If we had the Steve Jobs of social games working for us, weâd do it different
As we near our beta launch, the calls from our alpha testers grow louder for us to add more features, make existing features more perfect and generally do a lot more work before seeing whether the market has any interest in our game.
Here is one recent example, from the forums:
...Better to have a great product to market before you market it...
That is one approach, and certainly a valid one. However it is not ours:
The concept of the Minimum Viable Product is at the core of our thinking on this issue
A Minimum Viable Product has just those features that allow the product to be deployed, and no more.
If we had the Steve Jobs of social games working for us, who instinctively knew exactly what the market wanted and what a âgreat productâ was, weâd do things differently. However we donât have such a person, so we are instead relying on feedback from our users[1] to dictate what the end product will look like.
Thatâs all pretty theoretical and abstract, so let me give an example of how this approach has already shaped the game in a profound way:
1v1 play was originally seen as just another feature that kdice doesnât have, along with game replays, the reduction of lag, a better forum etc. However even though the capability to play with larger groups of people exists, users are telling us with their actions that they love 1v1 play and regardless of how many players WarSocial grows to have, a significant portion of games played will probably always be 1v1. That will shape all sorts of things about how the site works in the future.
Lets take it another level. Given what we know now we will probably want to make 1v1 play a central focus of the game. However that is just what we think given the data we have available at the moment. Perhaps over time as the user base grows people will behave in ways more similar to what we had initially anticipated. We donât know or even really care which way it will go. Weâre going to pay close attention to the way people respond to and interact with our product and give them what they want.
This applies to literally everything about the game. The only thing that is certain about the future of WarSocial is that we have no clue what it will look like and how it will work in a year â and that is 100% intentional and by design. The end result is completely up to you, our users, not us.
[1] User feedback comes in two forms. One is what they overtly tell us. The other, perhaps more important form, is what users tell us through their actions. i.e. by using certain features or ignoring others.
