Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
Project 1.2 – Gamification 20-‐12-‐2012 Salomon Company Buiness Acadamy Aarhus Made by: Lasma Pakne Alice Denisa Mihai Jana Osadtsaja Dovile Stangvilaite Ann Sofie Holm Jensen
Supervisors:
Total number of characters: 21.968
Jarne Wilhelm Beutnagel Line Skjødt Søren Ipland Niels-‐Erik H. Kaster
1
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
Table of content Problem statement ................................................................................................................................... 3 Delimitation/angle ................................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction for the company ............................................................................................................... 3 Business ........................................................................................................................................................ 3 Artefacts ....................................................................................................................................................... 3 Values ............................................................................................................................................................ 4 Assumptions ................................................................................................................................................ 4 Mission, Vision ............................................................................................................................................ 4 SWOT ............................................................................................................................................................. 5 TOWS ............................................................................................................................................................. 6 Communication .......................................................................................................................................... 6 Target group ............................................................................................................................................... 6 Segmentation .............................................................................................................................................. 6 Desk research ............................................................................................................................................. 7 Quantitative research .............................................................................................................................. 7 Media/advertisement .............................................................................................................................. 8 Game .............................................................................................................................................................. 8 Game concept .............................................................................................................................................. 9 Game play ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 Story ............................................................................................................................................................ 10 Design ......................................................................................................................................................... 10 Interaction ................................................................................................................................................ 11 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 12
2
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
Project 1.2 – Salomon Problem statement How can we promote the 4 new Salomon snowboards of 2013 by means of an online game?
Delimitation/angle This project is a good way of showing how the time on the academy changes our view in different kind of subjects. We can show which abilities we have in each fields and also learn to communicate with the other group members, respect each other’s ideas and explaining out opinions. As beginners at this education we can put a new perspective into this gamification project. During these two weeks we managed to learn how to work productive and reach our goals. Even though in the game making process we have encountered some limitations, we managed to minimise them as much as much as we could until the end of the project.
Introduction about the company The Salomon Group is a sport equipment manufacturing and distributing company. François Salomon founded the company in 1947 in France, which was the birthplace of modern alpinism. Today Salomon is famous for: trail running, hiking, climbing, adventure racing, skiing and snowboarding equipment. The products are produced in 51 countries and sold in 160 countries. During 65 years of successful effort in innovating the company, they have achieved a lot of progress in the mountain sports. The company’s concept is to be the world’s leading mountain people creating the world’s leading mountain products. In 1997 Salomon group became a part of the Adidas group and in 2005 the Adidas group agreed to sell the Salomon group to Amer sports for 485 million euros.
Business Artefacts When you enter the Salomon website you can clearly see the artefacts of the company. The first thing we saw when we entered the website was a video of professional snowboarders enjoying rides on the snow and other surfaces. From this video we could see that Salomon wants to show the quality and the design of the snowboards, to promote extreme sports and
3
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
to show some tricks. Another important artefact is the colouring of the website and the main colours are: • White • Black • Purple These colours mean happiness, royalty, strength and clearness. The logo is also an important artefact because it promotes the company and it will appear in various places in our game. When we looked further on the website we found pictures of Bonfire clothing, which is a clothing brand from Salomon that makes snowboard clothes and is a strong part of their website with their colourful and modern design. We will try to use these elements in our game and recreate them authentically, but we will also put some fun objects such as elves, deer and Christmas trees.
Values Salomon also has very well determined core values: 1. Provide products in the best quality. 2. Keep being innovative. 3. Use fun designs.
Assumptions The Salomon Company reaches their success by following their core values. They keep their prestigious place on the market not only by selling their quality products but also by showing that snowboarding is the adventurous way of living.
Mission, Vision Having a vision and/or a mission helps a company separate themselves from other similar companies. The mission of Salomon Company for their snowboard part is: “The most responsive, manoeuvrable and fun to ride with snowboard with loads of pop, in a package designed with cutting edge graphics.” The company actually has visions for the different parts of producing snowboards. For their bindings they have this slogan: “Strap into the future with most innovative, comfortable and responsive bindings available. Bindings that allows you to forget your bindings are there.”
4
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
They have the same kind of slogan for their boots: “Killer fit boots. Whatever the foot, we’ve got your boot. “ Killer fit means the best fit, feel and response from the longest lasting boots in snowboarding.1
SWOT To get to know Salomon better as a company, we made a small SWOT-‐analysis with some main points.
Strengths • • • • • • • • •
No age limit for their target group. Strong environmental policy. Spread in 51 countries and sold in 160. Large diversity of products. Large warranty policy. Quality products. Strong brand. Good design for their products. Sponsoring athletes.
Weaknesses •
Expensive products
Opportunities • • •
Reaching a bigger audience. Sponsoring good athletes. Belongs to one of the biggest corporation in the world.
Threats • •
Competitions with other companies. Bad sponsoring.
Because Salomon is owned by one of the biggest corporations in the world that spread them worldwide and they receive a lot of founds, therefore they don’t need to invest alone on their own promotion or their own development.
1 http://www.facebook.com/SalomonSnowboardFans?sk=info
5
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
TOWS By looking at the elements we found by doing the SWOT analysis, we can match them in this TOWS analysis. The strength that Salomon does not have is an age limit for their target group that maximises the opportunity to reach a bigger target audience. Because of the strength factor of good quality products, the opportunity to sponsor professional snowboarders is maximised, because the professionals want good products and it will be good for them to be sponsored by Salomon, and also Salomon will be seen and associated to the best names in this sport sector, so it is a win-‐win situation. The good design strength point is also good for the opportunity of sponsoring professionals because they need their equipment to look good and be good at the same time for big competitions. When we looked at the threats we found out that they are actually positive for Salomon because there are not many and the strengths can minimise the threats. Because the brand is a strong brand and has good quality products and the boards have a good design makes them stand out from their competition. Also the fact that they are owned by a huge organisation minimised the threat from the competition. The strength factor that Salomon is a strong brand, has good design and also good quality makes Salomon attractive to the professionals and therefore this minimises the threat of bad sponsoring. We could only find one relevant weakness for this project and that is that Salomon is an expensive brand. But by using the opportunity of reaching a bigger target audience they will get more people that can afford this kind of brand. By sponsoring good athletes they will also minimise this weakness, because when the target group sees that the professionals are using Salomon equipment, they will maybe save money for it because they will know it is good when the professionals are using it.
Communication Target group A lot of people go snowboarding and for this reason our target is very broad. For our game we chose to focus on a smaller group. Our primary target group is 16-‐25 years old people who like snowboarding.
Segmentation To define our target group we made a segmentation to find the demographic, socio-‐economic, geographic and the psychographic factors.
6
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
For the demographic factor, the target group can consist of both urban and rural habitants. Their socio-‐economic factor consists in above average incomes, because Salomon is an expensive brand. The middle-‐class can go on skiing holidays, but they will probably not buy Salomon equipment. The geographic factor covers mainly Europe and America. For the lifestyle element we are thinking of people who like extreme sports and who are adventurous. They like to travel and experience new things, they like to be outside, but at the same time they like to play computer games. Their personality will be very open-‐minded, very optimistic on trying new things, and they are adrenalin seekers.
Desk research
There are a lot of snowboarding games on the Internet and some of them are also made for companies. But most of those games that are made for companies for advertising purposes are so-‐called advergames. For instance there are a lot of games where the avatar is a famous cartoon: • Rufus from Kim Possible2 • Scooby Doo • Sponge Bob • Etc. Some of their game playing is very similar to ours. Therefore we found out that our game has to stand out from all these games. We came up with the idea of having great prizes, so that it will not be about playing a random snowboarding game but about winning the prizes. But the consumer will have to play this game to get the prizes.
Quantitative research To find out what some of our target group’s individuals think of this type of game we made a survey about snowboarding and about the knowledge regarding Salomon company. We posted the survey on different snowboarding groups on Facebook, on different snowboarding blogs and so on. We asked them what age they have because we wanted to see what our primary target group answered. We asked if they have ever heard about Salomon to see how many of them actually knew the company, and 50 % did know the company even if they do not practice snowboarding. We asked if they have ever tried to snowboard, because our prizes and target group are most for people who snowboard or want to go snowboard. Only 10 out of the 64 answered that they snowboard. Then we asked if they would be interested in playing this type of game where they can win snowboards or a great trip with professionals. Even though only 10 of the people answered 2 http://www.box10.com/rufus-snow-ride.html
7
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
“snowboards”, 35 out of the 64 wanted to play this type of game. So more than 50 % wanted to play the game, and from that we learned that even if you do not snowboard you will still be interested in playing the game for winning the prizes, and then you can go on the trip and learn how to snowboard. Then we asked what is the first thing they would look at when they are looking at a snowboard. We asked that to find out what we should say about the snowboards in the game and also about the snowboard which the player can win in the game. Most of the people looked for the quality of the snowboard, but there were also a lot that look for the design. So we found out that we need to focus more on the quality, but also to make some good designs for the snowboards. The last question we asked was if they ever heard about the following professional snowboarders: • Jenny Jones • Scotty Arnold • Annie Boulanger • Louif Paradis Not many of the people who answered know any of them but some did. The two most known snowboarders of this survey were Jenny Jones and Scotty Arnold. We asked this question because we want to use some of the professionals that Salomon sponsors to be the avatars in our game. So we found out that Jenny Jones and Scotty Arnold will be our avatars. In the appendix we made an overview of the answers, we put them in the circle diagrams.
Media/advertisement The game will mainly be on Salomon’s Snowboard webpage. To advertise it there will also be posted and shared in Facebook and Twitter. They will post it in their fan page for snowboarding but also on Salomon’s overall fan page on Facebook and the same on Twitter. On both pages they will ask people to share. On the website for Salomon Snowboard there will be an advertisement and a trailer on the front page. On the main Salomon website there will also be some advertisement with a link to the snowboard website. There will also be posters and flyers in the Salomon stores and the sales assistants in the stores will also be aware of the game and give information to the costumers.
Game After deciding on the company, conducting the proper research, making a survey and also a research concerning other snowboarding games we came up with a game concept.
8
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
Game concept Our game is a snowboarding game for Salomon Company. It is a promotion game, to promote the newest snowboards with their new features. In the game we want to show what the new snowboards are good at, so we made different types of boards according to the customer’s interests. We made one that is good for speed, one that is good for making tricks and one that has good bindings so it will be easier to control. In the game the different sports will be presented in the beginning of the game where the player can choose which snowboard he wants. The snowboard will be shown in a 3D view so the player can see the whole design because that is also an important part of the brand. The design will also be shown when then avatar does a trick and turns the board, therefor there will appear a picture of the new design. If you choose the snowboard that is good for speed you will go fast in the game as well and get points for being fast, but you cannot make as many or as good tricks. So if you choose the snowboard that is good for tricks the avatar can make a lot of good tricks and get points for that, but it will not slide as fast as the other one. The last one with good bindings will allow the player to make better turns and harder turns so you can collect more things in the game. Every snowboard will get better when you level up. For instance with the snowboard that is good at tricks in the first level you can do 3 different tricks and in the second level you can do 5 tricks and so on. The main purpose of this game is to promote the new snowboard by giving away some prizes. The game will extend for 1 month and it will be in January, because it is a new year and the competition will end by the first of February when the high season for snowboarding begins. At the end of the month there will be one big prize which consists in a snowboarding holiday with the professionals which Salomon is sponsoring. You will get the gear from Salomon and lessons from the professionals. So even if you do not know how to snowboard, you will learn. The player who has the highest score in the end of the game will win the big prize, but during January you can also win snowboards. Every week the player with the highest score will win a snowboard, but one player can only win one snowboard and if you win a snowboard you can still play for the big prize.
Game play When the player begins the game, he will first meet a flash element with the game story. Then the player has to choose which avatar he wants to use in the game (between a girl and a boy). The avatars will be professionals that Salomon is sponsoring and there will be a short written description for each of the avatars. Then the player will have to choose the type of snowboard that he wants to use in the game. The next page contains more specific rules about the competition and instructions about how to play the game, and after that the game will begin. After finishing the game there will be a page with questions about the player’s name, address, height, weight and so on, so thet Salomon can have those information if that player wins one of the prizes.
9
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
Story There are some professionals who want to try out the snowboards from Salomon and those will be the avatars that you can choose. They are trying out the snowboards by going down the mountain and collecting points so that they can win these snowboards or, even better, the big snowboarding holiday. But while they are going down the slopes they have to avoid the obstacles and also collecting points by catching logos and do tricks or sliding faster.
Design
When we decided that we wanted to make a snowboarding game for Salomon, we looked at Salomon’s snowboard website. We decided to make the game similar to the website by using much of the same colours that they have on the website. We found out that the main colours of their website are black, white and purple. The rest of the colours on their website are the colourful clothes on the pictures. Therefore we chose to do the same with our design, not only because we want the game to be similar to the website, but also because they have a good and fun design and it has the typically snowboard style.3 From the website we also got a lot of inspiration from the movie about team vacation, because that will be the main prize of our game. Our background is black with a purple square but we also made some snow with Salomon snowboards in the bottom of the screen to emphasize what our game is about. We started from scratch with all the elements of the game and we drew most of the elements by hand and scanned them. Then we made them in either Photoshop or Illustrator. Only for the snowboards we found pictures and we remade them, because we wanted Salomon snowboards that will be the prizes if you win our game, therefore they are the main element of the game. In the appendix you will find the sketches of the elements in the game and there will also be a mock-‐up of the html and some game elements. We used different colour contrast because we made the background black, the animated section is dark purple, the snow is white and the logo and the boards have warm, light colors. Also the avatars have strong colours comparing to the white slope and the surroundings. We also have some whitespace around the game so it is not confusing to look at. The animated section is positioned on the left side of the screen because it can carry more heaviness for the eye. 3 http://salomonsnowboard.com/
10
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
In the game we made the trees that are less important without any outline and their colour is more blurry, but the obstacles that take part in the game have outlines and stronger colours so the player will see the difference between the “background trees” and the obstacles. Flash: The design of our Flash is based on the Team vacation 4 movie on the Salomon Snowboard website. The first thing you will see in the movie is the Salomon logo on the background and we also used it in the game. Then a bus will drive across the screen and an audience will come to the bus, the two Snowboarders will get out of the bus and announce the game and competition. Some Salomon snowboards will appear, because you can win those in the game. The bus will leave again and the movie ends.
Interaction The game is built in JavaSript inside an animated section (contained by a div) in a website. It runs on Chrome, but not in Firefox or Internet Explorer, because of some CSS commands the browsers do not recognize them. Everything is well structured, the website contains 13 HTML pages5, 2 CSS pages (style and normalize for resetting) and ne JavaScript file. The first page contains an introductive flash movie. Every webpage has a snow image contained in a “div” tag placed in the lower margin of the screen and an image of a snowboard either in the lower right corner or in the middle of the animated section; they are also contained in a “div” tag. The logo of the company is present on every page except the game’s page where the player has to collect the logo of the company in the game. The animated section contains all the other elements present on the screen: • Ground level elements • Animated backgrounds elements • Avatars • Etc. The images of the avatars are linkable rollover images, the images switch to bigger ones on hover and also the images of the boards; on hover they show the backside of the boards. The buttons are hand-‐drawn and inserted as images in separate “div” tags with an “href” property. The background of the game is built with many elements: • 2 images of the mountains • 5 ground levels o 2 rows of trees go down on the main page and the video will be there. 4 http://salomonsnowboard.com/ 5 See the appendix 1.3
11
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
o One snow path o One darker snow in the left corner o 1 layer of trees in the left corner All the images have a specific inclination value in order to make it as real as possible and they have different values for the animation speed. The avatar is not changing his position on the X axe in order to give the payer the possibility to see the elements coming towards the avatar beforehand, but it can move up and down, the left button stops the avatar and by pressing the right key increases the speed of every animated elements to create the impression of general speeding up. Every obstacle from the path needs to be avoided, or it can decrease the number of available lives; when you reach 0 lives the game stops. If you reach the finish line and you do not have gathered all 5 logos the game stops again and alert pops up. If you reach the finish line by gathering all logos and still having lives, 10 more points will be added for every life you have left.6 All the images are positioned “absolute” and they have different CSS styling properties and values in order to make them fit wherever we wish7. Almost all the images have the property of “overflow:hidden” because of the size, inclination and movement inside the animated section. The ground levels are repeating, but the elements of the path have the property of “no-‐repeat”. We used 4 avatar sprite sheets with 6 equally-‐sized frames per each because we needed two avatars with two different boards and we gave the animated character a constant speed. All the items from the moving path are given a class called “item” in order to create the animated items function for al of them that allows us to determinate the exact position on every item from the list in the form of stage frames. We created 4 functions for all 4 versions of the game: • Girl with first board • Girl with second board • Boy with first board • Boy with second board Also 4 initiate functions for taking the wright sprite sheet for the chosen character.
Conclusion
We managed to make a game which promotes the 4 new snowboards of 2013 for Salomon. The game is engaging, because if you get the highest score you will win great prizes. It suits the company and presents it in a good way, by using the same design from their website and from their team vacation movie. We were able to make a game, which reaches our target group well. 6 See the appendix 1.5 7 See the appendix 1.4
12
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
Personas 1.1 Ricky Ricky is a 16-‐year-‐old boy who attends high school in Aarhus. In his spare time he likes to play computer games, he likes to socialize and at the same time to have an active life style. He wants to play this game because he wishes to go on the trip with the professional snowboarders, but he also thinks it is very cool that he has the chance to win one of the newest snowboard every week. Scenario Ricky is an active and risky boy who loves to try new things. He is attending high school on Aarhus. He loves to play computer games but at the same time he loves to be social and active. When he is on the computer he spends a lot of time socializing with friends on facebook. One day, one of his friends posted an advertisement for a promotion game for Salomon Snowboarding. He wants to play this game because he really wishes to participate in the snowboarding event, but he also want to win a snowboard from Salomon. And also the chance to get better at this sport with the help of one of Salomon’s professionals snowboarders.
Peter Peter is a 20-‐year-‐old student who is very interested in extreme sports. He goes to a skiing resort several times per month in the cold season where he snowboards. He wants to play this game from Salomon where the main prize is a holiday with the professional snowboarders from Salomon. He plays because he wants to be a part of this snowboarding event and meet the professionals. Scenario Peter is an ambitious boy who attend the Aalborg University. He is very interested in
13
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
extreme sports and especially snowboarding. He knows the Salomon Company and goes on their webpage often to see the new equipment and the videos which the team are posting on the website. One day when he was surfing on the website he saw the advertisement for a new Salomon campaign. It was a game where he could win a trip with professional snowboarders if he gets the highest score, so he decided to play the game for the big prize.
Jennifer Jennifer is a 24-‐year-‐old woman who has just started working in the family’s company. She likes to travel, to do sports and to socialize. She wishes to play the game with the big prize consisting in a snowboarding trip because she loves to travel and to do sports. Scenario Jennifer is a determined and ambitious person who usually gets what she wants. She works in the family’s company and she had never had any economical problems. She loves to travel in places where she can go to do sports and off course she wants the newest and best equipment. One of her favorite brands in sport equipment is Salomon, therefore she often visits their website and also their facebook fan page to see if there is anything new. One day on the Facebook fan page she has seen a link for this promotion game where she could win a trip with professional snowboarders. She will try to play this game because she always wanted to learn how to snowboard and now she has the chance to learn from professionals.
14
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
Survey 1.2 How old are you?
12 to 15 16 to 25 26 to 30 31 plus
Have you ever heard about Salomon?
yes no blank
15
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
Do you snowboard?
yes no
Would you be interested in playing a game on your computer and winning some snowboard equipment?
yes no
16
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
What is the first thing you look for when you choose the board?
Design Quality Blank
Which of the following snowboarders have you heard about?
Jenny Jones Scotty Arnold Annie Boulanger Louif Paradis Don't know
17
Group 2
Sitemap 1.3
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
Index (next)
Red = Links Green = Pages Blue = Characters
Choose Avatart
Jenny J
Scotty A
Choose board girld
Choose board boy
Board 1
Board 2
Board 1
Board 2
Intructions girl 1 (start game)
Instructions girl 2 (start game)
Instrucitons boy 1(start game)
Instructions boy 2 (Start game)
The game, girl 1
The game, girl 2
The game, boy 1
The game, boy 2
Avatar girl 1
Avatar girl 2
Avatar boy 1
Avatar, boy 2
18
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
CSS – 1.4
19
Group 2
Project 1.2
20-‐12-‐2010
JavaScript 1.5
20