GameSnapshots

What It Is

GameSnapshots puts a game magazine and card draws on one site. You read reviews and news about the games people are talking about, then draw, collect and trade original art cards that carry the mood of the same game. Reviews bring people in through search, and card packs create credit spending. The same original art is also given away free as phone and PC wallpapers.

The Problem

Game reviews are everywhere, but few explain, at the level of someone who has never played, what the game is, where the money goes and whether it suits you. The fun of collecting game art is scattered across fan art platforms, and the copyright is often unclear.

GameSnapshots writes an explanatory review for each game and adds a collecting game built only on original art that carries that game's mood. Linking the fun of reading and the fun of collecting on one screen was the starting point.

Who It Is For

• People choosing a game: people who want to know what a trending game is, what the first 10 hours feel like and where the spending happens
• Collectors: people who want to collect and trade art cards from games they love, by grade
• Gamers in several languages: people who search game titles in Korean, English, Japanese, or Simplified or Traditional Chinese

Core Flow

1. Read the review: rating, game information, what worked, what fell short and the verdict.
2. Preview the pack: next to the review, see the art and names in that game's card pack first. Only the grade is hidden.
3. Draw a card: one card costs 1 credit, and the pack tears open as the card rises to reveal its grade.
4. Collect and trade: sort your collection by grade, list cards on the market, or buy from other collectors.
5. Get wallpapers: download art you like as originals in 9:16 for phones or 16:9 for PCs.

Key Features

• Reviews and news: one review per game, published in all five languages. News covers only the releases, updates and announcements worth knowing, explained with background and always with a source.
• A card pack per game: each game gets an 8-card pack. There are five grades, common, rare, epic, legendary and mythic, and the odds are shown at the top before you draw.
• Collection and market: hold cards by grade, list or delist them, buy from other collectors, or discard. Each card has a public page for showing off and sharing.
• Original art: cards and wallpapers are original illustrations that carry a world's mood without game titles, real characters or trademarks. How they are made is disclosed in the footer and on each card page.
• Free wallpapers: pick phone or PC originals by set and orientation.
• Five languages: the same articles run in Korean, English, Japanese, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and card names come in all five.

Product Decisions

• Show everything but the grade: against the common belief that people draw because they don't know what's inside, every image and name in a pack is shown before drawing. The judgment was that people draw when they can see the card they want.
• Say it is money where payment is decided: credits are topped up at 100 for $10. New accounts start empty, so the minimum payment appears first in three places: the pack screen, the how-to guide and the low-balance notice.
• The server owns fairness: only the server changes grades, art assignment, prices and ownership. Trades only move credits between buyer and seller; no new credits are created.
• No borrowed art: official screenshots and fan art are never used, only original art. That cut the copyright risk of a collecting game from the start.
• Articles are the entrance: reviews and news are all free. The key path is people arriving from search and moving on to cards and wallpapers.

Revenue Model

• Card draws: 1 credit per card. Credits are a balance shared across the Mr. Latte family of services, topped up at 100 credits for $10.
• Market trades: collectors buy and sell cards with credits. The hypothesis is that an active market keeps demand for draws going.
• What stays free: reviews, news, wallpapers and pack previews.

Next Hypotheses

• For which games readers go from the review through the pack preview to a first draw most often.
• Whether the $10 minimum first top-up acts as a barrier to the first draw.
• Whether people who download wallpapers move on to the card pack for the same game.