Feature Specification: Application Process in Gaming Industry

Last month, I did a product exercise where I had to create feature specifications of the application process of a potential candidate for the gaming industry. This exercise provides a high level concept behind the feature, its target market, and wireframes. Keep in mind that this exercise is not real and contains fictitious data - it is simply an exercise where I wanted to practice my process for a product feature :).

 

1. OVERVIEW

1.1 Background

With over 2.5 billion video gamers across the globe, there is a high demand for new games and technology. In order to keep up with the ever-growing demand in the video gaming industry, studios are seeking and recruiting the best gaming talent more than ever. 

Studios spend ~$17B per year on outsourced talent for the video game development. These talents are usually found in generic talent marketplaces such as Upwork, Fiverr and Toptal. However, in recent times, there is a large and recurring demand for the following:

1. A specialized talent marketplace dedicated to video gaming
2. These talents are professional and qualified
3. These talents are properly vetted by the marketplace

There is no clear market leader in the vetted talent marketplace for the video gaming industry. Therefore, these unmet needs to be addressed with the best and fastest solution possible.

 

1.2 Solution

In order to address this gap in the market, Gamer Market Inc has developed a mission to serve this target market by crafting an online marketplace that focuses on delivering the highest quality talent in the video gaming industry. 

Based on the problem statement mentioned in the previous section, Gaming Market Inc has the following value proposition statement: 

• Gamer Market Inc is a valuable online marketplace that curates highly qualified and vetted talents (e.g. freelancers) and connects them to clients (e.g. game makers) through professional services (e.g. animation, audio, game design, etc).

Studios will benefit from saving time and money finding the right candidates, and will have access to highly exceptional ones in Gamer Market Inc’s all in one online platform.

Since the vetting process of the candidates is one of the essential aspects in the success of Gamer Market Inc, this document will be primarily focusing on the vetted application feature.

 

1.3 Target Users and Personas

In order to build the feature correctly, Gamer Market Inc needs to understand their target market. For the first stage of product roll-out, the target is freelancers, specifically soloists. They are seeking for an online platform exclusive to the video gaming industry where they can be connected to top-tier clients, such as studios.

Assumptions are made that the common traits of this target market are the following: 

• Basic Information: 
• They are between 25 to 50 years old.
• They have clean social media reputation and references.
• Work Experience:
• They have top skills in the video gaming industry.
• They have at least 5 years of professional experience.
• They have qualified portfolios.
• Motivations: 
• They want to connect their professional services to video gaming clients.

In order to join Gamer Market Inc's marketplace, the talent needs to submit an application during the onboarding process that will be thoroughly verified by Gamer Market Inc. This will ensure that Gamer Market Inc’s talents are highly qualified for the studios.

Gamer Market Inc’s vetted application system is the process where the talent signs up for a Gamer Market Inc account and submits their application, and then Gamer Market verifies the talent’s information. When the talent signs up, their email address is verified (either through social login or manually verifying their email address). Then the next major step is to complete their application to be part of the Gamer Market Inc network. The application has the following sections, as seen in Table 2.1.1.

Table 2.1.1: The sections of the Talent’s application during the onboarding.

Section Name	Description
Basic Information	This section gathers the basic information about the Talent, such as phone number, language, experience level, top skills.
Professional Experience	This section gathers the professional experience of the Talent from the last 5 years.
References	This section gathers the 3 professional references of the Talent.
Social Media	This section gathers at least 3 social media accounts of the Talent.

 

2.2 Flow and Wireframes

The high level (happy path) flow of this vetted application system for Gamer Market Inc is captured in Image 2.1.1.

Image 2.1.1: Flow for the Vetted Application System.

To view the high level wireframed prototype of the vetted application system, visit this Figma link: https://www.figma.com/proto/pkQc7gidMjPBBEfvgzjDA1/Gamer-Market-Inc.?node-id=101%3A199&scaling=scale-down

Once these feature specifications and designed prototype have been finalized, it is a good practice for the Gamer Market Inc team to evaluate the vetted application feature in a UX usability session. It allows the Gamer Market Inc team to determine if the users are having positive experience while using this feature and if their problem has been rightly solved in the proposed solution. Once approved, this prototype will be the foundation of the product development by the technical team.

Here are several of the screenshots from this prototype.