Quoted from FunkyFreshWalrus:I had an idea for repair tickets on games. What if each game's card had a scan-able QR code. Then anyone could scan the code with a phone, be brought to a simple page where they can describe the issue. That would trigger an email or text message to the games owner informing them of the issue. This would also generate a list of games with issues that could be displayed where the whiteboard was this year.
I'd be happy to volunteer to build it for you.
I like the QR code idea (a lot). Please bear in mind a good percentage of the show attendees are probably "older" (guilty as charged), and might have difficulty seeing a Web page on a cell phone - especially in low-light situations (evening hours in the free play room) - unless the page was REALLY stripped down. Also, what's the probability that everyone will have a QR code reader installed on their phone? Perhaps providing a mechanism that allows sending a plain text message (that makes it to the Web server) would be a good fall-back.
With any approach, the big drawback with sending info to the game owner is it prevents the on-site techs from being able to quickly perform a first level triage and fix simple problems without needing to even involve the owner (assuming, of course, that they left us a key to the game). During the show we cleared a good number of issues with no involvement of the owner, or in some cases after a consultation with the owner. It was my experience that in some cases the owners were not at the show during all of the hours the free play room was open - or they might be at a seminar, etc. - which leads to longer delays in getting games repaired.
On the repair tech side it would be great to be able to access those trouble reports via a Web browser, with perhaps a more complex interface that allows us to track status of reports (e.g., pending, in-progress, awaiting owner call-back). I can see having a laptop set up at the "repair admin table" in the free play room...
