Pirate Lab: Researching Gamers’ attitudes and designing new products
My Role
During my time at 511 Capital, I was the lead designer and engineer for new product development at Pirate Lab LLC.
The Challenge
Research existing customer needs, identify new market opportunities for the brand to expand, and design new products.
Skills
User Research | Contextual Inquiry| Interviewing | Observations | Market Research | Product Development | Prototyping | Manufacturing | Usability Testing | Iterative Design
context
Developing a new line of products for customers of Pirate Lab
Pirate Lab is a gaming accessories company with a focus on making the best carrying cases for gamers. Gamers recognize the brand for luxury gaming accessories and high-quality products. The company controls every step of the manufacturing process from first sketches through final product and owns a manufacturing plant in China.
The majority of Pirate Lab customers play collectible card games such as Magic the Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh. The company also has a product line for miniatures games like Warhammer 40,000. The company created each product line with intentional design decisions that make the difference to gamers.
My role was to lead the design and engineering for the brand and refresh the product line for collectible card gamers and explore opportunities to join the tabletop gaming market. I conducted every step of the process—user research, prototyping, manufacturing, and product launch. As a newbie to gaming culture, I had a lot to learn!
Product launched after I conducted the research, designed the product, and developed the manufacturing process.
Image description: silver card case open on a table to show two containers filled with cards. Other boxes are in the distance.
Products launched after I conducted user research, designed the product, and developed the manufacture process.
Image description: A tower of rectangular, plastic card boxes. Boxes have different designs - donuts, mystic mountains, and octopus.
Research
Conducting primary and field research
Interviews with experts and users
I needed to talk to the experts ̶ gamers and game shop owners ̶ to empathize and understand the needs of our target customer. The culture in gaming is informal, so many of the interviews were conducted through casual conversations to encourage gamers to openly discuss their habits and preferences. I visited many game shops throughout Chicago and Evanston and met with gamers.
I looked to understand:
What are the storage habits for gamers in their homes?
How do gamers transport their cards?
How many cards does a gamer own and how many do they bring to play?
Where do gamers play?
Who is your “typical” gamer?
Ethnographic research and observation at gaming conventions, local game nights, and game stores
I attended Game Manufacturers Association conference focused towards dealers, GenCon for tabletop gamers, and many game nights. All game shops host weekly game nights, and I visited game nights to observe gaming habits. I looked at the carrying cases attendees brought, other items attendees brought, interactions between gamers, and how cards were stored during play.
Image description: Convention centered filled with people sitting at tables and playing games.
Image description: Woman wearing a Pirate Lab shirt, smiling and showing off a card carrying case to a man in a black shirt taking a picture of the case.
Understanding gamers’ attitudes through secondary research
I looked to understand the market landscape and competitors to Pirate Lab. I did this by reading gaming forums, watching YouTube influencers, reviewing product reviews, and analyzing greater market trends.
The market is filled with brands designing gaming accessories for collectible card games and miniature games. Some companies are better in touch with the needs of users than others. We needed to create unique designs to stand out in the crowded market. There is an exponential increase in the amount of tabletop games coming to market but limited carrying case options. For tabletop game carrying cases, we had an opportunity to be first to market with a mid-range price point.
Image description: Screenshot of Tolarian Community College YouTube channel for product reviews and unboxing.
Image description: Reddit post with question, “What’s the best bag/case to carry around all of your decks?”
Image description: Screenshot of a Magic the Gathering discussion forum.
Reverse-engineering competitors’ products
The engineer in me had a great time tearing apart, re-assembling and learning from competitors. I learned from competitors’ design decisions, researched materials and manufacturing methods, and identified design opportunities for Pirate Lab.
Insights
Classifying “What Type of Gamer Are You?”
Based on my research, I developed personas of the different types of gamers. With these people in mind, products can be designed better. Pirate Lab products mainly focused on the competitive gamer and the casual player looking for quality.
Developing personas to guide product development
Creating a market landscape to develop a hypothesis of the market opportunity
I mapped out the market landscape of card carrying cases on an two-axis matrix comparing durability and functionality. I considered what products gamers had expressed dissatisfaction or said, “I like this case, but I wish…” The visualization below shows themes in the types of products and resulted in identification of a market opportunity.
Emerged themes after mapping landscape.
PROTOTYPING AND TESTING
Designing mockups of functional and sleek cases
Using origami as inspiration I mocked up a few concepts. I began with paper and foam in a small size and built up to creating a full size mock-up with chipboard.
Image description: Full size paper mockup, with opening and closing feature. Paper mockup is open to show center of design with two pink containers to hold cards.
Image description: Cardboard box prototype with one side open on a brown table. The center has two containers with one container holding cards.
First prototype testing with cards and die.
Image description: Grey suede interior of a card box with two rectangular containers at the center of the card box. One container is filled with cards.
A few rounds of prototyping later…die container is removable, stronger materials used, and thumb grooves to remove cards.
Image description: Blue suede interior of a card box with two containers filled with cards. One container has an additional section for die.
I used this mock-up as a conversation starter to talk with users about their initial thoughts and feedback before investing time and money into prototyping with a factory.
By observing users work with the prototypes, we needed to change the direction of opening and add a lid to the dice container. Understanding how customers actually interacted with the product versus how we designed it to work were invaluable in designing a product people would buy.
Developing durable, injection-molded cases
In addition to the card cases designed with fabric + chipboard and a magnet closure, I partnered with another designer to create a product line of injection molded cases. Research with users showed us the need of both a hinged and pull-off top design.
MANUFACTURING
A visit to Shenzhen, China to work with manufacturers and troubleshoot product quality inconsistencies
I worked with our engineers in China to outsource the manufacturing of this product line. Before moving into production, I visited the Shenzhen factory to ensure quality and discuss any questions with the vendors.
The outsource factory for the fabric+ chipboard cases was inconsistent in their precision of my measurements, so I had to work with the factory to create a testing procedure to ensure precision and accuracy.
This included having the factory measure all inventory to ensure it was within the provided tolerances. Errors in measurement would mean that user would not be able to fit all of their cards or fit their irregular die.
Image description: Table with piles of rectangular material for construction of the boxes. Glue machine on the table.
Image description: Exterior of a factory building with green field in front and blue sky behind the building.
Image description: Gif of a card box opening with a hinged lid. The exterior of the box is a purple galaxy pattern.
FINAL PRODUCTS
Launching unique, large card capacity cases
Durable, sleek cases to fit 80, 120, or 240 cards. These products are for sale here.
Image description: silver card case open on a table to show two containers filled with cards. Other boxes are in the distance.
Customer review
I'm a huge fan of piratelab so when I saw these I had to jump on them. The stitching is great both inside and out. The magnets are strong to keep your deck safe in place.” - John G.
Image description: Open card box with two containers holding cards. Die container open with dice spread out. Blue interior material color.
Image description: Black, rectangular card box in a closed position. Pirate Lab logo on front of box.
Launching durable card cases to express gamers’ personalities
Injection-molded cases in 4 unique designs – hinged, pull top, geometric texture, and scale texture. The designs have over 20 patterns and colors. The products are for sale here.
Image description: Close up a card box with a rainbow of colors in a geometric triangle design. Silver logo on top of the box. Pirate Lab logo in background.
Image description: A tower of rectangular, plastic card boxes. Boxes have different designs - donuts, mystic mountains, and octopus.
Customer review
“This is my 3rd and 4th Defender Deck Box by piratelab, I picked up two of them a month ago, and loved them so much I had to get 2 more. These boxes are tough, they look great and don’t take up any extra space in your bag! They fit a double sleeved EDH deck perfectly, you CAN fit a few extra tokens in with the deck, but you dont feel like you have too. The tops fit snugly and don’t feel like they will give loose unless you want them too. That's not to say they are too hard to get off either, just a gentle squeeze in the middle and the top comes off without a fight.
Also, did I mention they look great? and the texture on the outside feels really nice too. Oh, and not a huge deal, but they send extra labeling stickers with the box, so it’s easy to relabel the boxes as you change decks out. Not that I have found the need to label any of them, they just stand out enough that you shouldn't forget what boxes go to what decks.” - Corry L.
Image description: Card box with cats with blue, purple, and green lasers behind. Top of box has silver Pirate Lab logo.
Image description: Card box with color gradient yellow on top to green to blue on the bottom. Top of box has silver Pirate Lab logo.
Image description: Card box with crocodile texture and dark blue stripes and light blue corners. Top of box has silver Pirate Lab logo.
Image description: Black card box. Top of box has silver Pirate Lab logo.