Gaming Program

‘Gamified experiences’ as an offering at Accenture

Focus: Program Manager

Leading Accenture New Realities’ gaming program, I leveraged my childhood passion for competitive gaming to manage and refine our offering, which encompassed six key projects across Fortnite, Roblox, Horizon Worlds, and Unity. My overarching responsibility entailed defining, establishing, and maintaining our offerings, forging critical ecosystem / vendor relationships, shaping our upskilling path, cultivating teams to do their best work, and guiding project delivery as-required.

While not directly producing every project, my strategic oversight was instrumental in launching all six projects and generating $750k in client revenue. Balancing exciting hands-on opportunities with the broader vision of program management, I ensured each project resonated with our core goal of delivering engaging, fun experiences.

Gaming Program Metrics

  • My role as a program manager centered on creating and aligning opportunities for Accenture’s talented teams, and then ensuring they are supported properly to deliver exceptional work.

    My priorities are outlined by the below pillars:

    • Building Capability:

      • Talent Pool: Built relationships across many teams and geographies to developed a global talent pool exceeding 100 employees with relevant skillsets and technology experience.

      • Upskilling curriculum: When an important platform is introduced, I review the technical and design documentation to spearhead custom upskilling initiatives tailored for project-specific needs.

      • Project Critiques and Knowledge Sharing: Initiated and lead a bi-weekly XR Design Knowledge college, fostering a culture of sharing work-in-progress and continuous learning, and curating a living repository of best practices and technology insights.

    • Defining Offerings:

      • Offering Categorization: I structured the gaming and gamification opportunities into four distinct categories simplifying internal and external comprehension of our services, and availale technologies: Gamified Experiences, Gamification-as-a-Tool, Augmenting Talent, and Gaming Advisory.

      • Sales and Marketing: Served as the key point of contact for our offerings, spearheading the creation of sales and marketing collateral, and actively collaborating with business development to drive client engagements.

      • Ecosystem and Vendor Partnerships: I cultivate, manage, or guide essential ecosystem and vendor relationships to set projects up for success (Niantic, Roblox, Unity, Epic, Whitelabel vendors etc.)

    • Advising Delivery:

      • Resource Strategist: Optimize project resourcing, ensuring that our gaming initiatives were staffed with top talent by building a network of trusted collaborators, empowering them to take charge, and proactively clearing obstacles from their paths.

      • Direct Contributor: Beyond program management, I personally directed key projects within our gaming portfolio, including three Horizon Worlds projects and the Fortnite project, lending my expertise as a producer and design advisor.

      • Stakeholder Management: With a keen eye on program visibility and governance, I maintained a rhythm of executive updates and managed stakeholder communications, ensuring alignment on our vision and progress.

  • There were so many insights that I gained from managing the Gaming Program. Top ones are below:

    • Shifting priorities: Biggest takeaway? Initially we leaned into creating gamified experiences, especially for employees, due to internal successes with VR onboarding. Over time, we noticed more external interest in gamification-as-a-tool, enhancing things like loyalty programs. Despite personal appreciation for platforms like VRChat and Rec Room, market demands shifted our focus.

    • Authentic Brand Engagement: When brands enter gaming platforms with massive existing user bases, the key is to offer meaningful additions that resonate with both the game's community and the brand’s identity. Just creating a space isn't enough; it needs to add value and feel authentic to engage players genuinely.

    • Newfound Respect: As a former competitive video game player, diving into gaming projects gave me a newfound respect for the craft of game design. It requires navigating unpredictable player interactions, a contrast to more linear experience design.

Selected Gaming Projects

Fortnite Employee Experience

Focus: Producer

My involvement in a Fortnite project as an advisory producer allowed me to exercise oversight and delegate with trust, shaping an experience that addresses the growing need for meaningful connection among remote teams.

The experience has four stages: a resource hunt in a vast desert, a cooperative maze challenge, a competitive snowboard race, and a teamwork-focused obstacle course. Each level designed to combine fun with the fundamentals of collaboration, proving that work culture can be enhanced through interactive, shared digital experiences.

ChangiVerse

Focus: Designer

As the advisory game designer for ChangiVerse in Roblox, my primary focus was conceptualizing the mini-games like the obstacle course, go-kart racing, hidden rewards, and shaping the virtual economy. I also aligned resources and ensured the project remained true to the vision of digitizing Singapore's Changi Airport.

This project was a big success in that I was able to effectively delegate main responsibilities to trusted colleagues, while providing strategic support and engaging with the creative aspects. As of February 2024, there are over 16,000 Favorites and 9,2M+ visits.

Horizon Worlds

Focus: Producer, Designer

For all three of Accenture's Horizon Worlds projects, I directly led production and contributed to design. I personally was fascinated to build experiences on the platform considering Meta's achievements with its Quest headsets. All three projects primarily focused on internal employee experiences, as the broader client market had a lukewarm response to brand activations given Horizon Worlds' modest user base.

However, the projects underscored the platform's potential for crafting immersive employee experiences by showcasing superior stability and interactivity compared to Mesh/Altspace and boasted a more advanced avatar system and VR support than ArthurVR, tackling the main limitations of its competitors.