Story

Late 2007, Ephlux was approached to become a technology partner for a start-up GorillaWars.com Ephlux combined its solid expertise in social networking, web 2.0 solutions and our passion for the gaming industry to deliver an amazing solution!

Challenges

Since most of us at Ephlux were great enthusiasts of gaming competitions ourselves, we started with numerating the problems gaming sites and the gamers face in a massive environment.

The organizational and strategic challenges facing players who serve as game leaders on MMORPGs –are almost common: making sense of ambiguous situations, transforming strategy into action, managing diverse teams collaboratively, etc..

In addition to this when designing a community for gamers the issue of security and authorization is huge and cannot be ignored. On top of that the need for a robust top-notch solution which can scale with your growth is an utmost necessity.

However, the most important success factor for online gaming solutions and social networks is the User Experience. The way a user is entertained through the site and what facilities the site provides for online games to become a regular user of the site. An online gaming solution thus has to be optimized for security, robustness, response times, great user experience and viral marketing. This together helps bringing in the initial critical-mass of loyal users on to the network who can then make it go wild!

In addition to this main success factors were identified as:

• Games should be fun and multilevel ensuring the user enjoys while playing
• Site should offer ongoing tournaments and a highly competitive environment
• Immersive environment to draw users in and hold their attention. This will also ensure that users will comeback.
• Site should offer games in several categories such as easy, strategic, action etc to cater to differentiating needs.
• Single user as well as multiplayer gaming options.
• Collaboration tools to allow gamers to communicate with each other.

Our team researched and then with continuous discussion with the client designed a solution that promised to be responsive and robust enough to make every visitor to the website a happy customer.

As Ephlux was working as a technology partner with the client we researched for factors to analyze the customers or gamers in order to make regular members of the website. Our research team discovered the following factors showing why people participate in online competitions:

Solution

Based on the initial requirements; functional and non-functional were conceived a high fidelity prototype for the solution was built to make sure the design worked right. The evolution of the prototype was an ongoing process, and the full-blown implementation started with rigorous testing for all the benchmark pointers decided at the analysis phase. The Beta of GorillaWars.com was made live in the 3rd month from the project kick-off!

Now Ephlux enjoys with the customer a strong long-term relationship focused on the venture’s success. Every member of the project at both ends feels part of the same team living the common dream – a dream of an online gamers network which can challenge each member of the community to challenge and extend their skills every day!

If you have an exciting idea with a high potential and looking for a technology partner, contact Ephlux now and let’s get started!