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We’re happy to say that the web version of Playsum is currently being developed. We’re working on major improvements and additional features with the web version and want to cover what it entails and what you can expect.
All our work is based on the community’s feedback which has been incredibly helpful in guiding our development roadmap!
What is being developed?
You can already access the Playsum Games Store on mobile and desktop via the store.playsum.live website.
Our focus now is bringing the same quality of design and functionality of the Playsum Games Store to the Playsum community platform.
Playsum’s web version will not only make the community platform accessible on desktop, but it’ll also come with a full redesign and more functionality, which will bring it more on par with other social and gaming platforms.
The progressive web app will improve these current features and bring them to desktop:
- Discover - finding gaming friends who play games you do.
- Waypoints - member communities in real-time chat.
- Chats - direct 1-1 messages.
Some improvements to the current features, other than better design and functionality, will be:
Member Waypoints
Currently, Waypoints can only be created by Team Playsum. With the development of the web app version, all Playsum members will be able to create public or private Waypoint communities for any topic, game, or hobby they want.
Avatars
Avatars have been one of the most requested features, and we’re on the same page! Members will be able to upload their own avatar, as long as it follows community guidelines ;)
Photo Uploads
There are many times you might want to share photos with friends, whether it be a screenshot of your Stardew Valley farm or a cute pet selfie (one of our favorites) - you’ll soon be able to do that in 1-1 chats and Waypoints.
Why a progressive web app?
There are many advantages to a progressive web app that ultimately will allow us to better serve our members and achieve our mission of making social gaming safe and easy for everyone.
With a progressive web app, we’ll be able to develop new features and improve on current features faster. This means we can act on your feedback better. We're currently a small team, so this is a big bonus.
We also know both from observation and feedback that a majority of our members and gamers, in general, prefer using their computers to talk with friends as it’s easier to have a window open with Playsum while you’re gaming or streaming on Twitch and quickly reply to a message vs. fumbling around with your phone repeatedly.
But I like having an app so I can chat with friends and my communities on the go.
Don’t worry! One of the other main benefits of developing a progressive web app is that we can develop for both web and mobile at the same time. So there will still be a Playsum mobile app and it will match the features on desktop too.
When will it be available?
We’ll be rolling it out on a feature-by-feature basis, starting with authentication (login, signup, etc) and account management, which is out today! This will continue until all the features from the current app are available in the web app. After that, we’ll begin developing new features, so make sure to send us your feedback and suggestions!
Until our next Dev Diary, Team Playsum logging out!
