Social Entertainment Space That Connects People
Through Their "Favorites"

The British-based Manchester City Football Club (hereafter "Manchester City") is one of the world's top-class soccer teams, both in terms of skill and popularity. The Etihad Stadium, the team's home base, has been reproduced in virtual space, with fans from around the world^*1 gathering in the venue in their avatar forms. There, they cheer on the players, stand shoulder to shoulder and share in the joys of victory, and look back on 3D reconstruction videos post-game, thereby heightening the sense of unity they experience amongst one another, and with the Manchester City team and players. And this is just one example of the entirely new kind of social entertainment space that has been built on the smartphone app FavoriteSpace.

However, the process it took to be able to provide this new kind of space—this new kind of experience that combines the real world with virtual space to expand the worldview of passionate fans—was filled with experiments and trial-and-error. This included everything from the design of the settings where the fans would interact, to the ways in which they would communicate, such as avatars and gestures, and even how to design the flow of time within the space to generate the most liveliness within the service's various events. The three designers who took on this project reflect on the thoughts they had during this process, and discuss the possibilities for "designing fan engagement" that extend beyond it.

*1 The service is offered in the U.K., U.S., and Japan. (As of December 2024)

The FavoriteSpace smartphone app was launched in August. Tell us a little bit about the purpose and background behind the project.

Expanding the Worldview of
the Brand and
Its Fans
Through the Power of Design

This project aims to use virtual space to expand the possibilities for communication, all while remaining aware of sports as its touchpoint with the physical world. It must have required a lot of knowledge and expertise across a wide range of areas.

IshiiThe project members included those from research and development departments and Sony Interactive Entertainment, as well as Sony Music Solutions, with their high-level knowledge on the entertainment industry. Through repeated discussions with Manchester City, we were able to bring together a wide range of technologies and expertise. We refined the service through a prototyping kind of approach, which involved prototyping during the verification process, and also by incorporating the opinions of the fans who worked with us on our beta test^*2.

*2 Beta test: A field test in which a beta version of a software or online service is provided to users at the development stage, so that they can use it and evaluate it for functionality and usability. Generally, tests conducted in the early stages of development are called alpha (α) tests, while those conducted in the later stages or final stage are called beta (β) tests.

TambataEtihad Stadium, Manchester City's base, has been reproduced within the fan interaction space in FavoriteSpace. One experience that left a real impression on me was when I visited the stadium in real life for design research. I watched a game, did a tour of the spaces in the facility… It was my first time visiting the stadium, and yet I felt like I already knew it very well—because I had spent so much time in the virtual stadium in the beta version of the app. I had heard the same thing from the engineers as well, that it felt nostalgic to them despite it being their first time there, and I realized firsthand why.

ShimizuIt's one of the world's top-class stadiums, so when there's a match there are an enormous number of people, and the stadium is filled with this huge swell of energy and enthusiasm. Manchester City is a club that's supported not only by locals but also throughout the world, and so our first mission had to be responding to the passion fans have for that stadium. It was thus a series of meticulous processes to design the stadium down to its finest details.

TambataA very challenging aspect of this process, in that sense, was creating spaces within the virtual stadium that do not exist in reality. An example is THE SHIP, a café-like space designed to be a place where users interact with one another. We sought a direction that would allow users to enjoy the space as an extension of reality, referencing the materials, banners, brand graphics, and other design elements used in the real-life stadium. Ultimately, we worked to establish a design that combines the easy-to-understand symbolism of a virtual space with the exhibits and graphics found in the real-life stadium.

IshiiEven with something as simple as the texture of a 3D object scattered throughout the space, we had to figure out how realistic to make it, or if making the graphics more game-like would feel more familiar to people… It was a struggle. So, what we ended up doing first was working to really understand the brand philosophy. We felt that without doing so, we wouldn't be able to create a space that fans would accept wholeheartedly.

ShimizuFan psychology is such that if they feel something is even a tiny bit off, they're turned off of it immediately. The challenge then was not just building the real-life Etihad Stadium within the virtual space, but in how we could use the virtual space to expand the official Manchester City worldview. How could we build upon the image that the brand and its fans had cultivated, and make it so that reality and this virtual space felt like two parts of the same whole? In this way, design played a hugely important role in the creation of this space.

These were some of the spatial design elements. What aspects did you consider in terms of communication design?

TambataA major area was the emotional expression of the avatars. We made it easier for users to share their emotions with one another by making the avatar's facial expressions easy to see, and their faces, hands, and feet, relatively large. We also offered a wide range of options for diversity purposes, such as the avatars' hair, skin color, and even what they wear, so that people all around the world would be able to express themselves. Whether you want to recreate your real-life self or embody a different persona within the virtual space—there are all kinds of ways for you to express yourself.

IshiiFavoriteSpace is comprised first of the design of the stadium space, and then of the design of the avatars, which the users use to express themselves. Another aspect we considered was designing the flow of time within the space, how we could get fans to enjoy themselves not just on the days of games, but before and after as well. Perhaps before a match, they could deepen their understanding of the club through things like stadium tours and quizzes, so they could feel closer to Manchester City. After a match, fans could come together to look back on highlight reels and share their feelings, thereby building up enthusiasm for the next match. We implemented these and various other features as mechanisms to create a sort of temporal "cycle" for the use of the app.

One of these efforts is the "FAN BOOK," a sort of scrapbook of activities conducted within the app. Manchester City releases pamphlets called "matchday programmes" on the days in which their games are held, and these pamphlets have become a treasured item for fans, one filled with memories of each of the club's games. Inspired by this, we designed the "FAN BOOK" to not only provide information about game dates, but also allow fans to look back on and talk about "memories" of their experiences in a distinctly virtual way—for instance, by providing support for their daily activities, or by allowing them to take and collect photos.

Setting Off to Establish
a New Vision of Fan Culture

ShimizuWe also paid the utmost attention to the design of the FavoriteSpace logo, as another piece of the worldview of this app. In designing it, we initially worked to concretize what "Favorite" means in FavoriteSpace, from a very subjective point of view. But as we engaged in repeated dialogue with the project team, we were able to broaden our perspective, coming to understand that there is great diversity in "favorites" out in the world, and the meaning behind having all of these people gather in this one place. The resulting logo has a simple yet familiar-seeming design. The "O" in FavoriteSpace was made larger to embody the role we wanted the app to play, as a sort of entrance to the culture of "favorites." I feel it was because we went through this process of thinking through our own feelings about the app, and being released from them, that we were able to create this neutral design that is conducive to the "favorites" of a wide range of people.

TambataThe important thing with the app was how well we would be able to sustain and delve into fan interest in the club. We conducted a great deal of research to figure out how to do this. Even for something as simple as the avatar uniforms, we spent a lot of time comparing the details of the current uniform to past ones, making sure we understood what differences existed between manufacturers, and so on. The whole time, we were also listening to songs by iconic Manchester rock bands, so that we could get even just a little bit further into the actual feelings and mindsets of Manchester City supporters.

It seems like there was considerable thought that went into creating these designs. What were the users' reactions during the beta test? Did they help you realize anything new?

TambataThe most interesting part of the experience by far was watching the users devise ways to use this app that went way beyond our expectations. Take, for example, the fireworks item designed to cheer the team on during games. Users just naturally started lining up the fireworks they bought in a row, and setting them all off at once when the club made a goal. Or after the team won, users would get their avatars to put their arms around each other's shoulders and jump all together—an act that came to be called "Poznan^*3." It was inspiring to watch the fans spontaneously come up with ways to enjoy themselves, and to watch that network expand.

IshiiBased on the conversations and interactions we saw amongst the fans, we also increased the variety of emotes available for avatars to express their emotions. There's that iconic pose where fans hold their scarves up above their heads in stadiums, jumping in unison with fellow fans, putting a "?" mark above their heads… I feel like this kind of physical self-expression by avatars will gradually become the norm in future means of communication. You could say that gathering in the same space for the same purpose and synchronizing poses, as in "Poznan," is a new way of expressing resonance that is different from a simple "Like" on a social media platform.

*3 Poznan: Poznan, in which avatars come together and jump in unison, has become a symbolic action that users use to express a sense of fun and unity.

Now the app has finally launched, and the Manchester City Area has been opened to the public in the first stage of the release. How do you feel about the current response and the new design possibilities?

ShimizuI see a lot of potential in it as a new place where different cultures can come together and mix. I personally remember being struck by the differences in the Brazilian and Japanese soccer cultures when I went on a soccer camp to Brazil in high school. It's my hope that, as interest in cross-cultural interaction rises throughout the world, that people are able to use this virtual space to share in and deepen their understanding of cultures they could previously only experience in their respective regions.

IshiiIt definitely feels like there is a distinct culture being cultivated within the space itself. For instance, when fans post selfies to the app for a player's birthday, they'll be aggregated onto a heartfelt, one-of-a-kind fan banner that's displayed in front of the stadium. Some of the players might then post messages of gratitude in response. It's like the space itself is becoming a canvas for communication. Our goal is for it to be a place where fans are able to discover and come up with their own ways of enjoying themselves.

TambataIn other words, it will be about how we can design "outside-the-box" means of communication amongst the players, the team, and the fans. There will be times when they get excited and share in their joy, and there will be times when they share in their sadness or frustration. How do we design space within the app for each individual fan to be able to share their emotions in their own ways, and cultivate this new kind of culture? This is what we want to continue exploring moving forward.