Call of Duty: Companion Tags

Project Description

This is a concept for new features for the Call of Duty companion app to increase social engagement.

Problem

Our project partner, Activision, challenged us to create social features for their Call of Duty Companion App. They were looking for features that would keep people engaged with the companion app and the game. The companion app as it existed, did not provide any social features and had a very niche use, limiting its audience. My group—Gaby Castro, Julia Engfer, Omzee Pitchford, Drew Hemnes, Casey Montz, and I—wanted to change the way COD players saw the companion app by adding new features, while keeping in mind the unique social climate surrounding Call of Duty.

Insights

Through our early interviews and netnography, we learned that certain players who enjoy playing Call of Duty still limit their social interactions with the COD community because of the risk of exposure to toxic behavior and the inability to find like-minded players. It was also apparent that the existing Squads feature was being underutilized. We felt that the way to increase social engagement was to encourage social behavior from these reticent players by reimagining Squads.

Solutions

Our ultimate concept has two main features: companions tags and a modified Squad system. Players can create a more personalized profile that includes a way to add “tags” that identify certain characteristics about who they are as players. These then get used to find appropriate Squads (groups of players who pool their stats) containing groups of like-minded players. These squads then provide a chat feature that allows squad members to correspond with each other.