Week 9
Lourens Adrian Botha
n6326374

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design Brief

The aim of our concept is to encourage gamers to interact and connect each other in the real world .

Steam is the main driver behind the tails interactive involvement with the user.

        

Each user has a personal account with steam giving the user an identity within the tail resulting in differentiation of functionality.

        

Each user's steam account has a ranking based on; comments, game scores, positive involvement with steam and interaction with other users.

         

This ranking can also increase or decrease depending on involvement with the Steam Tail and level of individual feedback within the community.

        

When a fellow steam users are within your local vicinity the tail will notify its user through a wagging motion.

Tail’s interactive gestures will vary depending on the rating of each user. Therefore if a user of a high rating is in the same space as a user with a lower score the tail will actively interact at different levels of force to indicate to the user this information. This will be indicated to the user through the tail wagging at different degrees.

 

When a user is categorised into their steam account the tail will accordingly communicate this information with others.

 

• Blue means very similar interests
• Green means similar interests
• Yellow means similar future game interests
• Red means not similar

 

When linkage occurs between users the input is a swirling,rotary motion simultaneously with another, after doing this for three seconds the LED flashes to communicate to the user that the tails have connected.

When users are connected the tail will be in the neutral position (hardened straight state), to end the connection simply break the connection through a snapping motion.

As result of Linkage between users multiple outputs of interactions can occur.

• Data storage on the tail for the user to then access at a later point, to then use this profile through steam and comment or rate the outcome.
• Gives the user the opportunity to play games together. (make new connections).
• Giving the possibility of having certain games that give an advantage to players that have tails linked together.

After the connection is broken the tail will ficker indicating to the user a response is needed.

• positive feedback - swinging,swirling action.
• negative - squeeze.

This feedback will have a result on the individual score for each user. Dependant on level of user feedback to the level of the intended individual.

 

Gaming culture-

It is suggested that gamers who gather together to play possess a shared language. Engage in collective rituals and are often interested in cultural artefacts such as gaming paraphernalia.

Hardcore gamers are known to commonly attend video game conventions, gaming world tournaments and other game related events, these events let gamers play the newest games, see beautiful woman, have fun with fellow gamers, and play hours and hours of video games.

Based on this, our group came up with the concept of a device which could fit into the gaming culture and enhance the social aspect of gaming through locating and interacting with each other using the device.

Steam is a online digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications platform developed by Valve Corporation. It is used to distribute games and related media online, from small independent developers to larger software houses; Steam provides the user with install and automatic management of software across multiple computers, community features such as friends lists and groups and in-game voice and chat functionality.

The software provides a freely available application programming interface, Steamworks, that developers can take advantage of to integrate many of Steam's functions within their software products, including copy protection, networking and matchmaking, in-game achievements and micro-transactions, and support for user-created content through Steam Workshop.

As of August 2012, there are over 1500 games available through Steam, and 54 million active user accounts. The concurrent users peak was 5 million on January 2, 2012. Although Valve never releases sales figures, Stardock, former owner of competing platform Impulse, estimated in 2009 that Steam had a 70% share of the digital distribution market for video games.