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Technological Advancement

It is important for us to realize as we are designing more powerful digital tools that we are designing tools that can empower and help users rather than provide them with a means to escape reality. Many might believe that a utopian world can be created with no sadness or suffering through advancing technology. Are we really doing someone a favor if we present them with a reprieve from reality? Surely they will crash down from their perfect digital world and need to face reality at some point. What we can do is create tools that empower them to overcome the obstacles that they are facing.

The human experience is one that involves hardship, challenges and mistakes. We can help users to overcome the challenges that they are facing with tools that respect their autonomy, keep them grounded in reality, and do not lead to excessive or addictive use. While some might profit from the stimulation of scrolling on a phone, most are left feeling dissatisfied. You can talk to anyone nowadays about their “doomscrolling” and hours wasted hunched over their screen.

We need tools that allow users to stop using them when they want to and feel in control. These tools should be integrated into face to face interactions, not used to replace them. The push for more and faster technology is leaving the real and human part of our experience behind. Let us create alternatives to addictive and destructive technologies and educate our youth on the proper use of technology. We can restore a healthy relationship with technology if we remind users of the options that are available to them and create options that put the user first.

UFL: Fair To Play

Considering the amount of hours I have put into this free football game, I thought I would share my experience.

UFL is a free soccer game available on the Playstation 5. The game presents itself as fair-to-play, as an alternative to the pay-to-win games on the market. For anyone who has not experienced a pay-to-win game, certain games will offer in-game purchases allowing users to pay money to improve their team and win more games while also generating revenue for the company. In UFL, I can build a team of players for free and rank them up over time to go toe-to-toe with a user who has paid money to build a team of strong players. I thought the game did a great job with this model.

When it comes to the actual soccer gameplay, unfortunately I feel that the game falls short. With each update a new “metagame” would arise in which a certain strategy or technique could be exploited and would skew the gameplay. Instead of a usual soccer game experience, the game turns into figuring out and stopping the latest exploit. For example, kicking a high lead pass over the defense was essentially a guaranteed goal if timed properly. Most of my matches became a sweaty attempt to switch to my last man back and cover the pass instead of playing a normal defense. In another update, headers were overpowered so users would create a team of tall players and constantly cross into the box for headers.

The best part about the development team has been their responsiveness to user feedback. Rather than implement cost or time efficient updates, the development team has centered their designs on user feedback. The team uses social media and surveys to understand the user sentiment and release updates which focus on what the community has been saying. Even community issues regarding sportsmanship were brought up and the team created a channel for reporting and removing players that were not contributing to a positive online experience.

The game features a rewards system to unlock new items. Every 24 hours, the game releases a set of challenges which the user can choose to complete to earn free in-game currency and other rewards. Despite the sometimes tedious nature of these challenges, I often found myself putting the time in to complete them as I felt I would be missing out if I chose not to complete them. Completing these challenges provide the user the ability to purchase new players, uniforms or other items and help keep their team competitive.

Overall, where does the game stand? For a free game, it is hard to really complain about the overall experience. Sure it has shortcomings, but it is free! I don’t think it can rival other paid games at this moment due to the metagame exploits, which are likely due to the engine the game is built on, as well as the server issues. In terms of creating a good user experience I think the developers are doing a great job. I enjoy collecting new players, leveling up my team and figuring out ways to overcome the latest exploits in the metagame.