The Design Challenge is creating a product that can establish a trustworthy relationship with gamers of all ages and platforms.

The current climate between consumer and seller in the gaming industry is tense to say the least. With the rise of microtransactions, lootboxes, employee crunch, company lies, store exclusivity, and other insidious practices being done in the game industry, gamers are now more vocal than ever about how opposed they are to the new norm and crave a change for the better.

Answering the cry for a more fair and just relationship between customer and provider is JetStream, an app that sells games while respecting a gamer’s time and money. JetStream’s philosophy is to always be upfront with the customer by having transparent purchase/refund policies and customer support that is actually supportive.

The strategy for tackling the research stage revolves around 3 phases:

Gamer Statistics

User Reviews of Existing Apps

Competitive Analysis

The first phase comprises of a study conducted by the EEDAR, a games research company, that published findings on gamer behavior and population. These findings include info such as the number of people that play games in the US or how much gamers spend on games every 6 months.

Average number of Americans who play video games

Average number of hours gamers play weekly

Average number of games bought due to watching streamers

Majority of gamers who play on a mobile device vs. a console

Average amount gamers spend in a 6 month period

The second phases focuses on gathering reviews left by users of game ecommerce apps and sites to find any common pain points shared. From the reviews gathered, the common pain points shared between users was as follows:

The third and final phase of the research phase goes into what each app/site’s strengths and weaknesses are and gives direction to what JetStream should go in. The result is a competitive analysis of the major gaming platforms and their sellers.

It is thanks to the research done that it is possible to now move onto the next phase of the development process.

Here is where all sorts of brainstorming and wild thoughts start to form. After running through ideas such as a weekly leaderboard for most purchases by a single user and buying 100 games withing a month allows a user to make a game with a developer studio of their choice, the features and philosophy of JetStream would be born.

JetStream’s finalized features are as follows:

Profile Creation

The user’s ability to create an identity when in JetStream

Gifting

One gamer can gift a game to their friend so they can play a co-op game together.

Personal Wallet

Store money and customize credit/debit cards

User Review System

An out-of-5 star rating system along with a space for writing the good, the bad, and the ugly about a video game.

Frequent and Weekly Sales (Games of the Week)

Sales are generous with Jetstream and the Game of the Weeks weekly sale randomly chooses games to be featured on the home tab for that week.

JetStream’s philosophy bases itself on trust between customer and seller, therefore fair and transparent policies are crucial for the app. Refunding games is no longer a shot in the dark and customer support does what its name suggests and aids the user. Providing sales at a generous pace encourages the user to buy games they couldn’t normally buy at a cheap price.

All of these ideas and research only mean something when action is taken to bring them to life.

The design stage is split into 3 phases:

Wireframes

Brand Guidelines

Mockups

The goal for the wireframes are to create a simple hierarchy between the buttons, text, photos, and any other UI elements needed for the app. The wireframes were originally made on paper, then transferred to Figma for a low-fidelity wireframes of JetStream.

Since this is a game ecommerce app with trust as a foundation it has to have the vibe, color, typography, shapes, and UI elements to reflect that.

With everything in place and made, high-fidelity mockups are possible to create and show off JetStream looks.

These are the main screens the user will be viewing while interacting with JetStream. The User lands on the home page featuring a search bar, buttons that give quick access to games of the respective platform, and the games of the week. The User then navigates to the sales tab trying to find if a game they really wanted to play went on sale or not. If the User does find their desired game on sale they then can either add to their cart right away purchasing the game or if its a game they aren’t sure about yet can access it’s game page for more info.

Here is where the User can change, update, and edit their profile info ranging from their profile picture to their wallet and credit card info.

The User has the option to navigate using the bar at the bottom of the app, which houses tabs users would interact with regularly or the burger menu that has the nav bar’s tabs alongside pages the user wouldn’t normally use.

The User can gift another user a game by searching for their name in the search bar or when they come across a profile in the game reviews section of a game they selected

With the project coming to a close it is time to address what this project was able to achieve and what could have been improved

In the beginning the answer was yes that because of the current climate in gaming, JetStream can offer frustrated gamers a trustworthy place to buy any game they want with little to no effort.

However the result of presenting and demoing the app displayed a slightly different result. Gamers who were asked about JetStream afterwards were split in their decision to transfer over to using the app for their shopping needs. On the one hand gamers like the idea of having a general space for purchasing any game from any platform, however there were also gamers that preferred using the PSN store, Microsoft Store and of course Steam since many purchase games directly from their console.

Learning from the feedback, JetStream lacks the ability the divert some gamers away from simply using their platform’s store. Finding a way to address that issue is a priority. However, JetStream does have many pluses that other e-commerce markets do not and improving the app to viably compete with other brands is definitely possible.