6 ms·

Ask HN: Help us create a startup in the gaming space

29 points by d4ft 16y ago

Hi all- Recently, a fellow HN'r and I got it in our heads to build a startup in the gaming space. We have bounced around ideas and are really not happy with what our less-than-creative minds have come up with. As a community that can solve even mysterious medical problems (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1399450), we thought that you all could certainly provide some good insight into what is missing/needs fixing in the gaming community. In any case, some things we have considered: 1) Social network for gamers 2) Groupon like site for gamers 3) Deals for gamers based on playing habits 4) Meetup for gamers Anyway, would love some input. Fire Away!

pmjordan 16y ago
Have you heard of http://www.platogo.com/ http://www.platogo.com/ ?
evo_9 16y ago
Some questions - are you capable game developers? Or more a social app developer. Aka more 'Real Racing' (native OpenGL 3d iPhone racer) or Farmville (scripting)? Not sure if I should post my mmo idea(s) or my casual game ideas. Edit: sorry reread post - so no games, right?
- d4ft 16y ago
  Yeah, we're not so much game developers but instead more web developers. That being said we are certainly open to all ideas. So anything that comes to mind is certainly worth a post.
  - evo_9 16y ago
    That's cool, understood. One idea i've been thinking about is an html5 game of M.U.L.E - a classic 4-player 8-bit game. After seeing the html5 versions of asteroids and 3d tetris (torus), seems like taking it to the next level with lobbies and online match-making (Aka backend web support) would make this kind of game possible now.
shanedanger 16y ago
Is there a good HN- or Digg-style gaming news site out there? Besides the big blogs like Kotaku and Gamesradar and stuff, I mean.
- benologist 16y ago
  There's a bunch of subreddits with ranging popularity ... gaming is the big, generalized one.
- Sindrome 16y ago
  n4g.com is the biggest social new site I know of for Games.
derekc 16y ago
Beyond 4sq, MyTown, etc, check out what did scvngr did. Might give you some ideas.
whatwhatwhat 16y ago
Put 3d games in the clouds. Let me play them fullscreen through Chrome from anywhere.
- arch_hunter 16y ago
  Or let me play Dwarf Fortress in the cloud so that I will actually be able to play the new version at a reasonable speed.
  - d4ft 16y ago
    Haha. I love the inevitable mention of dwarf fortress in any gaming post. It's like Godwin's law for games: "As an online discussion about gaming grows longer, the probability of mentioning Dwarf Fortress approaches 1"
  - euccastro 16y ago
    And while you're at it, multiplayer Dwarf Fortress sounds like an opportunity if you don't mind staying in a niche. The author of DF says he has no interest himself in implementing multiplayer support.
whimsy 16y ago
Which gaming community are you talking about? Competitive, league-based FPS gamers? Highly socially integrated guild-based MMO players? Casual bejeweled junkies? Pen-and-paper tabletop RPGers?
- d4ft 16y ago
  I think we are open to everything and anything under the gaming label. As huge gamers ourselves, we have done quite a bit of playing in many (if not all) of these scenarios.
jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
Make a game out of doing real world stuff. Ie- I get points for running a 5k, points for skydiving,etc. Now people can cheat, but if you added in proofs like pictures/getting your friends to endorse that you did it, that would be cool.
- d4ft 16y ago
  Jason- Is this kind of like what scvngr is doing?
  - jmatt 16y ago
    Yeah it's a subset of what he is talking about. scvngr.com is just the sort of platform that could enable a real life achievement app. I don't think that real life achievements necessarily imply location. For instance, an achievement where you "Watched every episode of Friends" is interesting and something people may enjoy finding out about you... but it didn't happen in a single location. Or necessarily a single time. But that is my take on it. I may be wrong. scvngr.com definitely do it right and it's more interesting to me than foursquare. scvngr.com is ideal for city councils, the smithsonian and universities to create great user experiences in certain locations but focuses too much on location. In my opinion there is room for an even broader application.
- shanedanger 16y ago
  like 43things only with proof + making it a game. that's pretty sweet actually
- pigbucket 16y ago
  For Schell, this, or some version of it, is the future (the future as such, not just of gaming). His talk was all over the place a while back, including here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1142424 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1142424), so you may well have seen it already, but video and transcript here: http://www.realtimetranscription.com/showcase/DICE2010/JesseSchell/index.php http://www.realtimetranscription.com/showcase/DICE2010/Jesse...
  - 16y ago
benologist 16y ago
I think anything you're doing with community is going to be a massive, up hill battle because it's a hugely saturated space where you're competing with a huge range of people that will be hard to beat ... old and established networks like weblogs inc and gawker, communities, and social platforms like Sony's and Microsoft's. Anything to do with deals is going to be too niche I think ... how often do people buy new games? When I only need to visit your site every other month it's far too easy for someone I visit every day to replace you. Meetups I think is also going to be a tough battle, there's already (I believe) huge lan party organizations. What does your specific interests in gaming come from?
TrevorBramble 16y ago
An idea I've been sitting on for awhile is social networking intended for the fabricated and fractured identities of online gamers, with or without divulging the player's true identity. A social network of this kind would be a natural place to for organized playing groups (clans, guilds, etc.) to form, organize, recruit, schedule and so on. Individuals and groups alike could display their "home" or favorite servers/shards/whatever, affiliations, and so on. There'd have to be some thought put into the mechanics of managing profiles, as a single player may wish to have several character profiles on the system without publicly linking them (FPS vs. MMO handles), and some games may not have proxy character identities but refer directly to the player instead (Plants vs. Zombies and other casual games). I think there have been some moves in this general direction by gaming sites that have some kind of community aspect, but nothing that really came close to this more specific concept of users managing a collection of their virtual identities which each may have their own separate network of associated teammates or friends.
- jmatt 16y ago
  This is definitely needed. If it comes down to it, I may have to write it myself. I know what I want and I'd be the first person to use it. I've ran some numbers of this and the biggest problem is gamers won't pay for anything, they hate ads and they don't click through. So when evaluating this versus other opportunities it loses out because there are still plenty of other better options. All that being said there is a need and after you have a loyal user base there is always a way to monetize it (right!?). I've seen a number of these sorts of sites come and go over the years. Even a few facebook apps. No one has come close to nailing it. It seems that founders are not gamers; they miss the boat and make it too social network like. And if they are gamers, they never seem to push the site out of it's alpha phase.
  - TrevorBramble 16y ago
    Solving my own need is definitely the inspiration, though honestly I don't game much anymore (certainly not as much as I used to!) The younger net-native generation is no doubt resistant to paying for a service of this kind. The obvious strategies for making (paid) membership attractive would be discount on games and gear and access to anything exclusive and/or pre-release (beta codes, demos, strategy guides). Making that happen has its own set of challenges, of course...
ErrantX 16y ago
I blogged about this a while ago; basically i think the social space will be huge. There is a lot of gaming happening around facebook at the monent and I think there is space to disconnect it from there. Something that has logins from Twitter and fb and anywhere else and the Brings you into the games. Money ideas might be in micro payments (yeh I know; but they have to work sometime!) or even better in selling the metrics/ game recomendations (e.g. Did you know your friend X is also playing Y?)
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
mkramlich 16y ago
I'd love to have a site where I could create a profile and specify all the board/card games, pen-and-paper RPG's, and video/computer games I like to play, and my geographic location, and then find other folks with matching game/location interests, and have them find me, contact each other, etc. If this already exists, nevermind, unless there's an opportunity to do it better.
- android1 16y ago
  Boardgamegeek.com
- Harkins 16y ago
  I run this site at http://NearbyGamers.com http://NearbyGamers.com
JeffL 16y ago
You could also join an existing start up. =) I'd be interested in talking with you guys if you want. I don't see any contact info in your profile, so send me an email at jeff at starsonata dot com.
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
Copy yahoo games (I hate java) using HTML5/canvas/svg Start easy with tic-tac-toe, checkers, backgammon then chess. Add card games, solitaire, spades, canasta, etc Then, when the site matures, introduce games like farmville, mafia wars, etc. Emphasis in visuals, stunning 3D views, etc. Focus also in the social aspect, lobbies, chat rooms, rankings, tournaments.
- JeffL 16y ago
  Isn't this space really crowded already, though? Especially if you consider flash games? Is your thinking that with HTML5 you can get onto platforms where flash won't work such as the iPhone?
  - Lewisham 16y ago
    I reckon if you could fashion a site quickly enough that would work on the iPhone and iPad, you would have a winner. There's a large swathe of the population for whom http://www.pogo.com http://www.pogo.com is the beginning and the end for games, and I would be the intersection between them and the iPad is going to get bigger and bigger.
- Kilimanjaro 16y ago
  Here, one of my never ending projects: http://mygamebot.appspot.com http://mygamebot.appspot.com * sorry, no IE
- mcav 16y ago
  I created such a site here: http://gamingpeak.com/ http://gamingpeak.com/ The trouble is, most people are perfectly happy with Pogo/Yahoo/MSN game sites. They don't want to move.
jmatt 16y ago
This reminds me of a ted talk on games. There is an anti-game sentiment amongst most founders, but in the end it's the future. Game designers have figured out how to leverage and motivate more than all the academics or bosses combined. Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_be...
- Lewisham 16y ago
  You may be interested in the commentary about this movement here: http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/06/03/what-ux-can-and-cannot-learn-from-games/#comments http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/06/03/what-ux-can-and-cannot-... I largely agree with the overall, albeit crotchety, sentiment: "Just pay them". That said, http://fold.it http://fold.it is ingenious.
  - jmatt 16y ago
    beautiful, thanks!
bdickason 16y ago
I've built startups in the gaming space for the past ten years. Some are successful (esports.com was sold back in the 90's), some mediocre (gameriot.com reached over 1 million uniques for a few months), and some failures (I won't bore you with these but they never got off the ground). I don't recommend doing the gaming thing. It's a very competitive space with very little actual 'dollars' on the advertising side. Gaming was the 'in' thing for 2009, and the people who sold ads against it still floundered. With that out of the way, here's my two cents: 1) Gamers don't like to pay for anything. Period. They have a very high piracy rate. 2) PC gamers should be your target. Console gamers rarely do significant 'gaming' stuff on their PC. (I know this is a generalization but I strongly believe it) The exception are transactional sites (see point 4) 3) I would strongly suggest that you avoid a 'social network for gamers' at all costs. I've built a few of these and they all fail miserably. The only marginally successful ones are XFire and Raptr. Rupture never really launched but was purchased for 10m so I guess you could call it a success? 4) Tying into game API's is ridiculously hard because you have to get every 'publisher' on board. The 'Developer' of the game always wants to do cool stuff with their games, but the publisher controls the budget for external integration and API's and what not. 5) Cheat Codes is the one area that hasn't been done to death that I see some potential in. Sites like Cheatcodes.com and MyCheats are not very social, built on old technology, and are RIDICULOUSLY profitable. 6) If you build ANYTHING for PC, make sure it is focused around World of Warcraft. It's the cash cow and nothing else compares. 7) Gamers don't like to leave their houses. I know that this 'myth' has been debunked countless time but the fact is, it's very hard to get someone to go somewhere else to play a game with their friend. Just hit them on their console or computer. 8) The one idea that I've had floating around is a 'lifestream' type site for gaming. I envisioned it as a low tech solution like 'upload your kill shot, brag about it' or something like that. People just take a pic w/ their iphone, you check the timestamp against their Xbox gamer tag to see who they were playing against, then you tag the photo w/ their names. Could work w/ video too. Console gamers don't really have much that ties them to their PC, so the iPhone (or any mobile device) is one of the few ways to get them while they're playing. Sorry for the stream of consciousness. I'm a bit jaded from being in the gaming space for so long. Recently started something focusing on another industry (hair salons, oddly enough) and it's very gratifying.
- 16y ago
access_denied 16y ago
I believe this is the better community for your question: http://forums.indiegamer.com/ http://forums.indiegamer.com/ Some fine folks over there.
Raphael 16y ago
A system for virtual items. Create new types of items; give them to other people. Items can also be prizes for beating games.
vitovito 16y ago
Wish I had seen this 21 hours ago. I currently work in the game industry, previously worked in the game industry, and have worked for non-industry consultancies that are trying to break into the industry. First, if you're not a gamer yourself, you're not going to get much traction. You'll be able to check reasonable boxes of features, and no-one will ever use them, and you won't understand why. The domain knowledge is cliquish and subtle and if you don't actually play games (a lot), there's no way to acquire it. Your first idea is a great example of this, and it's the first one most people hit on, because there aren't a lot of web-based communities for gamers like there are for other markets. This is because the community is in the individual games and on the individual consoles. A consultancy I worked for made this same mistake, actively pitching companies by saying "we can help build community around your games" and being thrown out of offices for their ignorance. This is also why you can't make a social network that effectively ties together PC, PS3 and Xbox360 gamers: the console manufacturers and publishers don't want you to. Rupture might have gotten close, but then EA bought them, and then shut them down. 2, 3) Groupon for gamers doesn't make sense on the consoles, because you'll need to get MS/Sony/Nintendo buy-in, and Steam already runs sales on the PC, and there are already the indie game bundles that they organize themselves... there's no pain point there. In fact, someone else mentioned this already: gamers don't have a lot of pain points that a startup can address. There's a big one in the MMO space: I get an MMO and it's awesome and I tell my friends, but by the time they pay for a subscription, the server I'm on is full and they are all on some other server, so I have to re-roll and start again. There's no good way to get everyone "on the same page" quickly and easily... and there's no way for you to do it as an outsider. That's functionality that really has to be provided by the MMO developers and supported by the publisher. 4) There is one LAN gaming center in Austin, TX left. It's dying from utter lack of interest. Gamers don't need to meet in real life. That's the whole point of networked consoles and PCs. Security is some place you might be able to break in: a universal PC gaming security dongle. WoW already offers an RSA keyfob-style authenticator. Steam is basically online DRM like Ubisoft was doing, except the value proposition is enough to make gamers not care. Give publishers your dongle for free. Give it away to gamers. Charge the publishers and studios a retainer for integration and on-going support and servers for storing data. Steam will be your biggest competitor in this, because along with DRM, they also offer cloud data storage across Mac and PC (and expectedly Linux). All the other tech, like MMO servers and graphics engines, many game companies still believe they know best and would rather build themselves (NIH is strong in the industry).
Harkins 16y ago
I am running (4) at http://NearbyGamers.com http://NearbyGamers.com now. I lovingly call it an 'anti-social network' because the entire goal of the site is to get visitors off the site and gaming with each other in person. There are a couple dozen other sites in this niche but NG is (AFAIK) the largest and most active. I've seen (1) but didn't bother keeping a link because, well, I don't see that gamers actually have a lot in common and care to socialize based on games. Video games are so common that I don't see them as more than a granfalloon. Could easily be wrong here. (2) Dunno if you can do it without geography in your favor like Groupon, but good luck. (3) I think all of the stories of the business of video games in the last year or two (Zynga, EA charging used gamers, DLC, unlock codes, virtual goods) have been about businesses finding new ways to charge more based on playing habits, not less. That's why all the fuss about virtual currencies, you can get near-perfect segmentation.

29 points by d4ft 16y ago

pmjordan 16y ago

Have you heard of http://www.platogo.com/ http://www.platogo.com/ ?

evo_9 16y ago

Some questions - are you capable game developers? Or more a social app developer. Aka more 'Real Racing' (native OpenGL 3d iPhone racer) or Farmville (scripting)? Not sure if I should post my mmo idea(s) or my casual game ideas. Edit: sorry reread post - so no games, right?

d4ft 16y ago
Yeah, we're not so much game developers but instead more web developers. That being said we are certainly open to all ideas. So anything that comes to mind is certainly worth a post.
- evo_9 16y ago
  That's cool, understood. One idea i've been thinking about is an html5 game of M.U.L.E - a classic 4-player 8-bit game. After seeing the html5 versions of asteroids and 3d tetris (torus), seems like taking it to the next level with lobbies and online match-making (Aka backend web support) would make this kind of game possible now.

shanedanger 16y ago

Is there a good HN- or Digg-style gaming news site out there? Besides the big blogs like Kotaku and Gamesradar and stuff, I mean.

benologist 16y ago
There's a bunch of subreddits with ranging popularity ... gaming is the big, generalized one.
Sindrome 16y ago
n4g.com is the biggest social new site I know of for Games.

derekc 16y ago

Beyond 4sq, MyTown, etc, check out what did scvngr did. Might give you some ideas.

whatwhatwhat 16y ago

Put 3d games in the clouds. Let me play them fullscreen through Chrome from anywhere.

arch_hunter 16y ago
Or let me play Dwarf Fortress in the cloud so that I will actually be able to play the new version at a reasonable speed.
- d4ft 16y ago
  Haha. I love the inevitable mention of dwarf fortress in any gaming post. It's like Godwin's law for games: "As an online discussion about gaming grows longer, the probability of mentioning Dwarf Fortress approaches 1"
- euccastro 16y ago
  And while you're at it, multiplayer Dwarf Fortress sounds like an opportunity if you don't mind staying in a niche. The author of DF says he has no interest himself in implementing multiplayer support.

whimsy 16y ago

Which gaming community are you talking about? Competitive, league-based FPS gamers? Highly socially integrated guild-based MMO players? Casual bejeweled junkies? Pen-and-paper tabletop RPGers?

d4ft 16y ago
I think we are open to everything and anything under the gaming label. As huge gamers ourselves, we have done quite a bit of playing in many (if not all) of these scenarios.

jasonlbaptiste 16y ago

Make a game out of doing real world stuff. Ie- I get points for running a 5k, points for skydiving,etc. Now people can cheat, but if you added in proofs like pictures/getting your friends to endorse that you did it, that would be cool.

d4ft 16y ago
Jason- Is this kind of like what scvngr is doing?
- jmatt 16y ago
  Yeah it's a subset of what he is talking about. scvngr.com is just the sort of platform that could enable a real life achievement app. I don't think that real life achievements necessarily imply location. For instance, an achievement where you "Watched every episode of Friends" is interesting and something people may enjoy finding out about you... but it didn't happen in a single location. Or necessarily a single time. But that is my take on it. I may be wrong. scvngr.com definitely do it right and it's more interesting to me than foursquare. scvngr.com is ideal for city councils, the smithsonian and universities to create great user experiences in certain locations but focuses too much on location. In my opinion there is room for an even broader application.
shanedanger 16y ago
like 43things only with proof + making it a game. that's pretty sweet actually
pigbucket 16y ago
For Schell, this, or some version of it, is the future (the future as such, not just of gaming). His talk was all over the place a while back, including here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1142424 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1142424), so you may well have seen it already, but video and transcript here: http://www.realtimetranscription.com/showcase/DICE2010/JesseSchell/index.php http://www.realtimetranscription.com/showcase/DICE2010/Jesse...
- 16y ago

benologist 16y ago

I think anything you're doing with community is going to be a massive, up hill battle because it's a hugely saturated space where you're competing with a huge range of people that will be hard to beat ... old and established networks like weblogs inc and gawker, communities, and social platforms like Sony's and Microsoft's. Anything to do with deals is going to be too niche I think ... how often do people buy new games? When I only need to visit your site every other month it's far too easy for someone I visit every day to replace you. Meetups I think is also going to be a tough battle, there's already (I believe) huge lan party organizations. What does your specific interests in gaming come from?

TrevorBramble 16y ago

An idea I've been sitting on for awhile is social networking intended for the fabricated and fractured identities of online gamers, with or without divulging the player's true identity. A social network of this kind would be a natural place to for organized playing groups (clans, guilds, etc.) to form, organize, recruit, schedule and so on. Individuals and groups alike could display their "home" or favorite servers/shards/whatever, affiliations, and so on. There'd have to be some thought put into the mechanics of managing profiles, as a single player may wish to have several character profiles on the system without publicly linking them (FPS vs. MMO handles), and some games may not have proxy character identities but refer directly to the player instead (Plants vs. Zombies and other casual games). I think there have been some moves in this general direction by gaming sites that have some kind of community aspect, but nothing that really came close to this more specific concept of users managing a collection of their virtual identities which each may have their own separate network of associated teammates or friends.

jmatt 16y ago
This is definitely needed. If it comes down to it, I may have to write it myself. I know what I want and I'd be the first person to use it. I've ran some numbers of this and the biggest problem is gamers won't pay for anything, they hate ads and they don't click through. So when evaluating this versus other opportunities it loses out because there are still plenty of other better options. All that being said there is a need and after you have a loyal user base there is always a way to monetize it (right!?). I've seen a number of these sorts of sites come and go over the years. Even a few facebook apps. No one has come close to nailing it. It seems that founders are not gamers; they miss the boat and make it too social network like. And if they are gamers, they never seem to push the site out of it's alpha phase.
- TrevorBramble 16y ago
  Solving my own need is definitely the inspiration, though honestly I don't game much anymore (certainly not as much as I used to!) The younger net-native generation is no doubt resistant to paying for a service of this kind. The obvious strategies for making (paid) membership attractive would be discount on games and gear and access to anything exclusive and/or pre-release (beta codes, demos, strategy guides). Making that happen has its own set of challenges, of course...

ErrantX 16y ago

I blogged about this a while ago; basically i think the social space will be huge. There is a lot of gaming happening around facebook at the monent and I think there is space to disconnect it from there. Something that has logins from Twitter and fb and anywhere else and the Brings you into the games. Money ideas might be in micro payments (yeh I know; but they have to work sometime!) or even better in selling the metrics/ game recomendations (e.g. Did you know your friend X is also playing Y?)

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

mkramlich 16y ago

I'd love to have a site where I could create a profile and specify all the board/card games, pen-and-paper RPG's, and video/computer games I like to play, and my geographic location, and then find other folks with matching game/location interests, and have them find me, contact each other, etc. If this already exists, nevermind, unless there's an opportunity to do it better.

android1 16y ago
Boardgamegeek.com
Harkins 16y ago
I run this site at http://NearbyGamers.com http://NearbyGamers.com

JeffL 16y ago

You could also join an existing start up. =) I'd be interested in talking with you guys if you want. I don't see any contact info in your profile, so send me an email at jeff at starsonata dot com.

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

Copy yahoo games (I hate java) using HTML5/canvas/svg Start easy with tic-tac-toe, checkers, backgammon then chess. Add card games, solitaire, spades, canasta, etc Then, when the site matures, introduce games like farmville, mafia wars, etc. Emphasis in visuals, stunning 3D views, etc. Focus also in the social aspect, lobbies, chat rooms, rankings, tournaments.

JeffL 16y ago
Isn't this space really crowded already, though? Especially if you consider flash games? Is your thinking that with HTML5 you can get onto platforms where flash won't work such as the iPhone?
- Lewisham 16y ago
  I reckon if you could fashion a site quickly enough that would work on the iPhone and iPad, you would have a winner. There's a large swathe of the population for whom http://www.pogo.com http://www.pogo.com is the beginning and the end for games, and I would be the intersection between them and the iPad is going to get bigger and bigger.
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
Here, one of my never ending projects: http://mygamebot.appspot.com http://mygamebot.appspot.com * sorry, no IE
mcav 16y ago
I created such a site here: http://gamingpeak.com/ http://gamingpeak.com/ The trouble is, most people are perfectly happy with Pogo/Yahoo/MSN game sites. They don't want to move.

jmatt 16y ago

This reminds me of a ted talk on games. There is an anti-game sentiment amongst most founders, but in the end it's the future. Game designers have figured out how to leverage and motivate more than all the academics or bosses combined. Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_be...

Lewisham 16y ago
You may be interested in the commentary about this movement here: http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/06/03/what-ux-can-and-cannot-learn-from-games/#comments http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/06/03/what-ux-can-and-cannot-... I largely agree with the overall, albeit crotchety, sentiment: "Just pay them". That said, http://fold.it http://fold.it is ingenious.
- jmatt 16y ago
  beautiful, thanks!

bdickason 16y ago

I've built startups in the gaming space for the past ten years. Some are successful (esports.com was sold back in the 90's), some mediocre (gameriot.com reached over 1 million uniques for a few months), and some failures (I won't bore you with these but they never got off the ground). I don't recommend doing the gaming thing. It's a very competitive space with very little actual 'dollars' on the advertising side. Gaming was the 'in' thing for 2009, and the people who sold ads against it still floundered. With that out of the way, here's my two cents: 1) Gamers don't like to pay for anything. Period. They have a very high piracy rate. 2) PC gamers should be your target. Console gamers rarely do significant 'gaming' stuff on their PC. (I know this is a generalization but I strongly believe it) The exception are transactional sites (see point 4) 3) I would strongly suggest that you avoid a 'social network for gamers' at all costs. I've built a few of these and they all fail miserably. The only marginally successful ones are XFire and Raptr. Rupture never really launched but was purchased for 10m so I guess you could call it a success? 4) Tying into game API's is ridiculously hard because you have to get every 'publisher' on board. The 'Developer' of the game always wants to do cool stuff with their games, but the publisher controls the budget for external integration and API's and what not. 5) Cheat Codes is the one area that hasn't been done to death that I see some potential in. Sites like Cheatcodes.com and MyCheats are not very social, built on old technology, and are RIDICULOUSLY profitable. 6) If you build ANYTHING for PC, make sure it is focused around World of Warcraft. It's the cash cow and nothing else compares. 7) Gamers don't like to leave their houses. I know that this 'myth' has been debunked countless time but the fact is, it's very hard to get someone to go somewhere else to play a game with their friend. Just hit them on their console or computer. 8) The one idea that I've had floating around is a 'lifestream' type site for gaming. I envisioned it as a low tech solution like 'upload your kill shot, brag about it' or something like that. People just take a pic w/ their iphone, you check the timestamp against their Xbox gamer tag to see who they were playing against, then you tag the photo w/ their names. Could work w/ video too. Console gamers don't really have much that ties them to their PC, so the iPhone (or any mobile device) is one of the few ways to get them while they're playing. Sorry for the stream of consciousness. I'm a bit jaded from being in the gaming space for so long. Recently started something focusing on another industry (hair salons, oddly enough) and it's very gratifying.

16y ago

access_denied 16y ago

I believe this is the better community for your question: http://forums.indiegamer.com/ http://forums.indiegamer.com/ Some fine folks over there.

Raphael 16y ago

A system for virtual items. Create new types of items; give them to other people. Items can also be prizes for beating games.

vitovito 16y ago

Wish I had seen this 21 hours ago. I currently work in the game industry, previously worked in the game industry, and have worked for non-industry consultancies that are trying to break into the industry. First, if you're not a gamer yourself, you're not going to get much traction. You'll be able to check reasonable boxes of features, and no-one will ever use them, and you won't understand why. The domain knowledge is cliquish and subtle and if you don't actually play games (a lot), there's no way to acquire it. Your first idea is a great example of this, and it's the first one most people hit on, because there aren't a lot of web-based communities for gamers like there are for other markets. This is because the community is in the individual games and on the individual consoles. A consultancy I worked for made this same mistake, actively pitching companies by saying "we can help build community around your games" and being thrown out of offices for their ignorance. This is also why you can't make a social network that effectively ties together PC, PS3 and Xbox360 gamers: the console manufacturers and publishers don't want you to. Rupture might have gotten close, but then EA bought them, and then shut them down. 2, 3) Groupon for gamers doesn't make sense on the consoles, because you'll need to get MS/Sony/Nintendo buy-in, and Steam already runs sales on the PC, and there are already the indie game bundles that they organize themselves... there's no pain point there. In fact, someone else mentioned this already: gamers don't have a lot of pain points that a startup can address. There's a big one in the MMO space: I get an MMO and it's awesome and I tell my friends, but by the time they pay for a subscription, the server I'm on is full and they are all on some other server, so I have to re-roll and start again. There's no good way to get everyone "on the same page" quickly and easily... and there's no way for you to do it as an outsider. That's functionality that really has to be provided by the MMO developers and supported by the publisher. 4) There is one LAN gaming center in Austin, TX left. It's dying from utter lack of interest. Gamers don't need to meet in real life. That's the whole point of networked consoles and PCs. Security is some place you might be able to break in: a universal PC gaming security dongle. WoW already offers an RSA keyfob-style authenticator. Steam is basically online DRM like Ubisoft was doing, except the value proposition is enough to make gamers not care. Give publishers your dongle for free. Give it away to gamers. Charge the publishers and studios a retainer for integration and on-going support and servers for storing data. Steam will be your biggest competitor in this, because along with DRM, they also offer cloud data storage across Mac and PC (and expectedly Linux). All the other tech, like MMO servers and graphics engines, many game companies still believe they know best and would rather build themselves (NIH is strong in the industry).

Harkins 16y ago

I am running (4) at http://NearbyGamers.com http://NearbyGamers.com now. I lovingly call it an 'anti-social network' because the entire goal of the site is to get visitors off the site and gaming with each other in person. There are a couple dozen other sites in this niche but NG is (AFAIK) the largest and most active. I've seen (1) but didn't bother keeping a link because, well, I don't see that gamers actually have a lot in common and care to socialize based on games. Video games are so common that I don't see them as more than a granfalloon. Could easily be wrong here. (2) Dunno if you can do it without geography in your favor like Groupon, but good luck. (3) I think all of the stories of the business of video games in the last year or two (Zynga, EA charging used gamers, DLC, unlock codes, virtual goods) have been about businesses finding new ways to charge more based on playing habits, not less. That's why all the fuss about virtual currencies, you can get near-perfect segmentation.