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Materialize (final)
In this phase, students moved from individual or pair work into five teams with the goal of creating a functional prototype. They then tested, and retested these prototypes with participants as part of a four-week sprint. These prototypes reflect themes identified by Activision stakeholders such as Friends, Squads/Challenges, and Improvement.
Friends (Player Ratings & Team Preferences)
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Our solution allows players to rate teammates from their most recent match using digital tags that correspond to certain roles or traits. Players can also filter out the types of teammates they’d prefer to play with based on those tags. Lastly, by giving and receiving ratings to others, players earn honor points that they can use to redeem rewards such as stickers, player cards, and double XP.
Squads/Challenges (Improved Squads, Improved Challenges)
Squads are a way for users of the companion app to pool their game achievements and earn rewards. In this prototype, players can also use a system of tags to identify how they play Call of Duty, while squads use these same tags to identify what they consider important about their potential squad members. This tag system also allows squads to form as groups of like-minded people who can then take advantage of a proposed chat feature for squad members to communicate with each other.
Friends (Player Preferences + Search)
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Our feature, CoD Enlist, connects players of varying skill levels (seasoned and beginners) in order for them to gain experience, skills, and rewards. Skilled players must meet 6 different achievement thresholds in order to participate in the mentorship program. Our matchmaking system uses players’ preferences to facilitate the best possible mentor groupings. As they play and develop together, they also unlock rewards such as discounts in the CoD store, access to special skins, and unique calling cards.
Improvement (Onboarding)
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Spec Ops, or Special Operations, are missions, with a set of objectives, for players to complete within a week in order to get achievement badges, in-game rewards, or XP. Players can complete these by themselves, but this feature encourages them to play with others, whether to get an XP multiplier or cooperative-dependent badges. The main goal of Spec Ops is to help players, especially new players, become more familiar with playing Call of Duty with a unique onboarding experience, while building connections with others.
Improvement (Video)
To appeal to both newcomers and experienced players, we added Videos to the Intel page. These videos provide educational and entertaining content to keep players engaged with Call of Duty outside of the game. Players can search and filter for specific videos, browse and save various playlists, and subscribe to content creator channels.