Seeking Info on Online Board Games

Hi Thomas,

My name is Mark Kreitler. I'm a game programmer with some experience in on-line web game programming. I don't have solid answers for your questions, but I can point you to people who might. I also have some thoughts about your situation that stem from my work experiences.

First off, developing a web-based board game will involve several costs:

1) Developing the game application
2) Developing server software to host the game, provide lobby and chat support, etc.
3)Maintaining the servers and fixing/upgrading the game software

Depending on the size of the game, you should expect to spend on the order of $100k for step 1 of the project. Having the game designed and the art ready is a big help, but won't really save you any money in terms of engineering (it *will* save you all the design costs and a portion of the art costs).

Developing the server software will likely cost you tens of thousands of dollars, but the good news is, if your team designs it carefully, it should work for many different games. Lobby and chat functionality is well understood and probably supported by several different off-the-shelf software packages, which should save you money. The majority of your engineering effort will involve programming a system that communicates between the board game application and the server-side database. This is the piece of software you want to design carefully so you can re-use it on future games.

For step 3, you'll want to find an Internet Service Provider on whose servers your game will run. Your choice of providers will largely depend on the technology in which you write your games -- Java/Unix versus C#/Windows versus various miscellaneous combinations. A good provider will cost you hundreds of dollars a month, especially if you get a lot of traffic, but this is money you *want* to spend -- good service is essential for your effort.

You may want to try to contact Game Table Online (www.gametableonline.com). They specialize in converting board games to web applications for multiplayer play. You may also want to contact Leviathan Games (www.leviathangames.com). The specialize in the creation of web-based games, and the technical director consulted with Hasbro for many months as that game company began launching its major board game titles on-line. He has great insight into how they structured their operations.

Good luck!

K.