5. Minimum viable product (MVP)
The concept
Based on the customer’s wishes and our first interviews we created the first concept about our product. Our product is a game where each player represents some country. Each country has personal features, such as wealth and cultural status. The idea of the game is to make decisions about world’s problematic situations, such as climate change, with other countries. The decision-making process will happen via discussion, voting and tasks. Tasks can be mini games or something else competitive. Each country in the game has unique features which are strong in different situations. The winner is that country who has made the best use of funds and position for the needs of the country AND for the well-being of the earth too.
The player can play with friends or random players. Each player has own account in the platform and games are individual rounds. The countries will be chosen randomly for players. One game round takes about an hour and there are ten players. Players get points per round based on how well they ranked on the round’s leaderboard. With points a player raises the level of his/her account and will get awards, for example new countries to play. When the player achieves a bigger level, the other players on the rounds will be more experienced too.
Things we will develop further in the future:
- Examples of tasks in the game
- The features of countries
- How to end up playing this game
Value proposition canvas
Our product is an online computer game against climate change. Gamers are in the center of our customer segment. As customer jobs we have from top to bottom “start game and search for a group”, “Play the game”, “make decisions related to climate change” and “win/lose”. These are the most important things our customers can and have to do.
As first pain we have “game is lagging” which has a pain reliever “make the game as light as possible” connected to it. That of course doesn’t remove the problem if the lagging problem is happening because of internet. Next pain is “need to wait for an active game” which’s reliever is “make effective matchmaking system”, this would remove too long queues from the game. Our last pain with a reliever is “game is not interesting enough” and the reliever is making the game more interesting by adding something personal to it or elements that are not so familiar with everyone. At last spot, we have one pain which we unfortunately don’t have a reliever for which is “people trolling in game or leaving the game”, This is a problem which will always be a problem in online gaming and doesn’t have a working solution.
As our most important gain we have “learning about climate change” which’s gain creator is that the game is based around it, so players naturally get to know more about the topic. Our next gain is “belonging in gaming “community which is achieved by having a friend list and chat option with other players in the game. As a last gain we have “having fun with friends” gain creator to that is making it possible to play the game as a multiplayer game with already added friends.
MVP description
Minimum viable product (MVP) has just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then give feedback about it for future product development. It is a concept or strategy which company uses to determine the marketability of a new product idea as effectively as possible. The idea is to keep it simple and not to go into the details too much in the early stage of development.
Above is our story map that illustrates the gaming experience step by step. Each section is one stage of the experience and includes related features as sticky notes. The MVP line draws the line between necessary features and not so necessary features that can be added later in the future product development.
First stage, Start, includes the way to access the game platform. In this phase could also be the new account creating but we have decided to implement this game mode inside another game, so it is not necessary feature in early stage.
Second stage is Game platform which includes game starting and by that participating in a random division of roles. The user can also contact friends on game platform and start same game with them. When the user starts a new game, the server finds other players who want to join and when all player slots have been filled the random division of roles starts.
Third and fourth stages goes hand in hand. In the game the player represents some country and make decisions about world’s climate problems or crisis situations. At the MVP level the game is played by mouse clicking and chat. In the future versions the player could use text chat, voice chat, affective computing and wearables, but we decided that in MVP the text chat is enough. When making decisions to get the best result as possible and to win the game the player will also learn about climate change, world’s possible crises and co-working.
Last stage is about how to get the player to continue playing the game. There will be a ranking and players get score from each separate game that raises their overall ranking. Based on our first interviews we can say that playing with friends has the most important role when thinking about the factors that affect the continuity of playing.
MVP hypothesis statements and measures
To understand if our MVP is working in the way we intent it, we need to test it. Testing is done by stating the most important factors of the product in hypothesis statements and deciding some cutting point that informs us if we have succeeded or not. Hypothesis consists of two statements, the null hypothesis which we believe to be true and the opposing hypothesis which will be our conclusion if we cannot get enough support from the data for our null hypothesis. If what we believe is true is not supported by the data, then we must make changes.
We have three important hypothesis to test:
- H0: Our game motivates gamers to join / H1: Our game does not motivate gamers to join
- This could be measured according to entry percentages depending on how gamers enter the game. Some actual percentage could be given to indicate the attraction that is acceptable
- H0: Our game motivates gamer to stay / H1: Game does not motivate to stay
- Measuring completion rate and how long gamers stay so we know at which point gamers leave
- Questionnaire for leavers
- H0: Our game motivates collaboration / H1: Does not motivate collaboration
- How much information was shared in chat
Storyboard
In this storyboard you can see Mike going through a gaming session. Mike's mood is measured from one to five.
One being in the lowest mood and five being in the highest mood.
In the first panel Mike wants to play online with his friends.
In the second panel Mike logs in the same server as his friends and the game raffles the countries players get to play this time. His friends get assigned other countries.
In the third panel Mike finds out he gets to play the UK, Mike is pleased with this. Mike is constantly chatting to his friends.
Mike's mood is a five.
In the fourth panel Mike makes some bad decisions in the game. There is a vote to decide what the players are going to vote on. He decides to take the UK out of the Paris Climate Agreement. This affects the UK's global warming plan and he loses points.
In the fifth panel the game ends and Mike scores as 78th.
In the final sixth panel Mike reflects the experience and realizes that he had fun playing with his friends even though he did not do so well.
Mike's mood is a three.
Results from MVP idea validation
We interviewed four people to collect information on our MVP idea. Two of them (Player 3 and Player 4) took part in our first interview. Interviewees were friends and family of our groups members, we contacted them via messages asking if they could participate our interview. We kept all the interviews remote because of the current Covid-situation.
All of our interviewees were active players who had been playing most of their life. Only one of them plays very regularly at least a little everyday, when the other three play significantly less and much more irregularly. All of our interviewees use PC as their gaming platform.
We explained our idea and showed our storyboard for the interviewees before asking the following questions. Interviewer explained the idea freely as we didn't have a transcript for it. Below are all the key answers for our questions.
What do you think of our idea?
Sounds cool, it’s good that you are able to play singular games with friends and that you are able to play with different people every time. Could work well in teaching session e.g., social studies. For one interviewee the idea wasn't that clear and didn't interest much.
Are you interested in playing it? Why?
Yes, sounds good and it’s fresh to try out something new. It can be interesting. Two interviewees were wondering how playing the game would be fun or interesting.
What you are waiting from the games content?
Making hard decisions. It would be good if the governments resources were taken in to account also. Game could be dramatic and story like. Maybe minigames inside the game?
What would make you to continue playing?
Different countries really would have different kinds of features. A lot of different kinds of missions so it wouldn’t repeat itself. Some kind of rank system would give motivation to be better in the game, also that would make the final result to be important. Daily missions. Levels. To be able to get better and experienced in the game, so that the result is not only based on the country you are able to get.
What would you like to get from the game?
To get more information about climate change. To be able to have fun playing the game. Better understanding of what it is like to make those kinds of decisions in reality. To get entertainment.
Short summary of each team member’s contribution/tasks since the last post
Omar did the value proposition canvas and the description also, one interview and the compaction of interview answers as well as the background info chart.
Aura wrote about the concept and did the MVP story map and it's description. She also held one interview.
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