both issues at once. Our goal is to gather all kinds of people who, in some way or another, are related to the video game community and satisfy their needs as well. Here’s what we have established so far:

Team Name: VG lantes

Project Name: My Videogame List (final name pending)

General Description

My Videogame List is a website where people can share their interests in gaming. There is a large database of video games (old and new). Users can review their experiences with them and give them a rating that is public to everyone on the site. Ratings are averaged and this determines the popularity of the game (displayed onsite).

Each user has a personal profile which holds their “My Videogame List”. It contains titles (from the site’s database) that the user:

• Is currently playing
• Finished playing
• Left on hold
• Stopped playing
• Plans to play

Users can specify if they recommend a game.

As a user you can follow other users so you can know about their interests (their videogame list is shared with you). You are notified with their recommendations.

When you log in, you get to see the main page (Home page) which shows you relevant information:

• Page announcements (from administrators)
• Most popular games of the season
• Personal recommendations (based on your list’s most prevalent categories, followed users tendencies)
• Upcoming games or downloadable content
• News (plugins that pull tweets, blogposts, news, etc. from other sites relevant to gaming)

Communities

Another feature of the site are ‘communities’ which users can create. A community is basically a specialized forum, where users talk about certain things related to the community’s theme.

Communities can be public (anyone sees and enters freely), private (you know about the community’s existence and general information, but in order to be a member and see posts you have to request access) or secret (not visible at all, only accessible by invitation).

• 

Game

Each game has a dedicated ‘profile’ which holds:

• Average score (given by the community)
• Related games (by genre, sequel, spinoffs, etc.)
• Genre
• Publisher
• Plot
• Developers
• Rating
• Statistics (based on user interaction)
• External links
• Reviews
• Communities that relate to such game

When visiting a game profile you can add it to your list.

Stakeholders

For them, we considered many aspects and perspectives a gaming community needs to be enriching. So, not only do game reviews and sharing interests works, but constant interaction between players is what truly makes video games stand out.

Important notice: Throughout this post (specially in this stakeholders section), we talk about users (and give them a perspective or a specific role in parentheses). This is because technically, for the site, they are the same kind of being: a person who registered and has an account. However, to describe some functionalities, it was important to define the role (or perspective taken by that user).

Carlos Ochoa (member of ITESM Guadalajara T-Games student group)

Coming with a strong interest and experience in video game tourneys, he shares the following use cases:

• User (as tournament organizer) creates a ‘tourney’ (special community).
  • Actor: User (tournament organizer perspective)Basic flow: Creating a tourney means creating a special community that performs the basic functionalities of a regular community (posts and comments), but will also manage a bracket (a diagram showing who plays against who) and show updated results.

• User (as tournament organizer) relates the tourney to a videogame in the database.
  • Actor: user (tournament organizer perspective)
  • Basic flow: In order for tourneys to be categorized, they need to be related to a specific game which is the one that will be played by participants.

• Users (as participants) join the tourney.
  • Actor: User (any type of user perspective)Basic flow: Anyone registered on the MyVideogameList site can join a tourney (as long as it is public)

• User (as tournament organizer) grants tourney administrator privileges to desired users.
  • User (tournament organizer perspective)Basic flow: Since results and brackets need to be updated, it is difficult for only one person to do it. The TO (tournament organizer) can give other users access so they can update the tourney’s information.

• User (as tournament administrator) changes tournament privacy.
  • Actor: User (tournament administrator perspective)Basic flow: Some tourneys are meant for a select player base and will not be accessible to the general public to join (but they can spectate, which means that they see results in real-time but not participate).

• User (as tournament administrator) sends private tourney invites to desired users.
  • Actor: User (tournament administrator perspective)Basic flow: For tourneys that are private, participants need to be invited. The tourney administrators can send invites with links for the selected players to join.

• User (as tournament administrator) updates bracket scores.
  • Actor: User (tournament administrator perspective)Basic flow: Brackets are diagrams that highlight the progress of the tournament. Who plays vs. who, who advances, who loses, etc. This information is input by hand based on what happens at the tourney.

• Users (any type of users) spectate tournament communities.
  • Actor: User (any type of user perspective)
  • Basic flow: All users can visit the tourney community and see results in real time.

On the topic of tourneys, Carlos also suggests a way of earning money through premium tournaments. Created only by a very select number of users (verification needed from site administrators), these require virtual currency (bought with real money, earned by winning tourneys or given for free to users in special events) to participate. The point here is to give something back to the page administrators.

Suggested use cases:

• User (verified user) creates a ‘premium tourney’.
  • Actor: User (verified user perspective)Basic flow: Premium tourneys have the same functionalities as regular tourneys but require the user to be verified by the organization’s administrators. Also, a certain fee (site’s currency TBD) is required by participants to enter. These tourneys show more prestige than regular ones. Winners are actually rewarded (at least with in-site currency).

• User (as participant) spends in-site currency to enter tourney.
  • Actor: User (any kind of user perspective)Basic flow: In-site currency is needed to enter premium tourneys.

• User (as participant) is rewarded for winning a premium tourney.
  • Actor: User (any type of user perspective)Basic flow: The winner of a premium tourney is rewarded by the site (with in-site currency). Other type of rewards may be given based on the preference of the verified user who created the premium tourney. 

Jose Guerra (Developer at Retro Studios and independent pico8 developer)

Has a lot of experience in the video game development environment, works for a company under Nintendo’s partnership and has tons of individual projects:

We asked him for help on this project via Twitter. So far he has expressed his willingness to work with us. We didn’t want to immediately bombard him with questions, so when we got his response we decided to wait until the next day (it was already kind of late) to actually explain what we need from him. We are currently waiting for his response after we explained what our project’s about and asked him for what he would like to be included as the developer he is.

Expected use cases from his part (not actually provided by him, but what we think he’ll say) include:

• User (independent game developer) uploads their video game project.
  • Actor: User (verified user perspective)
  • Basic flow: An independent developer wants to have their games played by people interested in whether finding new workers, helping others out or simply having some fun. They get exposure and feedback. 

• User (game developer) creates a community regarding their new game.
  • Actor: User (game developer)
  • Basic flow: Developer wants to reach a larger audience, so he creates a special community in order to get more people interested in their new/upcoming game. It gives them a chance to gain recognition and interact with potential clients

• User (game developer) fixes details about their game’s information.
  • Actor: User (game developer)
  • Basic flow: There’s some wrong detail included in a game’s page. Developer wants our website to fix this, so they notify the administrators when that happens.

• User (verified game developer) asks for their game’s news to be included in the home page.
  • Actor: User (verified game developer)
  • Basic flow: A small company wants to have their information on our feed so more people get to know about them. They notify us about it and a process to get them featured starts.

• User (independent game developer) updates his game.
  • Actor: User (independent game developer))
  • Basic flow: A game developer has received feedback and has since worked on improving their game. After finishing a new version or instance of their game they wish to update it without having to upload it in a completely new entry so people who have played are easily notified.

• User (independent game developer) has his game included in a different ranking.
  • Actor: User (independent game developer)Basic flow: A developer thinks it’s unfair to have their indie game compared to the games of massive companies. They ask for their game to be considered for a different ranking system where only games in similar development contexts are compared to each other.

Ken Bauer (Moderator of a large World of Warcraft Group)

He has quite a lot of knowledge about different kind of blogs and forums, works as a professor inside Tec, loves to teach and help others, those are some traits that a good moderator should have.

Our approach to him was via email, he told us that he was interested in helping us. We couldn’t find an appointment soon enough to include his answers to our project delivery, but we’re planning on asking him for an interview next week so we can have his thoughts as soon as possible.

Expected use cases from his part (not actually provided by him, but what we think he’ll say) include:

• User (Forum Moderator) can silence offensive users.
  • Actor: User (Forum Moderator)
  • Basic flow: If a user is being rude, the moderator wants to make sure he won’t do it again, so he has the ability to flag the users and silence or even ban them.
    

• User (Forum Moderator) can censor offensive content.
  • Actor: User (Forum Moderator)
  • Basic flow: The moderator needs to go through a lot of content in the platform, but he needs to assure that there is no offensive content, so if he/she sees something, he can take it down.
    

• User (Forum Moderator) can teach others how to make a good use of the platform.
  • Actor: User (Forum Moderator)Basic flow: As an arbitrator, this user should also teach others about the guidance and behavior inside the platform, so he may do some ruling by making some featured posts.
    

• User (Forum Moderator) can make posts about the rules and supervise them.
  • Actor: User (Forum Moderator)
  • Basic flow:  In the case that the rules are not working or being well followed, the Moderator could use his position to make changes and supervise them by making posts that should be picked as “Important”.

Time’s coming up on us, let’s start working!

-RC