In the oldschool version of "I spy with my little eye..." (you know, the one kids play) one player spies an object and then verifies the opposing player's guesses. When we decided to recreate "iSpy" for the mobile social generation we asked ourselves, "Why not allow the entire community to participate in verifying?". We figured crowdsourcing the verification process would allow solutions to get verified faster and more accurately. Boy were we right!
Before there was verifying
When we first built and tested the verification system, we would test it out by submitting fake solutions to fake games and then make tweaks. Verifying wasn't all that fun, but we needed it for the game to work. We thought, "Why would people do this?". As an added incentive we decided to award BP's for verifying.
Verifying in the beta
The beta was the first time we realized that verifying was more than just necessary, it was fun! Verifying with real content felt kind of like "spying" on other players. This helped players understand the game better because they could see how others were using the system. There were always games to verify, and most player's visited the verify screen regularly.
Verifying yesterday
We realized the problem when iSpy reached it's first 1,000 players. Turns out, player's enjoyed verifying so much that they were rapidly clearing the verify queue. It was a race to earn BP's for verifying, and most of the time there were none left. That's because once a solution reaches a certain threshold, XP's get awarded to the solver (or not) and we would pull their solution from the verify queue. We were getting exactly what we needed (everything was getting verified efficiently), but the community was left wanting more.
Verifying today
So as of today we have launched some major changes to the verify system and upgraded the website with some fun new features.
- Every player gets to verify every solution ever submitted
- BP's are no longer awarded for verifying
- When verifying on the website, you can see both the creator and player's profile pic and link to their profile
- When verifying on the website, we provide a link to the game you are verifying
So you no longer need to race to the verify screen. You can visit whenever you like, and there will always be tons of solutions to spy on. Now you can use verifying to browse for cool games and interesting players since we provide links to both. The removal of BP's for verifying makes the points much more meaningful because they are harder to earn. To those lucky players who earned BP's for verifying in the past, you get to keep all the points you've earned. Consider it our gift to you for pointing out this much needed improvement.
Verifying in the future
The excitement around verifying has us thinking about it in a whole new way. We have some really cool verify features in the pipeline and we can only imagine what the evolution of the verify system will lead to. One thing is for certain, we are still tracking everyone's verifies, and I'm sure that data will eventualy come in handy for something (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). So let us know what you think of the changes and keep those verifies coming. |
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