And without further ado...
A bit over a month ago, Team XBMC started a mascot contest that resulted in a 49 page thread in our forum, so many amazing Mascot contestants that we had to push back the results to get the best vote we could within the team, and quite a few new avatars and forum signatures. In total, there were more than 100 submissions.
We want to thank all the participants for their art and their ideas, and we hate the fact that we could pick only one winner. But that’s the way of these things. Of those original submissions, the team narrowed down the list to a final round of 10 candidates. From that list, we picked our first, second, and third place submissions.
Without further ado, Team XBMC has selected Zapy by da-anda to be the mascot of XBMC. Congrats da-anda! And Zapy, do you have anything you’d like to say?
Clearly, Zapy is speechless.
As I said, it was a tough vote for Team XBMC. Coming in 2nd place was htpc_guy’s absolutely amazing and versatile dragon. And in 3rd was grumpygamer’s awesomely friendly and sloth.
Da-anda, htpc_guy, and grumpygamer, you will all be contacted soon, if you haven’t been already. Everybody else, once again, thanks for all your hard work. You’ve been amazing.
I am starting to warm up to the idea of Zapy. The way he looks in that particular pic though, he looks like a crotch mouth mother f’er and I don’t like it. I would love to see more of a evolved him.
= my 2 cents
Ever since the idea of a mascot was introduced, I have disagreed with it. If the purpose of this is brand recognition, then it already has a logo. The XBMC logo is great and is already building recognition. This mascot will do more harm than good to XBMC’s marketability. There is no value-added here. In fact, if a cost-benefit analysis were done on this, one would discover that any money spent on the project has been an absolute waste. Does the XBMC team understand marketing or advertising?
I would appreciate a post explaining the full reasoning behind this strategy. From a business perspective it’s confusing.
@Nathan
Money spent? This was an open to the public competition with prizes that came from donations. There were zero dollars spent. On the other hand, there were 75,000 forum views and 480 responses to the topic. Dozens, if not hundreds of people registered in the forums for the first time to talk and share, rather than complain about something not working. The team and the skilled skinners are now aware of dozens of skilled artists who have suddenly floated to the top of the pile and could theoretically now contribute to future art projects.
If XBMC tossed aside Zapy/Zappy (still not quite certain on the lettering) today, it will have been a major win for us, the non-profit organization that we are. Fortunately, we are not throwing Zapy away, because he represents an opportunity to connect with individuals who previous wouldn’t have given XBMC the time of day. Those people in the world who are non-tech geeks tend to like friendly faces and non-threatening personalities, and Zapy’s got that down flat.
You know what I’d love to see? First, an answer to any of my previous questions asking for actual reasons why people are complaining. And, second, some kind of evidence that a mascot (particularly a cute, “non-clean” one) in any way harms the growth of either A: a project or B: an open source project. I hear a lot of people acting like such evidence is obviously out there, yet no one seems willing or able to produce it. It’s almost like people are just making things up based on their own opinions.
@natethomas
Well put!
RE: Zapy/Zappy – the single ‘p’ tends to imply a ‘-ey’ sound, resulting in reading/pronouncing it as Zapey. For me, that doesn’t really mean anything, not sure if that’s what you’re going for. Where as Zappy sounds like something that ‘zaps’, sounds energetic, busy, etc.
@Ayala in what way is it arbitrary?
Maybe we could get Spiff down here to sort the spelling out… he gives good input on single and double ‘P’ spelling scenarios
@natethomas: “…reasons why people are complaining”
Mostly everyone clearly stated WHY they’re complaining: It gives XBMC a childish, non-professional look. Another one? It looks like a direct child of the Tivo guy. To me: it’s just misplaced. It has some kind of “90s” feel to it when every company tried too hard to establish some kind of family character which needed to look something like “a funny guy, making funny jokes” nobody laughs about.
I’m on the boat as mostly everyone else here: XBMC does not need a mascot – or at least: another one (e.g. dragon was nice and “modular” (like XBMC)). Although I REALLY respect the work that went into the Zap(p)y brainchild, it doesn’t fit my understanding of a modern, fast and reliable media center software. Sometimes it’s that easy.
Alright, so, to sum up, the complaints revolve around four or five different gut feelings that could be accurate or could be the result of either A: a fear and dislike of change or B: some bad cheese from last night. Well, much like the flying spaghetti monster cult, it’s pretty hard to argue with that, so I’ll stop now.
@natethomas
Thanks for the informative reply. Since this was a zero-cost promotion, I see less harm in it. In light of your statistics, I see that this idea has generated a fair amount of interest in XBMC. However, the final choice of mascot is still questionable. Is XBMC really non-tech/non-geek, yet? I don’t feel as though I could introduce this software to the below-average computer user without walking them through the setup.
If the goal is to get more users, go for more geeks. Corner that market. It’s safer and easier. Branching out to the mainstream market with the help of a ‘friendly face’ means people will expect a mainstream product. If the product doesn’t meet the demands of the market, the new users and heightened recognition will negatively impact overall perception in the long-run. Until XBMC is truly mainstream, initiatives like Zappy could potentially harm brand recognition.
I know this isn’t a forum for XBMC suggestions, but this suggestion could help make XBMC more mainstream and ‘idiot proof.’ Create an automated ‘first run’ walk-through. It should ask users some initial questions to help them setup their libraries and to get their settings just right. I’m not the first to suggest this, so I’m sure it’s already been considered.
A mainstream XBMC needs Zappy. Right now, it doesn’t.
Well, the contest AND the result of the contest yield a lot of reactions !
I won’t say anything about Zappy because I was involved as a contender in the contest. I didn’t win, somebody else did. Let’s be fair. Congratulation.
I’m a bit surprised the chosen mascot irritate so many people. Well, you know, we see and hear only the unpleased vocal ones. I assume a great majority is silent and pleased with the result. So don’t take it too seriously. It’s just a mascot for a piece of software !
Personally, I’m glad to participate. I’ve improved my skill as an artist.
Hope some other contests will occurs some day…
Personal favorite was the fish, but from a marketing and more professional standpoint Zapy is clearly the right choice.Zapy is simple with much character and easily manipulated to match any promotions,tutorials,etc…There is also the familiarity factor of the logo which is always a smart move for a product with little or no marketing budget to gain notoriety..it wouldn’t be the first time the little guy “piggy backed” on the marketing of bigger corporations. Hats off to the team for making the smart choice and not going for the “cool” but very narrow demographic choice.
Why does Zappy look so surprised?
The mascott above is over-rendered and it looks like there’s empty sleeves draped over the top of his head. It took me several looks before I realized I was looking at the inside of a glove.
I think there should be some more examples of how simple it can be to use the logo.
I think everyone said “fish” but then XBMC staff selected zappy
[IMG]http://i51.tinypic.com/j58sgi.png[/IMG]
http://i51.tinypic.com/j58sgi.png
I was a contestant too. While I was sad that I didn’t win, a congratulations is definitely in order.
In terms of the discussion going on here, I remember when Vancouver announced their 2010 Olympics mascots, everyone hated them. Eventually, they warmed up to them and thought they were the cutest mascots ever, and really helped push the Olympics.
I think people will warm up to Zapy too.
The “mascots make XBMC look mainstream” is potentially a valid point though. As far as it “not costing anything”, so far, it hasn’t. And that’s good. But down the road, it could cost something. Maybe not something that you could put a dollar value to either.
@natethomas
Hmm. Not sure anyone’s gonna dig up a study or anything. For me, however, the issue is how ‘cool’ xbmc seems; which I know is totally subjective. You might be right about branching out to non-geeky folks. But don’t those folks already have Windows Media Center built in anyway? My only point is that, currently, xbmc has a slick (and very cool) look-n-feel about it. I honestly hadn’t ever heard of it until recently. The only reason I downloaded it was because a forum post claimed that the video acceleration in xbmc would tap into my gpu hardware. It did and I was shocked at how cool the entire thing really is. I can say that any cartoon mascots present wouldn’t have stopped me from trying it; but they certainly wouldn’t have enhanced the experience either. And,if not done well, could have ruined the ‘cool’ factor for me.
And, it’s too late and my opinion doesn’t matter. But the XB fish one is really cool (http://xbmc.exstatic.org/mascots/slide/wmclain_19.jpg). Cool like “ooh look, there’s an arrow in FedEx” cool.
Neat contest though. I really enjoyed looking over all the excellent entries.
perhaps it’s an idea to add a configuration switch to zap zapy.
@Adam Outler said: “I think there should be some more examples of how simple it can be to use the logo.”
Zapy is not a logo. He’s a mascot.
You don’t and won’t see him in the main XBMC UI, just like you don’t see the firefox mascot in typical use of Firefox, or the linux penguin in typical use of linux. Instead, you see the mascot only where it makes sense. An “About XBMC/XBMC credits” dialog for instance.
I must thank everyone for their comments here though – it’s made amusing reading.
@Jeroen you’re kidding?! how does it represent any form of media? or the experience, everyone’s entitled to their opinion, and clearly enough people liked it if it won the contest, I’m just expressing my opinion! that’s all.
I wish I had paid attention to the contest. This mascot looks terrible. Are those tube socks coming out of his head?
He doesn’t though. He has zero personality, because he has yet to say anything. As for friendly face, where does his face end and where does it begin?
You guys are developers, and you are great at what you do. What you are not, is PR people. Take a look at the Top 25 mascots link you posted, and see if you notice a pattern. If you haven’t noticed it, it’s life. The majority of those mascots are either animals, or people. The ones that aren’t, are in the minority, and are also modeled very closely after people. The Pillsbury DoughBOY, Michelin MAN, MISTER Peanut. People like what they know, because it’s comfortable
I, personally, don’t think Zapy/Zappy fits in with the top 25 mascots at all
@Ego
Heh. Darn. Here I was waiting for a sweet award.
Zappy in mockup XBMC advertisement
Zappy
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5264/5864598199_930546f39a_b.jpg
He’s not as bad as everyone is making him out to be
Just for fun
XB Fish
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5276/5865150828_aa8db4fc5c_b.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3182/5864596701_6e2a401ffc_b.jpg
@wmclain
wmclain, have you considered doing any skinning? Those are some pretty sweet mockups. I’m betting if you present an idea in the skin design thread, a number of skin coders would jump at it.
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
@wmclain
I honestly really like the fish mockups a lot. For me it just seems to be more representative of how I view xbmc, sleek yet playful/fun. I see a common complaint that the new mascot is hard to identify what is going on with it and I definitely agree. I had not followed the contest so when looking at Zapy for the first time I had to study him to figure out what I was looking at.
Although the great thing about xbmc is that it is open for any of us to change and for those that view this new mascot the same way you can do what i will be doing which is simply taking it out of the images that use it on my media center.
Yeah, sorry, not a fan.
Others where better. Loved the changing dragon and the sloth. Fish I liked but it was too “logo” like and not enough “mascotness” to make practical in the areas it’s intended to be used.