Seeing how lots of merchandise, like plastic gadgets, heavy brochures and cheap electronics aren’t really inviting and eventually end up in the trash can, we turned the tables and came up with something that is in line with the Open Source Community’s philosophies of collaboration, reuse and free licenses: a collectible, deck building, open source card game.
To prepare for the project we asked ourselves and over a 100 people at Drupal events the past months how we could make better conference giveaways: What merchandise could we be enthusiastic about? We needed something that is complex enough to satisfy our minds, but simple and cheap enough to produce. We’ve ended up building a card game that resembles classics like Magic the Gathering or Munchkin, but that is set in our own world: the world of open source development. Sounds crazy enough? We hope so.
An enthusiastic team quickly gathered and started investigating the possibilities. Developers, designers and our community manager all worked on the use cases and rules of the game, and we managed to create something that both individuals and organizations could benefit from. For individuals the game is fun to play with friends and family, even clients who you’d like to educate about open source development. You can collect cards and assemble the ultimate deck for a Friday night showdown. If our campaign works, in the future conferences and events will become opportunities to extend your deck! In organizations HR managers can use the card game as a tool to explain to new hires why it’s good to work with the open source community. Community managers can reward members of the community in a fresh and fun way by giving out rare cards. As the cards are brandable, marketeers will love offering merchandise that keeps on generating brand impressions throughout a long, engaging life cycle. Being committed to open source, we decided to make this card game an open source project, so that each individual or organization can contribute by adding cards or even whole decks, no permission or license needed. However to make this possible, we will need your help: visit our IndieGogo campaign! If you’d like to know more, check out the GiveUsCard website and subscribe to our newsletter.
