Tokens Gaming Budget App
October 2022
My Role
UX Design Lead — User Research, Visual Design, User Flows, Iterative Prototyping
Time Frame
1 Month
Background
With the rise of a micro-transaction video game economy and steady increase of game prices, gamers are spending more money on game content each month. Based on my user research and on a survey conducted by AT&T, Gen-Z gamers spend an average of $80 per month on video games/video game services. That’s more than $60,000 during their lifetime.
Tokens allows gamers to save money, shop smarter, and track their spending
A Conflict of Interest
My wife once spent $100 to get a character in Genshin impact, but she didn’t get it. So I gave her another $100... - User interview #3
$60,000 is not a small amount of money. I saw an opportunity to help my fellow gamer community by solving this problem of overspending and lack of financial accountability. While many users saw the need to budget responsibly, few actually felt excited about doing so. Gamifying the video game budgeting experience posed as a serious challenge.
Budgeting Shouldn't Be Hard
My first approach was to link a user’s credit/debit card to a system that would track user’s spending for video game categories. However, the flow and technical challenge of this meant that users would not be as aware of what they are spending and would have to keep themselves even more accountable.
For this project, I learned the most from the one-on-one interviews I had with gamers. The majority of users often find themselves mindlessly buying games or add-ons simply to keep up with their friends or to express themselves with in-game cosmetics. This forced me to approach the problem of overspending from a different perspective. Instead of connecting a card, what if the gamers could have a customized budget and a place to find the best deals on games?
Budget Creation and Store Account Connections
Friends don't let friends battle alone
I was a bit worried that users would find the product experience to be dry or not motivating enough. But after usability testing, I was pleased to see their reaction to the social elements of Tokens. By introducing a social tab, users began to see the potential of an all-in-one video game budgeting and shopping experience. Users are able to see which games their friends are buying and how they are doing with their budget goals. You can also help a friend buy a game if they need a little extra cash.
Shopping Flows
A Gamer's Budgeting Multi-tool
By allowing the user to build a customized budget, shop through their favorite online stores, and earn medals along the way, Tokens is able to keep users engaged and aware of how much they can spend each month on video game content.
Resolution
While this was a project that was used to prove a concept, I had lot’s of excellent feedback around Tokens. The majority of users were onboard with the entire experience and see it as a definite need in today’s economy. If I were to continue building out Tokens, I would keep digging deeper into how it could utilize social interaction more so that users would have more fun ways to keep each other accountable.
100%
of users found the app/site easy to navigate and use
80%
of users said they would use Tokens to budget their game expenses
100%
of users would use Tokens as their primary game shop
