Facebook seminar application critique

I would like to discuss some of my thinking about the presentation for the Geo Challenge app.

Overall I thought that was really a great presentation done by the group , the presentation was easily understandable and clear. The issues discussed was quite relevant and meaningful, and I hope to share some of my insights here.

So now I would also like to discuss 3 points that was brought up by the presenters that really caught my mind.



1.) the talk about the serious gaming aspect.
(how well has it done as an educational app)
As we know there are many educational applications around, but not many are successful,

because when you try to be educational, the chances are that your app is going to be dull and

rigid, those people out for fun and action wouldn't fancy your game, but if you are targeting at

audiences that are out for fun, it's hard to still try to be educational.



but this app is exceptional, this is because of the layout and design of the game, where they make it so that you would like to compete with your friends, and hence make the educational game competative. the inner design was also very well done , that they fit the whole theme into an airport scenario where you have to guide tourist around with your knowledge. That makes users like me have a sense of knowing what I am suppose to do.


the ultimate success of this app in this educational field is that the developers have launched it in the correct platform that is facebook, if this app was launched as a desktop application, and without competition with your friends , people would never want to play this game for more than 1 time. so I guess the success of this app was not purely on the features that were programmed into it, but also the platform that is was launched.




I guess the same applies for singapore context for education also, some people would just study very hard in order to beat others in thier studies because it gives them a sense of achievement. if there is no one to beat, most probably the students here would just slack and do nothing.




okay, just some analogy,back to the app, so the app teaches us that for an app to be successful, it doesn't only depends on the feature or the nature of the game, the targeted audience and the platform plays a major role in it too.


so as the presenters have said: it is the educational nature and massage spreading ability of this app that would make the ministry of tourism want to buy this application or advertise in it. So it means that the app has already established itself as a great educational tool.

the app has been thus very succesful not only it's niche field, but has also manage to attract users who are not keen to learn to actually enjoy the learning process.

Conclusion :
it takes an 'good' lecturer to put to sleep students who are keen to learn.
it also takes an great app to make people who are not keen to learn , actually striving to learn.
so both are is called unconcious learning.
because you have to learn unconciously...
and judging on their progress in instilling unconcious learning into people, they have been a great app.



2.)
the second point I would like to add on is
the point about the idea of integrating the theme of a certain company into the main theme
of the game.

in which the presenters gave an example of herbal something,
it was where the whole theme was actually pink in colour. and with herbs lying all around.

I thought that it was really a great feature of this app. because it has many opportunities for commercial advertising.

a great issue about making games is that you must know how to put your advertisements to where they belong, so normally developers would just put it at the side or at the bottom to make it non-instrusive.

but is it the only way?
actually the best place to put your advertisement is in your content of the app, to push it even further, you might even want to think of your app not as an app but as an advertisement.

this is not a novel idea , many movies or games have done that, for example

transformers : making one of the robot transform into a volvo car (correct me if I am wrong),

money no enough(Jack Neo) : selling mei zhen xiang bak kwa in the movie.



but something that is worthwhile to commend about this app is that
according to what the presenters have shown us ,although it is not a novel idea, it was done in a very well manner, it doesn't seem too abrupt that may agitate some users,
and some users may even like the theme and begin to like to product the company is selling,
so there are many companies outside that are willing to pay money to create this type of awareness.



3rd point

the 3rd point I would like to discuss is that, the idea of making Geo Challenge into a mobile phone game, I personally think that it is a very good idea.





as the presenter has mentioned, given the nature of the game, where it only involves simple clicking, this would make a good candidate for mobile games.

and given that the next generation of 3G phones technology, people can even go online on thier mobile phones, this would make the app easier to access. and hence attract more users.

but now I would also like to post back a question to the presenters of Geo Challenge.

since we have agknowledge that the success of this app is because it has been launch on facebook , and it manage to tab on the users of facebook, making them wanting to compete against each other, so after you port it over to the mobile phone platform, would you still think that the app will be as successful as before without the users of facebook? if yes , how would you justify it? if no, how would you try to think of ways to resolve this issue.


please correct me if I am wrong in any way, and please leave some comments for me


Thank you very much,


best regards
Yu Han