SCVNGR: Case study

Résumé du document

SCVNGR is a social location gaming application for smartphone based on challenges. The concept of the application is simple: "Go places. Do challenges. Earn points!". Players use the application in certain places to see if they can do some challenges in order to gain some points, unlock badges and win some rewards. SCVNGR is also a social platform because it offers to users the possibility to create their own challenges and have fun challenging other users. (http://www.scvngr.com/)

In 2008, at age 19, Seth Priebatsch decided to drop out of Princeton and create SCVNGR. He had won an entrepreneur contest in his university and investors were starting to call him about his idea. Highland Capital Partners decided to invest $730,000 in the project and that is how the SCVNGR Company was created.

Today the company has grown and now counts more than 60 employees. The company's headquarter is based In Boston but also has an office in San Francisco. Up to this day, SCVNGR has been able to raise $40,8 million from many big venture funding companies like Dreamit Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, Google Ventures Balderton Capital, Transmedia Capital and T-Venture.

Extraits

[...] All those features make today's games much more fun and exciting. Games are also getting more real as they interact more and more with the real word. We have seen the emergence of new gaming consoles that give the ability to the players to use their movement to control what they see on the screen like the Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360's Kinect. We have also seen the emergence of the augmented reality technology that adds graphic contents to real life elements by using devices equipped with cameras like smartphones, tablets but also new gaming consoles like the Sony PS Vita. [...]

[...] - Some people might not be interested in doing challenges, and prefer simpler services like Foursquare that doesn't need too much effort or thinking. - SCVNGR's challenges are not always very interesting. - The service is not very attractive if there aren't many businesses offering rewards. - The service is not very attractive to businesses if there are not many players in the city. The value proposition As we have already said, SCVNGR's value proposition is its ability to attract new customers into businesses like shops and restaurants by giving them the ability to benefit from discounts and receive free products or services. [...]

[...] Do challenges. Earn points!”. Players use the application in certain places to see if they can do some challenges in order to gain some points, unlock badges and win some rewards. SCVNGR is also a social platform because it offers to users the possibility to create their own challenges and have fun challenging other users. (http://www.scvngr.com/) In 2008, at age 19, Seth Priebatsch decided to drop out of Princeton and create SCVNGR. He had won an entrepreneur contest in his university and investors were starting to call him about his idea. [...]

[...] SCVNGR is also a good way to increase the fidelity of business's customers. In an interview with GigaOM, Seth Prietbatsch said that after analyzing the data it had collected, they found out that it takes three visits by a consumer before they are likely to become a regular at a business or at least have that merchant at the top of their mind. SCVNGR basically offers a new kind of advertising tool to businesses. SCVNGR's business model SCVNGR's business model centers on collecting fees from merchants who want to use the application to attract users to their businesses, to play and receive rewards. [...]

[...] The SCVNGR game is surfing on those tendencies. The real innovation of the company was to create a social gaming platform in which people could do challenges but also create their own in order to challenge their friends. By letting its users create their own challenges, the SCVNGR game could grow bigger and offer much more contents and challenges to its users. Like with social networks, the content doesn't come from one source but from millions of sources. This strategy was adopted in order to make the platform much more social and attract more users. [...]