Gaming Product Development: The Millionaire Nigeria App Story

By Wale OyepejuHead, I.T

BUSINESS CASE FOR WWTBAM APPBACKGROUND

1. WWTBAM is an award winning game show in Nigeria and across the world airing on major Nigerian TV stations for over a decade.2. Millions of Naira are given out in weekly winnings for the past 13 years.3. If you ask three people on the street about the Game Show, at least two of themwould have heard about WWTBAM game show.

JUSTIFICATION FOR WWTBAM MOBILE GAME APP

2. INTERNET: Mobile broadband penetration currently at 70% in Nigeria has made mobile to be the first screen in Africa, creating a market opportunity for mobile game development.

2. Consumer Trend: As smart phones become cheaper, a growing niche market of digital consumers has emerged. This has created a strong business case for a new WWTBAMProduct; one that simulates the TV experience on phones.

3. Business Opportunity: The need to integrate Sponsor products, especially data bundlewith the Game Show.

There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. Peter Drucker (1963).

Finding FocusSTRATEGY IN CONTEXT

What is the essence of Strategy in Mobile game development?

Make wise choices as to what to do and what not to do.

Our strategic choices are focused on two areas:

1. What we would do to deliver the App (our CORE functions/business)2. What we would not do in delivering the product (non of our business)

Product Strategy: Key Elements

• Market Opportunity: There is a growing desire for mobile version of the game from customers who want to experience the game play on the go while also earning reward.

• The mandate was to develop a new mobile app that fits the personas of WWTBAM Nigeria game players.

• Project Team: 80% of the Project Team, especially the developers are to be sourced in Nigeria, Yaba to be precise.

• Prototype: WWTBAM UK was a good prototype. The global brand guidelines had to be followed to the latter

• Contract: Fixed Price contract must be adopted. No changes to contract terms or fee irrespective of the time it takes to get the App development completed.

• Quality: Have an Independent QA team• Technology: Android App to be developed first, followed by Facebook.• UI and UX: User interface has to be functional and not for only aesthetic. The Game

show experience has to be delivered on mobile and social with all the game transition simulated.

• Positioning and Pricing: Ease of buying new questions at even cheaper price point when compared with TV entry point.

WWTBAM Mobile App Management Road Map

Product Strategy

Requirement Analysis

Product Planning

Product Design

Product Developme

nt

Q/A

Product Marketing

Continuous Improveme

nt

Why Waterfall Model

1. There is a clear picture of what the final product should be 2. The scope is not changing

3. The key to success for us is accuracy and quality of the product.

4. Strong documentation of the development journey is highly important for continuous improvement

Post Development Challenges

• In App payment were not available to all customers in Nigeria due to naira denominated debit cards used for international payments. Most Nigerian banks have disabled DCC being used by Google

• Bypass of Google play store to obtain PIN for additional questions. We had to disable Google billing

• Subscription: The use of mobile phones not registered on player profile for subscription makes it impossible to automate subscription process.

• Question recycling system: We had to build a question recycling system when it was noticed that some frequent players exhaust the question database faster. This is only done for players who have exhausted their questions.

KEY METRICS

KEY METRICS

FUTURE FEATURE RELEASE

• UI: There will be improvement in the UI, making the interface more functional than it is right now.

• UX: While the game is immersive until the questions are exhausted, the development team would look at other areas to enhance the user experience. One way we will achieve this would be to allow users compete real time and brag about their scores at the end of each game.

• Leaderboard: We also aim to show each player leaderboard journey. Present it to

them in the form of a chart. The gaming pattern of each user would also be presented.

• Customization: We hope to deliver a feature that allows users to customize their

gaming interface and maybe even select the question category they want to answer.

Gaming App Development in Nigeria

The future is bright but if we do certain things right:

1. Increased Fixed Broad band penetration: Partnerships, policies on right of way, localcontent, incentives for OGM (Original Game Manufacturers), Electricity

2. Leverage Cloud platforms for faster product launch and continual improvement and support

3. Partnerships: Gaming developers and everyone within the value chain need to know whenTo collaborate and to compete.

THANK YOUEmail: Wale.oyepeju@ultimalimited.com

LinkedIn: waleoyepejuTwitter: @waleoyepeju

Instagram: @DaddyKoye

WWTBAM APP DEMO SESSION