Climate Change Game App Idea
Areas of Interest: Three of my top areas of interests are social justice, medical industry, and climate change and global warming. From these three, I have chosen to focus on climate change and global warming. The reason I have decided to specifically focus on climate change and global warming is because it is a huge issue that can not continue to be ignored and must be addressed. Many natural disasters occur because of how rapidly the world is continuing to get hotter. As the world continues to get hotter, there are higher possibilities of more frequent wildfires, drought, warmer wind speeds, and powerful tropical storms. Additionally, sea levels will continue to rise because glaciers have shrunk and ice is breaking up in the coldest parts of the world. Moreover, if the world continues to get hotter, in addition to arctic animals beginning to go extinct, animals in the wild will need to adapt to hotter temperatures or they’ll die off from intense heat waves. For instance, during the Australian wildfires, there were many videos of koalas and kangaroos being rescued because the flames had destroyed their homes. We, humans, are the main cause of climate change and global warming. Our activities on Earth, such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels, affect the natural greenhouse which causes the Earth to become hotter. The gases that cause the greenhouse effect are water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide. Ultimately, my idea is to create a game app that encourages people to make better decisions in order to live in a healthier world and to slow down the high rate of climate change.
PEST Analysis
POLITICAL: I don’t believe there are any political factors that would affect my idea because as climate change worsens, governments all over the world prefer for the world to become more green. The majority of the world seems to approve for a healthier Earth and refuse climate change. Overall, the future will appreciate our efforts of keeping the Earth clean.
ECONOMIC: Even though the economy plays an important part in any business, no economic factors should have an affect in the game app because it’ll be free and for fun and educational purposes.
SOCIO-CULTURAL: Socio-cultural factors such as generational shifts, cultural attitudes, and workplace and lifestyle trends, will impact the game app positively. Climate change is a trending topic and younger generations are interested in helping in keeping the Earth clean. Many new products are eco friendly and many people prefer eco friendly products over products that harm the environment. Ultimately, people are taking notice and making changes in their lifestyles in order to keep the Earth healthy.
TECHNOLOGICAL: Technology is growing and changing by the day. Technological trends will most likely influence individuals to become more interested in climate change and global warming. As government and institutional research increases on climate change, it’ll also cause an increase in apps that are based on climate change and global warming. Additionally, since most individuals have access to a phone, it’ll be easy for them to acquire the game app.
Competitive Landscape: There are many technologies that are vital in fighting climate change. However, a game app about climate change will provide users with a fun and educational experience in contrast to simply educational websites or apps simply about climate change.
User Interviews: The value of doing user interviews is that it helps companies get more information on their product. Talking to individuals and getting their ideas allows us to understand why they think a product is a good or bad idea and what a product they truly want would look like. When conducting user interviews one should ask starter, opening, and deep dive questions. Starter questions are easy to answer and establish trust and comfort. Opening questions are open-ended and unbiased questions. These type of opening questions will keep the conversation going, allowing the user to give their best responses, and as a result, will lead to influential insights and ideas. Deep dive questions are follow up questions that can get very specific.
User Interview Questions:
- Do you own a smartphone?
- Do you play games on your phone?
- Are you interested in climate change?
- How often do you play games on your phone?
- What type of games do you choose to play on your phone?
- Have you ever thought about playing a game about climate change and global warming? Why or why not?
- On a scale of 1–10, how likely are you to download and play a new game?
- Tell me about how you currently find out information on climate change and global warming?
- What games do you like? Which do you dislike?
- Are there any games on climate change that you have heard of or played? If so, what do you think of them?
These are some of the user interview questions I asked some of my peers and friends. All of the users I interviewed were in between the ages of 16–22. In the long run, it would be beneficial to interview people in other age groups to get better information and more details. I believe my questions are unbiased and open-ended because I did not lead the users to think or answer a specific way. I wanted to make sure the user felt comfortable and did not feel any type of pressure from the questions. Initially, I found out whether the user owned a smartphone and whether they were able to download and play games on it. I then figured out that most users first learned about climate change in science classes during elementary and middle school. I then transitioned into asking them opening questions. Some of the games users stated they play are among us, minecraft, bloons td, mario kart tour, and call of duty mobile. Based on the responses, I was able to learn that most users prefer console gaming over mobile games. However, the mobile games they do decide to play are very popular. Moreover, all users claimed that they currently find out information on climate change and global warming from the news and news articles. A follow up question I asked was whether they’d be interested in learning more about climate change while playing a game. Most users found this idea cool and were able to make a connection with Call of Duty games. For instance, one user stated that while they were in World History class learning about trench warfare, they realized they already knew a lot about the type of warfare by simply playing Call of Duty and completing the campaign in the past. Ultimately, I realized that I need to implement more interesting features into my game app idea to catch people’s attention and make them want to play a game on climate change and global warming.
Product Idea: I help people interested in climate change, achieve better understanding on the dangers of climate change, through a game app that simulates a world life experience. The objective of my idea is to provide players with a fun and educational game where they can learn about climate change and global warming and apply what they learn into their daily lives. For instance, a scenario that a player can face in the game is whether to build a city that’s big and has a lot of roads or whether to build a city that is compact and has more eco friendly transportation options such as bike lanes and large public transportation to decrease carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. Game scenarios like this make the game unique because it causes the player to think which of the options is best for the environment in their city and ultimately, they might begin to practice those ideas in the real world.
User Journey: “I recently ran into a game about climate change and global warming after browsing through the app store’s new games. I decided to give it a try and download it. After opening the game, I clicked on the ‘new city’ button to create my city and I began to add things to grow my city. I started off with a budget of 10000 game currency. On the top left of the screen there is a percentage that represents how happy the city is based on the decisions I make. Before constructing something such as a road, house, or store, you’re able to confirm or cancel it. You level up by expanding your city and increasing your population. As you level up, you’re able to unlock more things to build. After playing it for a while, I can say I’ve learned a lot more about how climate change and global warming is caused everyday. I realized that in certain scenarios I didn’t choose the best option to keep the environment healthy but that’s part of the learning phase.”
User journeys are vital when creating a product because it allows the user to express how they feel about the product and it allows the creator to receive feedback and improve the product to keep the users engaged and happy.
Wireframes: The creation of wireframes is important for my game app because I’m able to show how the game will appear on a user’s screen. Wireframes are useful because it allows the creator to sketch ideas of what they want their product to look like. They’re also easy to make and explain to others. Creating a few wireframes helped me decide how I want the skateboard version of my game app to look like. In my wireframes, I included the initial screen to build and name the users city, the in game screen, and the screen that appears when you click on your level.
Throughout the steps of this product development blog post, I’ve learned my Areas of Interests, I’ve used a PEST Analysis to determine whether the timing is right to ship my product, competitive landscape, I’ve conducted user interviews, and created user journeys and wireframes to create the best version of my climate change and global warming game app.