Design a gaming product for Meta customers.

Design a gaming product for Meta customers.

1. Clarify scope or make assumptions

   1. Assume gaming product can be on web or mobile app

   2. Assume that the gaming product is created on one of Meta platforms and not spinning up an entirely new website or app to create this gaming product

2. Goal

   1. Advance Meta’s mission of empowering users to build community, foster connections and social interactions

3. Target Audience

   1. Focus on young adults and adult gamers as they are more the target audience and can help Meta increase engagement with platforms. 

      1. Focusing on retired senior gamers will allow Meta to address a market that maybe historically has not been power users of social media platforms or power gamers.

      2. Focusing on young adult gamers will allow Meta to gain marketshare against competitors like Tiktok and Snapchat

      3. Focusing on adult gamers will give the Meta platforms more utility for the adult gamers who probably only use Instagram or Facebook to connect with users. 

      4. Not recommending targeting younger gamers less than 13 years old. There is too much legality around younger users utilizing the Meta social platforms that it is probably too high complexity and not worth pursuing. 

4. List user needs (and prioritize them according to evaluation criteria)

   1. Entertainment, break from work and school to play games to avoid burnout from fast-paced work and school  environments

   2. Meeting other users over these gaming systems to gain a sense of companionship

   3. Adult users who are older and are maybe retired, keeping brains active

   4. Adult users who are older and maybe retired and living alone, need a sense of community and companionship 

5. Prioritize the user needs and pain points based on meaningful attributes (impact to the user, revenue potential or level of effort it would take to address pain points)

   1. I am going to prioritize these pain points based on total addressable market and based on where there is an acute need.

   2. Loneliness is a well-known challenge for older community members and there are more people aging and retiring than ever before.

   3. For this reason, I feel Meta could build a gaming product that would address these user pain points of feeling lonely and not having something to fill their time.

6. List solutions (come up with creative and practical solutions, can always deprioritize later).

**I would probably choose to integrate a gaming platform with Facebook given that it is where presumably Meta’s older audience is. This would be a way they could increase engagement with this audience. 

1. Gaming platform integrated with Facebook where you can play vintage games like scrabble, monopoly virtually with friends, connections, new people that will help foster connections. 

2. Meet up and play games - similar integration as Meet up where you can feature live events and seniors can meet up at different venues

3. Live virtual events where users can join and play live games with their videos on so that they can get to know people better in a live “facetime” like setting.

7. Evaluate solutions based on meaningful criteria such as implementation costs and user impact

   1. Given we’re trying to solve the user pain paint around senior adults who are getting older, retired, living alone need a sense of companionship and community, I recommend prioritizing the live virtual gaming events. Virtual games with video create a deeper level of connection compared to text-based interactions, aligning with Meta's focus on meaningful connections.

   2. These could be live events where users sign up to participate and made aware of the game ahead of time. There would then need to be a platform where they can play the game virtually so it is easy for all users to participate. The gaming platform would have vintage games like bridge, scrabble, monopoly, chess 

7. Describe in more detail what you are actually going to build

   1. I would build a way to schedule live virtual events integrated with the Facebook platform. 

   2. There can be hosts of the game and the host can invite users or conduct open or closed events. This way adult gamers can decrease their loneliness by either interacting more with users/family members who live far away or use it to meet new people

   3. Users can request to be invited to events and the host can decide whether to admit them or not if the event is closed or invite only

   4. When they join the game, facetime will be required to avoid catfishing and so they can build greater connections.

   5. For my Go-To-Market plan, to minimize cost of investment, my MVP would probably focus on one game type like chess or monopoly before expanding to other game types

   6. Facebook’s competitive advantage would be their scale of impact. Instead of users having to join another gaming platform, they could simply join while logging into Facebook where all of their friends and families and plenty of new connections are already on the Meta platform. The live gaming component and ability to scheduling of the game will also further differentiate Facebook's gaming platform.

Clarification - Are we talking about an online gaming product in general ? - Yes

Objective - Help FB users to use facebook as a platform for playing online games, spend time on Facebook and connect with each other. 

Assumption - Feature will be part of Facebook App or FB.com

User Segments 

1. Active Gamers (Gamers who play online games actively as Professional, ex - on Twitch etc.)

2. Passive Gamers(Games who play online games individually for fun and to pass time)

3. Social Gamers(Gamers who play online games with friends and families to socialize)

I would like to focus on the 3rd segment. It aligns with FB's mission of bringing the world closer and building community. Also I think on FB this user segment is comparatively larger than the other 2 segments.

Needs or Pain Points

1. Discovery Pain takes time to search for games.

2. Sharing game results, updates and storing past data.

3. Multi-user gaming are mostly advanced and not every user is at same level

4. Finding time to play in groups(Busy Schedule, Different Timezone etc)

5. Engagement during a game(Emotional connection missing)

6. Online gaming is unorganized with multiple websites, multi registrations etc.

I would like to prioritize 1,2,3 and 4. I feel these 4 pain points are most important for my user segment and will have the highest impact.  

Solutions

1. Search - 

   1. Games Tab on FB App or FB Web (with list of games that can be searched based on categories, interests, type, age, # of users etc)

   2. Games can be searched from the FB home search bar.

   3. Games can be recommended to individuals with friends or families based on interests, availability etc.

   4. Play now recommendation with a friend or family member online and available to play.

2. Game Calendar

   1. Every user have a game calendar and availability

   2. Users can be sent gaming invitations from their families or friends. They can accept or decline or propose a new time for a gaming event.

   3. The invitation goes with some details about the game, character , assign roles etc.

3. Analytics

   1. Store data related to past games, Earn Badges. Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze

   2. Some high level analytics based like charts and graphs for users based on performance in a game like Levels , points earned etc.

   3. Users have options to share game results, data points, points . badges etc on their timeline with others in their network, with links for users to join FB Games.

Prioritization and Tradeoffs

1.a and 1.b are basic attributes and essential for the gaming product. 

1.c is a high effort feature but we can look to leverage already existing FB recommendation algorithms. 

1.d is a delighter can be skipped for MVP version

Solution 2 is a high effort feature but does have some redundancy with FB Events. Hence I feel we don't need to build it for our MVP version rather would like to explore if we can enhance FB events for this solution. 

3.a and 3.b are delighter features, both are medium impact and high effort features.

3.c is a Low Effort and High Impact Feature since this will increase the awareness of FB Games and will help in achieving our primary objective of engagement.

So I would build the MVP with 1.a, 1.b, 1.c and 3.c.