YouPlay.com (a joint venture between Southern Cross View and Lovatts) asked the Hyro Team to build an Avatar creator that would help increase subscription, time spent on the YouPlay site, as well as add an entertaining new feature.
The Challenge
The Avatar creator had to be scalable for future additions as well as be able to be managed via a Content Management System (CMS), but most of all it had to be a game in its self.
A simple store was needed to allow full subscription members to purchase items for their Avatars with tokens they earned in games.The Avatars themselves had to suit the YouPlay site as well as have a unique look.
The Digital Business Solution
The Avatar creator and store were built in 6 weeks, utilising an Agile approach to allow YouPlay the flexibility to give feedback and refine requirements during a prototyping phase.
The creator was built in Flash 9 using ActionScript 3 with a Java backend and CMS. Hyro created a number of user interface designs and Avatar illustrations for the YouPlay team to choose from and then created nearly 200 Avatar assets for the initial creator allowing the end user a multitude of unique looks.
An efficient bespoke CMS was built to allow the YouPlay team to update and add Avatar assets. A complete stock management system was developed, which is managed via the CMS allowing pricing, limited periods and full reporting on what has been tried on, bought and any user activity.
Wireframes for both the frontend application and the CMS were created, as well as user guides for both creating new Avatar assets and using the CMS.
The Avatar creator was fully integrated into the YouPlay site, including with the points based token system.
Success Achieved
- Hyro are now in talks regarding further development of the Avatar creator.
- The YouPlay have been able to add assets to the Avatar store using the CMS.
- The majority of YouPlay site users have customised their Avatar.