DrawSomething
I suppose anyone who has a touch screen
tablet device with iOS or Android system would have installed this simple but
hilarious mobile game, which attracted 1million users in 9 days after its
release. Facebook achieved that in 9 months. For the benefit of people who are
immune to mobile app attractions, let me give a short introduction on this app
before starting the review. 
This little amazingly addictive
guess-my-sketch game app by a developer called OMGPop has a very clean and neat
interface, which is considered as a model of minimalist efficiency. The
procedure is also simple: you choose one of three words ranked by difficulty
levels, draw a picture of it and send it to a known friend or a random player
to let them guess the word using a subset of the alphabetic letters as a hint.
The cool part doesn’t stop there. The other partner can see the animation of
you drawing the picture with pauses omitted of course. You two can switch the
roles and continue the game indefinitely. Correct guesses are awarded with
coins which can be used to but styluses or bombs. It also supports
multiple-user interaction and cross-platform (iOS & Android) communication can
be done seamlessly. 
As lots of online reviews say, DrawSomething is simple but perfect as
it is. It is stable on the platforms and appeals to users’ interest. No matter
how mobile games are destined to be short-lived, for now it’s no doubt a big
success, from the perspective of user experience and feedback. Hence I would like to concentrate more on
the commercial potential and future development part, in line with a summary of
the most significant 3 points I learnt from Group 7’s talk.
The following improvements proposed by
Group 7 really attracted my attention.
·
Add in themes
The current canvas of
DrawSomething is just a plain page.
Their talk cited DoodleJump as an
example to illustrate how themes can be implanted to improve user experience.
Apart from that, great embedded
marketing potential be found on that plain canvas. Product placements can be put on the background, with a maximum
level of not distracting the users. Some
people may criticize that a good application should never put revenue in the
first place. But ironically, good apps need lots of money to develop.
·
Vocabulary for sponsors
As mentioned above, a
user needs to select a word to draw before starting the game. That’s another
portal where revenue potential comes in. The words can be set to keywords
related to the sponsors like their brand name or product name. For example, I can
draw a Big Mac for my friends to guess MacDonald’s. (Not embedded ads, just
examples for academic purpose^^) In such a way, the developer of DrawSomething can retain its revenue and
make money for future great ideas.
·
Multiple language
support
Currently DrawSomething found its high in the
English-speaking world as the app itself is in English and the words selected
for drawing are also in English. It leaps a big step forward by implementing
pictures as a method for people to communicate and have fun, which surpasses
the old Words with Friends , which completely blocked non-English speakers. However, DrawSomething can still expand its
global market by supporting other languages, which may trigger another upsurge.
My
original thoughts focus more on how this
app idea was generated and how it
might change people’s life.
·
Origin of the app idea
This app idea is
simple but powerful. It dates back to thousands of years ago when human beings
drew pictures on rocks and turtle shells for simple communications. As the idea
of symbology grew in people’s mind, they invented languages for the ease of
communication. But nowadays people are tired of thousands of characters they
encounter everyday as words consume more brain energy to digest than pictures.
So it’s time to return back to pictures which are able to refresh people’s mind
and inspire their creativity, and generate fun in the meantime to ease the bustling
life. Since nearly everyone stays longer with a smartphone than with his/her
wife/husband, the best platform to implement this idea is a mobile app that
allows people to draw and share. A thousand thanks to the advanced graphics
technology and social networks.
·
Influences on people
As a small mobile game,
it might face the same destiny as other gaming phenomena have shown. A quick
decline after a tremendous upsurge. It might not be able to change people’s
life like what Microsoft Office has done, but it inspires people to explore a
new perspective of their life. A lot of great but short-lived apps are also
like this. But there is nothing to regret. Great news is that new ideas are
blooming all the time. That is why we
are all intrigued by CS3216!
So, why are you still waiting? Grab your
phone, draw a picture and send it to your friend for a guess, perhaps a decent
drawing of our big boss. But make sure CS3216 assignments are done for him!
04/09/2012 CS3216 App Seminar
on a side note, the developer of omgpop was on his late app before giving up as being a developer. and turns out that his last app, drawsomething was a hit! at the same time, we should not oversee the point that he had failed like 26 times! before he had a blockbuster hit. I guess this kind of "bai zhe bu nao" (be undaunted by repeated setback) spirit is greatly needed in CS3216!
ReplyDeleteand about the app itself, i thought that the greatest down side about this app was the amount of repeated words!... i guess thats the point which made me stop the game after awhile. if they would have given us more words to choose from, i would have continue to play till this day!
Benjamin Xue
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DeleteI fully agree that that kind of strong determination and hard work are needed for our course. Thanks for your add-on here. Personally I feel that it's a game app's destiny to die. It can't have a long lifespan like those office software as people''s interest eventually will die out.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI don't think now you'll still want to play it, because you cannot find many of your friends playing anymore (like what I encountered when I tried to play this game for the assignment, just couldn't find any friend to play with).
ReplyDeleteI agree that the app idea is really good, but the execution is also quite important. There are many existing apps of this kind and none of they are so famous as drawsomething. Drawsomething just focuses on one thing and does it really well.
Can elaborate a bit more on execution?
DeletePeople may not always want to play the same stuff. Like diablo3, although it is nice but you still feel boring after playing two months. But it succeeded right? It is time to develop some new ideas.
DeleteAgree. So here comes the problem of how to create apps that can sustain its user pool. I guess game apps wont achieve that.
DeleteIt's always true that for any social-related products, like social media and social games, there will be no users without contents.
ReplyDeleteI like all the suggestions from Group7 it really tackles the problem of consumer-retention, adding a revenue stream and at the same time expanding its user base.
I think they really lack smart students like Group7 who can help polish their business model. Haha.
Yup. I also feel that way hence I chose all three significant points from their improvement part.
Deletehaha, interesting how you link DrawSomething to the fact
ReplyDeletehistorically, human beings drew pictures on rocks and turtle shells for simple communications. Let talk in pictures more often, and feel our roots!
Yup. That's a fun way.
ReplyDelete