Archive for December, 2006

Low-tech Buttons for High-tech Casual Gaming

December 11th, 2006 at 11:36 pm

Today Sean, Tom and I launched a little project called DSButtons.com aimed at people who play Nintendo DS, an increasingly popular handheld gaming system. The buttons are meant to communicate to other DS gamers that a) you have a Nintendo DS handy and are up for playing a wireless multiplayer game and b) which games you like to play.

Nintendo has done a really good job of creating the technology necessary to enable this kind of social interaction. (Their choice to allow wireless multiplayer games to form even if some participants don’t own the game being played is particularly forward thinking.) Even so, there’s a significant stumbling block on the path to having this delightfully unexpected impromptu gaming experience - how can you tell when there are other DS gamers around?

I was riding around on Muni while digging into Dan Saffer’s book on Interaction Design when I came up with the idea that colorful pin-on-your-bag buttons could be an appropriate “social interface” to enable this kind of impromptu interaction. They could serve as a signal that makes DS gamers visible to one another and create a social opportunity to acknowledge one another and possibly start a gaming session.

Buttons seemed to fit the bill nicely as a simple, “glanceable,” low tech means of communicating. Additionally, they’re an established tool for identity making - a way of expressing your personality in a small and unique way - and gamers typically feel strongly about communicating their identity as gamers (though this will likely change as casual gaming becomes mainstream.)

Overall it felt like a compatible mix of technology (high and low) and culture, and I figured it was worth a go. Thankfully my partners in entrepreneurial crime (that is to say, Left Bracket partners Sean and Tom) got on board and we were off to the races! I’ll skip over the gory details of getting the buttons produced, the website designed and built, and marketing in place, save to say that it was a hell of a lot of work and everyone pitched in mightily to get it done in a mere five weeks.

The jury is still out as to what effect our little project will have upon the world, but hopefully it’ll make for some happy button-toting people and an increased number of pleasantly unexpected gaming encounters.

Sean has put together a good summary of where all we’ve been covered so far, though it seems like the list of growing by the hour to my delight.

So if you haven’t done so already, head on over to DSButtons.com and take a look!

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