Hello there! It’s been years since I made an article about other platform than Gather. In this occasion, I’ll share what I know about a platform called WorkAdventure. Actually I’ve been knowing this platform from around 2022 or 2023. Also working with custom map and stuff on this platform more intense in 2024. At first, I’m quite skeptical with this platform. But after digging deeper, I found many interesting things here. So if you are like me who already heard about this platform, but never explore it deeper, you are on the right place. Just keep it along with me, and I will share you what I like and dislike from this platform.
As a disclaimer, this is not a featured/paid article, I never accept any paid collaboration to featuring a platform on my website. So this will be purely my opinion about the platform.
What is This Platform for?
WorkAdventure is a French-based platform, founded in 2020. The founder, Gregory Rocher, is a nice and cool guy. Never met him in person, but we are having some conversation before. Since it’s European-based, so it’s GDPR compliant if you care about it. More of it, it’s open source! At first, I don’t know what this open source means, because I’m not quite a programming person. But I found out that it means they really share their source code, so anyone can build this platform by themselves. That’s actually cool.
So if they share their source code and anyone can build their own platform, how they make their business? As far as I know, they sell the SaaS (Software as a Service) and accept donation for their platform development. What SaaS means is like capacity upgrade on Gather. So we pay some subscription fee for handling the server and stuff.
What is The Difference with The Other Platform?
The first one that differentiate this platform with other platform that I know like Gather Town and Zep is the open-sourceness, like I mention before. They share it to Github, so anyone who understand it could build their own version and self-hosting it. But for a non-programmer like me, it doesn’t means a lot to be honest. But it’s cool to have an open source platform like this. So just in case the platform is going somewhere that the user doesn’t want to be there, somebody could make an alternative to it. And anybody could collaborate to make this platform better! The power of community! In my opinion, they should focus to build their community more. That can be their value proposition.
The second one, the platform itself is quite techie in my opinion. In a map designer perspective, it’s easy to use if you only need the basic map. But for map customization, you will need to understand certain tech skill to do that. You’ll need to understand about Github to do that, quite techie isn’t it? It’s still learnable in my opinion, but it opens more chance for error. Gather and Zep have better barrier-to-entry for customization than WorkAdventure. But after you got the feeling, you will think that you can build anything, trust me!
The third one, since you can have the access to everything about your map, you can give any interaction on your space if you understand programming. It’s easier to add script and manipulate activity in WorkAdventure. What I mean by easy is not like I could easily understand it, I don’t know how, but it’s there for you to learn, no limitation. Just imagine this platform is like building online game, it has the same structure.
For the user interface, it’s actually just a matter of preference. All 3 platforms that I share before have different user interface between each others. Me personally love Gather Town so much — the Gather 1.0, not Gather 2.0 — maybe because it’s been my 5th years working with it, I just more used to it. WorkAdventure has different way for the user interface, sometimes it’s confusing and overwhelming because they have so many options. But after you get used to it, you will know what’s important and what’s not.
The Downside
The only downside that I can think of is somehow this platform is build for programmer. In my side, it’s a downside, but maybe in other side it can be a potential. Somehow they explain everything, show everything, in the language of programmer. As a person who love simplicity, I don’t want to be overwhelmed by any codes, folders, new third-party platform. I just want to have a space for my company, and easily customizable, that’s it. They should make it more beginner-friendly to make the barrier-to-entry smaller, and everyone can try it and get used to it. Then if they want to explore more, they can go to the other ‘door’.
I need around 4-5 days to understand how to use it. Reading/watching all their documentation and understanding how it’s structurized. That’s simply too much in my opinion. Other people maybe can’t stay more than 2 days for learning new things, especially if they have a simpler option. Don’t get me wrong, their documentation is really comprehensive, and I appreciate it. I remember the old day, that I only need 1 day to understand how the old Gather works, and spent a full month to try all their customization. And I never read Gather documentation, except when the go-kart feature coming out. But that’s just my two cents 😛
Future Potentials
As I said before, WorkAdventure has so many potential after we explore it deeper. Despite the downside, I think that this platform is worth to try. Especially considering the open source feature, so if you have a team member that understand about this, it can be good for long-term platform. And the possibility to self-hosting also a cool way to play the game. I’ll share more tutorial about WorkAdventure in the future, so don’t worry about it!
For the mapmaking, they use the same software that I used for mapmaking as their backbone, which is Tiled. So I don’t have any problem for the mapmaking. It’s way more complex than Gather or Zep that we only need to upload background and foreground image, but it open the possibility of creativity.
The other potential is about gamification. If you understand about programming, it’s really possible to include gamification to your space. Let’s say you want more interaction to your office, you can make minutes spent for meeting being converted into a point. Or if you want KPI related stuff to be connected into your space through gamification, it’s also possible. Me personally would love to find how to do this, and provide it as a new service. That would be fun and challenging!
On my side, I’ll make a ready-to-use template that’s compactible with WorkAdventure in the future. So if you don’t find something that you need from the default map, and you like my visual style, that will be easier and cheaper option. So I’ll handle the complex things, and you only need to choose and it’s ready to use. I’ll also make a Discord community channel to share how to edit the map yourselves if you want to. I’ll still open to mapmaking service if you need a super customizable map, but this ready-to-use template can be a cheaper option. So get ready for it!
So that’s what I know about WorkAdventure. For conclusion, this platform is actually pretty cool! Even though they have some area that need to be developed more, but I think it’s fine. So if you are a startup company, I recommend you to try it. I’ll be happy to assist if you need some help, just leave a comment or go to Contact page through button bellow. I’ll make sure to help you!
