I'm building a game on top of GitHub contributions. Would you play it?
I currently have a basic idea of how the game should work. But I'm struggling to validate whether or not other developers would play it and also whether or not I can turn this into a business.
First of all, if you're a developer that uses Git in your workflow, could you share what are your thoughts on the game idea?
And second, do you have any suggestions on how to validate it?
💡Here's the idea:
User logs in with github account then the game will calculate the user level taking into consideration all the contributions of the user since he joined the platform.
The user will earn a fixed amount of gold when he signs up to be spent on his avatar.
Knowing his level, the user will be prompted to create his avatar when he'll be able to customize his appearance spending the gold he earned.
After that, he will be redirected to his profile page where he will have an overall vision of his hero and his accomplishments. To start:
🏅Level (XP points)
💰Coins/gold
📅"Years in github" badge
📊 Number of each kind of contribution
After the user is signed up, each contribution he makes gets tracked and he earns xp + gold based on the type of contribution.
The user will be able to compare himself with other players (a global leaderboard will be available).
Organizations will be able to create their profiles as "guilds" or "clans" (maybe this is where I can monetize).
Hey Icaro,
To give context, I'm a developer with a undergraduate degree in computer science and have worked for two separate companies as a dev.
I could see this being a cute chrome extension, I couldn't see myself going to a new website and keeping it open.
I'm not sure this idea solves a real need. I think it's a great idea as a fun side-project, but I think you'll run into issues when trying to get people to pay you.
Best of luck!
Hey @Kevcon80! Thanks for your feedback.
Yeah. I thought about it... I wouldn't use something like that if it required me to keep visiting a website.
As regarding the monetization, this is where I'm most insecure about the idea. I'm aware that this doesn't solve any real problem, as people would use it only for fun. On the other hand, a lot of people (myself included) spend money on games that are 'only for fun'.
Also, I can imagine some ways to provide value for companies so they would pay some kind of 'team plan'.
But as you said, this sounds much more like a fun side-project than a real business.
icaro,
First of all, props to you for accepting less-than-positive feedback. I know it's not fun.
True, but when was the last time you spent money on a game that was 'only for fun' and focused in this area? I don't think this can compare to, for example, mobile gaming in terms of pure entertainment.
This is the only viable option I see, and I think a lot of things would have to line up for this to come true. For example, does having this in a team improve code quality, frequency of deploys, or clearly boost team morale? If so, you have an argument to include these in dev shops. Your big test, then, would be to figure out how to prove these two hypotheses:
and
Yeah. I agree 100% with you.
I'll find a way to test these hypothesis before going further with the development.
I'm not willing to spend too much time on it just for fun (at least right now) 😅
Thanks again for your feedback! Very insightful
Hi!
I am a CS master's student and use Git almost on a daily basis.
Generally speaking the idea sounds good to me, I can imagine this being somewhat fun for young teenagers getting into coding/Git and having some incentive to work on projects and use Git.
But I don't think many people will spend time on creating and customizing their avatar, since this would be two websites one has to use at the same time.
As a suggestion, you can think about expanding it in the direction of motivating people to contribute to open source projects by presenting them open issues in repositories and rewarding them based on their contribution.
And here's a product heading in a similar direction to your idea, maybe you can get some inspiration there: sourcerer.io
Good luck!
Hey @lucaionescu! Appreciate the feedback 😄
Yeah, I think a challenge would be to create something that fits into the workflow of the devs in a way that it doesn't require too much actions and yet it's fun to play
For sure, one of my goals is contribute to open source. That's a great suggestion.
Thanks a lot!