Organization Name: Big Blue Bubble Inc.
Industry: Game Developers
Name of contact if available: Claudette Critchley, COO
Web references: Big Blue Bubble
Description of how social media is used for business performance
In June 2014 the Profit 500 ranked a small London based firm, Big Blue Bubble Inc. (BBB), as one of the fastest growing companies in Canada.
BBB, incorporated in 2004, is an award winning developer of digital video games. The company designs, develops and publishes compelling multi-platform games of the highest quality. With over 100 games in their portfolio and distributed in 120+ countries, Big Blue Bubble leads the way in becoming a cornerstone of the gaming world.
One of their most popular games is My Singing Monsters in which the players create a world of monsters, music, singing and dancing.
This game has a following all over the world of people of all ages. My Singing Monsters and the people of the world present: the first ever Monstrorchestra!
When a whole community of players get together the results can be quite beautiful.
So how does BBB work on product development? They use a proprietary framework, Hydra Engine, for game development which from a technical perspective follows good software development practices. The engine also allows for social integration and data analytics. BBB follows a crowdsourcing model or community based design in that the players can interact with each other and the developers. Through the analytics the developers can follow the players progress to see what works and what doesn’t.
In a d
iscussion with Claudette Critchley, COO of BBB we explored the use of social media in their product development process. Ms. Critchley said that games are not static anymore. Online games are in constant development so new content is pushed to the players all the time. Input from players is crtical.
Lessons for others
Engage your customers in the product development process
- encourage their contribution
- make it fun and entertaining
- listen to their input
- reward their feedback
- showcase their efforts
References:
Submitted by: Sandra Kodis, SMBP Student, University of Waterloo
To contact the author of this entry please email at: sandra.kodis@nrc.gc.ca
If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Programme Director, Social Media for Business Performance.