In February 2009, Mattel releases this Star Trek edition of the popular 20Q line of toys. The player thinks of a “sentient being, place or thing” from the Star Trek universe and the toy guesses it within 20 questions.
Mattel’s been seeding this using the online 20Q Star Trek site with the help of Star Trek fans and fanatics. The Endless Innovation blog had an interesting post about the method here of essentially having people (including future customers) do all the development work for you,
Toy manufacturer Mattel is tapping into this powerful idea of “spare cycles” with the introduction of an online casual game called Star Trek 20 Questions. You pick a character from Star Trek, and the computer then asks you 20 questions, trying to guess who the character is. As more Internet users play the game, the computer becomes smarter, learning from its previous mistakes. On the surface, the game is just an amusing online diversion. On a deeper level, though, learning how consumers interact with the game is helping Mattel build an online artificial intelligence engine that will provide the basis for a future video game product. Internet users, essentially, are doing the “heavy lifting” at no additional cost to Mattel. In other words, the company is converting the “spare cycles” of tens of thousands Internet users around the world into future innovation.
