Cao Siming’s PP Gun: Players’ Experience is at the Core (I)
The work studio of PP Gun is piled of models of guns and gunstocks, giving you the illusion that you have stepped into some sort of an arms model studio. The owner Cao Siming has released his product on a crowd funding platform recently. Click here for more details. His product improves the experience of First-person shooting gun games (short for FPS). Players feel like using real guns when playing FPS games with this product. It can be used for playing games on tablet computers or mobile phones. This product, which was reported by leiphone.com, has been released.
Why this product?
When iPhone 4 was released four years ago, Cao noticed that the gyroscope chip was built in the phone. Based on this function, two games had been developed: Janga and Gun Rage. The gyroscope sensor sensed the moves of users, so that the view on the screen could turn according to moves of players. “In the past, players had to use the keyboard or the mouse. Though the gyroscope sensor could imitate the view of shooting, I eyed its weakness.” No matter how vivid the view was, the player still had to touch the screen to shoot and there wouldn’t be feel like pulling the trigger. So Cao began to design a device that could remarkably improve the experience of FPS games. And it is easy to know that the device is what is used to shoot: a gun-shape controller.
This was the start of developing PP Gun. In order to improve players’ experience, Cao did a great amount of researches on gun models, and spent a lot of time on improving details. This product introduces the piston vibrators usually used on arcade game guns, so when players shoot they will feel recoil, just like shooting with a real gun. Besides, other equipment like a sight can also be installed on it. Moreover, its clip is not a decoration but where the battery is. The battery can be used as a portable power bank for the device. Except for the keys necessary for playing games, the design of all other parts imitates a real gun. Cao said that “there are many gun-shape controllers for PC games, but they are bloated and not easy to use”.
And there is a shortcoming on those PC or Video games: the screen is fixed. When playing the game, if you aim your gun to somewhere out of the screen, you have to twist your head to look at the screen. So Cao decided to solve this problem by connect the gun with mobile devices. As a result, the console, the screen and the gun will move together, a significant improvement for players’ experience.
During the process of research and development, Cao has always pursued better experience for players. He believes that the design should focus on it. And he made this product because that there were no products in the market with good FPS experience.
What have you thought about on users’ experience?
Cao mentioned the very popular product Oculus Rift, which was used in the game Call of Duty. The underpan for running, the vest that can shake when the player gets shot and a gun shape control are also provided. “I maintain that this fit give users negative experience. You’ll only remember how many miles you’ve run, how many times you’ve got shot, and what views you have seen on the screen. However, the fundamental function of shooting has to be completed by Oculus. The gun is just designed for the button.”
So what on earth is the core value of FPS games? Shooting itself. Cao believes that it is unrealistic to bring players with all experience of shooting. Hence the developers should understand what players really need. The shooting game should give players the best experience on shooting. Cao who had once been a game designer holds that players for shooting games are not here to experience running and getting shot, but for the fun of shooting. So lots of work should be done on this part.
“During the process of crowd funding, our fans have offered us many suggestions. I’ll think all of them over to see what experience they may bring to players, positive or negative.
Among suggestions is the one that a button installed on the gunstock so that when players use the sight they must stick their faces on the gunstock. However, Cao thinks it to be bad experience for users, who will have to touch the button frequently if they need to use the sight for many times in a short period. “This is an additional experience, which won’t influence the sense of virtual reality, so I probably won’t introduce this function in this batch of products. But in the future I will introduce it in products for enthusiastic fans. Making them more tired though, the tiredness of shooting in real situation is just what those enthusiastic fans need.