OVERLAY

Overlay, project and design by Keenan Rush, 2016

Index

Market trends
Product rationale
Overview
Self-promotional power
First move advantage
The designer

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Market trends
The idea of a Skin
Mouse is rooted within
a broader context marked by the extraordinary
growth of videogaming
as an activity that spans
way beyond individual
or even group entertainment.
Videogames have become a mass phenomenon
that engages consumers lifestyles on a
more intimate level than
ever before.
In addition to the general videogame market
as a whole, two other
significant facets of this
broader trend that are
relevant for the success
of Skin Mouse are the
emergence of eSports
and the growth of videogame streming services.

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Videogame Industry Growth

With an astounding $91.8Bn spent on videogames
and related products in 2015, as well as a projected
CAGR of 6.6% over the next 4 years, the videogame
industry represents one of the fastest growing industries in the developed world.
Videogame accessories are an integral part of this
boom: an average of $2.2Bn was spent on videogame accessories in the past 5 years in the United
States alone.
eSports
eSports are gradually affirming themselves as a crucial phenomenon with an explosive potential in terms
of new tailored products, just like more conventional sports have established their own quintessential
items (e.g. soccer shoes, tennis rackets).
The global eSports market is expected to grow from
463m in 2016 to 1072m per year between 2016
and 2019.
Videogame Streaming
Streaming websites such as Twitch are opening up
new, unprecedented avenues of advertising, which is
especially important given that many Twitch viewers
do not use traditional TV services, such as cable.
Twitch has over 45 million viewers per month, with
the average viewer consuming content for 106 minutes per day.

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Product
Rationale
The idea of a Skin Mouse
is rooted in our conviction that videogames are
evolving into a new form
of interactive entertainment, closer to traditional sports.
This opens up new business opportunities, as
consumers are both enthusiastic viewers and
active practitioners of
this new form of sport/
entertainment.
We strongly believe
that, far from being just
pieces of hardware, the
Skin Mouse has the ability to lie at the nexus
between a practical necessity and an item of
expressive significance.

Personalization

Identity

Mouse
Skin
Practicality

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Practicality
Traditional gaming accessories are an integral component of the gaming experience; as experiments such
as Kinect have demonstrated, despite a strong push
towards hands-free, augmented-reality controls, traditional mice and keyboards are going to represent
the quintessential gaming interfaces for the foreseeable future. If every amateur tennis player requires
a tennis racket, every (PC) gamer requires a mouse.
Identity
Identification with a group has always been an integral part of most sport-related experiences: nearly all
soccer viewers have a favorite team of which they
display the official colors on clothing and merchandise. With its plethora of skins, Skin Mouse will enable
gamers to express their allegiance to specific games,
factions, favorite streamers , and eSports teams.
Personalization
For modern consumers purchase is just the first
step towards true ownership, which is only achieved
through personalization; look and feel are not simply
cosmetic characteristics, but rather an essential part
of the value derived from any product. Skin Mouses
skins will ensure that each customer will be able to
actively own and re-own his/her mouse through an
ongoing and nigh-unlimited process of customization.
Adaptability
Videogame trends change at great speed and with
little notice; a personalized accessory that used to be
on-point can suddenly become obsolete once a new
favorite videogame is identified and/or a new favorite
streamer/team is embraced. Skin Mouse is designed
to thrive in the fast-paced environment of videogame

Adaptability

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Overview
The mouse is one the
most present objects in
our daily life but is often
overlooked and taken
for granted. We see the
mouse as something
that is just there, next
to our keyboard, it never represents our own
taste or what function
we use it for.
Overlay is a platform that
creates a world around
one single mouse.
The
protagonist
of
the project is the mother-mouse which is
meant as a platform to
accomodate whatever
aspect you like, uses
system where the hardware is all kept in a center core which we call
mothermouse, and by
magnets and other systems we can apply skins
to it.

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Mothermouse
The mothermouse is
a plastic injected product, made with three
components,
inside
resides all the necessary components like
the sensor, battery and
usb connector.
The mothermouse can
both be used a fully functioning mouse,
made for practical business work. Compact
and easy to transport it
perfectly fits the need
of a businessman on
the move.
The straight sides are
designed to both give
the user more capability of fully grasping the
object and to make the
interaction with skins
as smooth as possible.

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Gaming skin
With Overlay the possibilities for skins are
endless as adapting
to the mothermouse is
very easy.
Here shown are two
examples: a gamer
oriented skin and a
more casual user type
one.
The gamer skin in this
case uses the magnet
that resides inside
the mothermouse as
connetor, by simply
hovering one on top of
the other the hardware
will pop inside the skin.
The skin is composed
by five pieces that are
all decomposable making
customization
the focus of it. This
way any brand or team
could possibly have
their own parts to add
to your kit.

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Casual skin
In this example the
focus of the cover is
comfort and protection, made in silicone
its soft to the touch
and is can be made in
an extreamly wide variety of colours.
This cover is designed
to be approachable
and fun, suited for a
more casual user that
wants style and fun
over functionality.
The appeal of this skin
is also its price, production costs would
be really marginal, making the retail price
very affordable, enabling and pushing a regular creation of new
products.

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IMMAGINE DA
CAMBIARE

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IMMAGINE DA
CAMBIARE

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Self-promotional
power
In an industry that is
ever more competitive
in terms of price and
functionalities, it is our
firm conviction that the
success of a gaming
accessory such as a
mouse rests heavily
on its ability to build a
strong brand capable
of differentiating it
from its competitors.
One of the biggest
strengths
of
Skin
Mouse lies not in its
technical quality, but
rather in its intrinsic
ability to essentially
market itself through
specific
marketing
channels and sponsorships.
This peculiar capacity
is especially important
given that a large portion of the products
target consumers are
very hard to capture
through traditional
advertising channels,
such as television, radio and ever more
so banner and online
ads.

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Well-identifiable marketing channels

A product built for gamers requires very specific
marketing channels, such sponsorships for e-sports
events, streamers, youtubers, and competitive
e-sports teams. We believe that Skin Mouses ability
to integrate different customizable skins represents
an unparalleled opportunity to maximize the utilization of the aforementioned channels. What we ideally
envision is the creation of a widespread network of
partnerships with key gaming personalities (mainly
streamers and youtubers) as well as videogame publishers themselves (e.g. LoL, CS:GO, WoW), creating custom skins specific to each of these partners
and encouraging themperhaps through royalties or
a different incentive mechanismto actively market
their own skins as a signature merchandise item. The
expansion potential of such network-based marketing strategy is
significant, with very little upfront investment.
Significant increase in perceived value
The widespread use of Skin Mouse amongst notorious gaming personalities, which will be highly incentivized through the marketing strategy described
above, will make it not only a tool that is used, but
rather an item that is used to express ones personality, tastes, and identity. While some other devices on
the market already allow this through specific colors
and graphics, no other product allows such a broad
and flexible spectrum of customizations, as previously
discussed.
Strong branding potential
Simply put, there is currently no product on the market capable of doing what Skin Mouse does, which
makes Skin Mouse extremely identifiable and recognizable amongst its competitors, especially given
the two aforementioned points. We envision a situation where people wont say I am buying a mouse,
but rather

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First Move
Advantage
We believe that being
the first company to
implement this idea
contributes to turn a
great product into a
great investment.
There is a difference
between entering a
niche and creating a
new niche altogether,
and Skin Mouse will
enable its first implementer to do the latter.
First move advantage
in this case provides
significant
advantages, both tangible
and intangible, which
will contribute to the
creation of a number
of barriers to entry for
every other gaming
device company.

Active creation of a new class of merchandise

There is currently no product on the market capable
of creating a whole new class of merchandise: mouse
skins. As previously discussed, mouse skins have the
potential to become a whole new item type in every
streamers and videogames online store, alongside
t-shirts, mugs, and mousepads. Being the first company to implement Skin Mouse therefore comes with
the ability to not only enter a market, but rather create
a whole new product niche. From a branding perspective, being the first product in a space is especially
important, as the first is often conflated with the
original.
Creation of Product Standard
It should not be overlooked that, despite our strong
emphasis on the intangible characteristics of Skin
Mouse, our product remains a very technical item.
As such, being the first to design, build, and market the first interchangeable-skin mouse that consumers will buy will necessarily impose (relatively) high
switching costs, and contribute to the creation of a
very concrete barrier to entry in this niche. Simply put,
after purchasing a few Skin Mouse skins, switching
to a new device will not be strictly impossible, but
will certainly become a less desirable option for every
consumer.
Monopolization of promotional channels
Being the first to market means not only being able
to impose an product standard in terms of technical assemblage. Perhaps more importantly, it means
being able to be the first company to establish the
aforementioned marketing network, by reaching out
and establishing partnerships with personalities and
game publishers before anyone else for the design,
marketing, and distribution of mouse skins. Once
these partners start promoting Skin Mouse among
their fan base, it will be especially problematic for
them to switch to a different product, given the aforementioned switching costs.

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The designer
Keenan Rush, born in
San Diego but grew
up in Switzerland is an
Industrial and Product
designer with a degree
from Ecal and an associates professional degree from SSS_AA.

Keenan started exploring his artistic and creative skills

at an early age after getting accepted in a creative
and artistic high school where he studied the foundations of design.
In the last five years hes acquired a diploma in Technical Industrial design from a professional school in Lugano, where 3D visualization and modeling became
his bread and butter. In 2013 Keenan got accepted
in Ecal in the industrial design section where he spent
the hardest and most challenging years of his student
life, as the standards to meet in such a renown institution are incredibly high.
During these years he didnt only work on design, his
desire for expression and creativity pushed Keenan to
seek new paths, working with photography, graphic
design, installations and visual art.
During the years has collaborated with several people
and companies with names like Kitchen Aid, Image
Vevey and Ikea, where his last project has just been
acquired and is in the developing phase.
Keenan has great passion for consumer electronics,
born from an early fascination with the products he
used to play video games transformed in to the will to
shape his surroundings through intelligent and innovating design.

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Overlay, project and design by Keenan Rush, 2016