👨⚖️ Auction
A bidding game in sync with the live video content being played.
📌 INTRODUCTION
This was the first mini-game and the star of the show, there were in total 3 Auctions (2 back to back and one after the quiz) in every show. The idea here was to bring in live bids from the audience to win exciting travel packages which had a starting price of nearly 30% of its actual value.
Each auction went on for 1 to 3 minutes with the last 30 seconds being played blind i.e the winning bid amount would be hidden for the users.
Here are some of the considerations, challenges, and learnings we had -
💎 GAME PLAY
How will the user place their bids? What does the interface look like? How many bids can be placed? How will users know what bid to place next? Who is winning?
💎 SPACE OPTIMIZATION
What are all the components on the screen? What are their respective priorities? Are they fixed or variable in nature? How can we use the limited space we have optimally?
💎 UNPREDICTABLE BIDDING (LEARNING)
This was a challenge we discovered during the first live show. The highest bid value of the package had reached the full package value within seconds.
We realized that the auction was pooling in thousands of bids at the same time and many users just wanted to “win” but not actually pay for the prize. Which meant their starting bid, was close to the actual package value.
“It seemed that the whole point of the auction to win luxury travel packages at incredible discounts was lost.”
Bidding Limits
We introduced bid increment limits as our first solution. A user was only allowed to bid only a small increment of the current highest bid.
We also placed a timer on the place bid button to control no. of bids per user.
Max Out
Our second solution was to max out users. When a user inputs the cap value of the package (around 80% of the actual package value), they instantly wins the auction thus, ending their participation in the round.
This was a likely scenario during the blind bidding when the current highest bid was hidden from the users in the final 30 seconds of the round.