Landing on an Idea

Over the years I've used my fair share of useful web apps from sales trackers to image editors. These projects extend the web from a simple source of information to a must-have utility with countless use cases. Since I started doing web development professionally, I've wanted to contribute one of these projects to the community at large but have struggled with which idea to finally land on. Since the internet is getting on its age, there aren't a lot of stones left unturned in the ideas department and I didn't want to contribute to an already crowded space where my idea would be buried instantly. I also wanted to create something that I'd want to use, so I'd remain committed to making it better over the years.

This strict set of project requirements has led me down the rabbit hole of planning more than a few times, leaving a trail of half-done wireframes, and completely abandoned git repos in its wake. That was until the end of last year when an idea sparked that I haven't been able to let go of since - a gaming news hub (I'll refer to it as gaming hub from here onward).

In my spare time, I game a lot, to the point where I’ve been in a gaming podcast for the better part of a decade. I have a passion for the industry and have followed how it has evolved over the years with new technologies and innovations coming and going all the while. Because of this, I want to contribute something to the gaming community at large. The problem is that gaming is extremely popular and with that comes an overwhelming collection of projects that are trying to push into the industry. I mulled over the idea to create a gaming project for a number of years before finally landing on gaming hub, because it’s something that I’d want to use myself. I also find that hopping between websites, web apps, and game launchers, to be a legitimate UX problem that hasn’t been solved anywhere I’ve looked.

MVP

The MVP of this idea would act as a one-stop shop for gaming news from major publications like IGN, and GameSpot. Beyond that, the gaming hub would list all the recurring free games from services like Xbox Live Gold, PlayStation Plus, Epic Games, and more; complete with links to any of the titles claimable right in the browser.

The idea here is that many people already have news apps, but there isn't (as far as I've seen) a single place to get an easy-to-access list of the month's free games without sifting through blog and Reddit posts. This added functionality would hopefully help distinguish gaming hub from other new aggregation services like Apple News.

Distribution

The original version of gaming hub would function solely as a website that people could visit, bookmark, and hopefully make their homepage.

Expanding from its website origins, gaming hub would be ported to multiple platforms so that users could use it on any device. Starting with the browser, I'd like to see gaming hub be made into a new tab extension on the Chrome Web Store. The hope here is that users will use gaming hub every time they boot up their computers, making it a primary way they get news about gaming.

Once these two versions are established and hopefully enjoyed by the users, I'd like to expand gaming hub into an app experience for Android, iOS, and Windows. Since the website would be well polished at this point it may make the most sense to make it into a PWA so it can easily be downloaded as an app via compatible browsers. From there, I'd look into how to package and submit my PWA into compatible app stores like the Microsoft Store and Google Play.

Beyond the MVP

While the MVP is quite useful in its own right, I have a collection of additional features on my wishlist that may, or may not, make it into the public release including:

Accounts & Settings

Accounts would allow users to save their preferences across devices. They'd be able to add/remove publications at will, apply a dark/light theme, and filter which platforms they want free game data on.

Push Notifications

These notifications would notify users when free games become available and remind them to claim games before they're changed out for new ones. Avid readers could also subscribe to news story notifications, possibly with filters to give them control over what type of news stories trigger a notification.

Event Coverage

There are frequent large events in the gaming industry where a variety of reveals, announcements, and presentations take place. Oftentimes this information is scattered across multiple publications and YouTube channels. The goal of gaming hub’s event coverage would be to gather and filter through all of an event’s content to then share on a tab dedicated to the event. The curated news and videos would give users the ability to read and watch their way through an event’s announcements much faster than sifting through social media posts. The tab would remain available throughout the event, sticking around for a few days after it ends before being removed entirely.

Podcasts

I’ve heard from some of my friends that they don’t want to bother downloading a podcast app when they only listen to a couple episodes here and there. This podcast feature would allow users to find and listen to the top gaming podcasts right in the browser/app. This would be much less fully-featured in the listening department than a dedicated app of course, as it would be tailored to those that just want to listen on a whim without the need for episode tracking, playlists, and more.

Custom RSS

The news aggregate feature of this app would be largely driven by RSS feeds offered by relevant gaming publications. The thing is, there are so many publications out there that listing them all for users to sift through would make for a bloated and messy UX. The idea behind this custom RSS feed feature, is that users could add their favourite publications’ RSS feeds into gaming hub if they aren’t available by default. If the “Accounts & Settings” feature listed above were implemented, these RSS feeds would be saved to a user’s account for use across various devices without the need for reconfiguring.

Goals & Conclusions

The overall goal of gaming hub is to create a place where gamers can get all their news and relevant media without having to browse multiple publications’ sites. The delivery of content direct from these publications’ RSS feeds gives the reader the content they’re used to, while the constant flow of new articles keeps gaming hub fresh and updated. Ultimately, I’d be building a tool that I’d want to use myself and through that use, come up with new ideas for features, and updates to the UI/UX to make gaming hub better with each coming update. While all the features individually are nothing groundbreaking, my hope is that bringing them all together and delivering them on virtually every platform would help gaming hub become a must-have tool for those addicted to keeping up-to-date on the gaming industry.