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| Understanding customers better with games |
| Seema Sindhu / New Delhi Mar 26, 2009, 00:36 IST |
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The use of gaming techniques in the process of innovation and product development is a relatively new phenomenon, but it is surely catching up. A subset of the $10 billion-plus video game industry, the market for such games — called serious or innovation games — is currently estimated between $1-2 billion.
To tap this market, GlobalLogic has recently partnered with Enthiosys (a US-based company that specialises in such games) to build products around such games.
As part of their initiative, both GlobalLogic and Enthiosys are in the process of jointly-building a software product around the popular game titled as Prune the Product Tree. This game enables organisations to facilitate inputs from their customers into the critical decision-making process associated with product features. GlobalLogic has recently rolled out an Alpha version of this product and is planning to launch the Beta version in the coming months.
Innovation games help product companies understand customer problems and solve them in a new way. According to Forrester Research, serious gaming techniques provide an alternate way to collect and analyse product requirements.
Instead of sitting in a dull corporate boardroom, imagine doing it through a game. All the customers take on to a game which requires the players to add on their requisite features and relate it with the other players’ features and evolve the functionality of the product as a whole. This simplifies the company’s job and helps provide feedback in a very interactive way.
Sachin Saxena, vice-president — Consumer, GlobalLogic, says: “While the use of serious games in training simulations is very well known and has been around for a long time, the use of serious games for innovation and product development is relatively new.
On an average, such a game would cost around Rs 10,000. While India is a very niche and a relatively new market, the global IT industry on the other hand matures beyond providing the cost advantage and focuses more on process and innovation.
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