MP: Player Workshop

Background

Research Initiatives for Innovation Strategy

We proposed a series of exploratory research to help the product team craft their strategy early in the development process.

Objectives

1️⃣ Build empathy with players to understand their needs in survival games

2️⃣ Brainstorm ideas with players to craft an engaging gameplay experience

3️⃣ (Additional) Gather player feedback on early concept (in the last session)

Methods

Co-Creation with Players

At the very first phase, ‘Genre’, we suggested conducting workshops to understand and prioritize what players value in survival games. We also aimed to generate ideas with players with diverse playstyles and preferences.

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Participants

We recruited survival game players with diverse backgrounds and grouped them into 3 groups based on their gameplay preferences.

How We Designed Our Sessions…

We crafted a collaborative experience that embraced diversity throughout all sessions. To encourage early engagement, we started with 0. Topic Sensitization, allowing participants to familiarize themselves with the workshop theme.

Participants then shared their experiences through 1. Empathy Mapping, followed by 2. Affinity Mapping to co-define their needs, identifying what they value in survival games. These needs were then collaboratively prioritized in 3. Prioritization.

In the final phase, participants generated ideas through 4. Brainstorming, which we further enriched by leveraging an AI agent to supplement both the quantity and diversity of ideas.

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• Activity #0. Topic Sensitization

• Activity #1. Empathy Mapping ~ #2 Affinity Mapping

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• Activity #3. Prioritization

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• Activity #4. Brainstorming

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Reporting

Player Needs — What Players Value in Survival Games

We uncovered player needs in survival games by having participants co-define their needs alongside the desired outcomes.

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Also organized the insights from participants as they worked together to prioritize their needs.

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Lastly, we collated player-generated ideas, leveraging an AI agent to supplement both the quantity and diversity of ideas.

Summary

(Appendix) Concept Testing Result

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Research Impact

1. Post-Project Research Readouts:

• • Research findings were shared in a meeting with stakeholders, including the product team.

2. Strategic Alignment & Team Impact:

• • The KANO model provided clarity in defining strategic priorities that were previously based on assumptions.
  • The insights served as a strong foundation for setting shared goals across the product team.

3. Sparked Ideas for Future Research:

• • Conducting a deep-dive study on a single game, focusing on highly experienced players.
  • Exploring player personas and mapping player journeys for the survival game genre.

4. Knowledge Sharing & Onboarding:

• • The findings will be used as onboarding and training materials for new team members.