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Is it possible to start a business where kids/adults can design their own board game on line???

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Is it possible to start a website where people can come and design their own game with all the pieces, including the board, cards, pieces etc. All the games would be custom to what they want.

The games would be simple and straight forward. Once their are done with designing it they can either print it off/or have it made and sent to them.

Just wondering, first off if this would even be possible without getting sued or not even be something that people would be interested in. Second, how would this be possible to start? Last looking for any other suggestions that could offer.

Thanks and have a great day.

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Is it possible?

   Yes, definately.

Is it a viable (ie profitable) business idea?

    Maybe, but unlikely.  Here is why I answer that way.

First, most board game companies do NOT solicit or accept game ideas.  You have to convince them to buy your product and sign papers before they can really even see it, otherwise they set themselves up for potential lawsuits for "Stealing" your idea(s) if they happen to release a game that happens to be similar to any of your ideas.

Second, most game costs relate to actual production costs.  If you are going the route of Cheap *** Games (a real company), then you could create items in an electronic format that are cheap enough to be printed on home computers, or produced and mailed at reasonable prices; however, although I own several of their games I've only seen someone want to play them with me once (at large board game gatherings).  I only know of 3 avid board gamers that ever purchased any of their games, and one of those was buying a game for a gag gift for me.

The technology to create a board game already exists.  There are many game ideas/prototypes that end up at the game conferences every year that never go beyond that.



Your key market would be selling the Dream of "Making Your Own Board Game", but I havent seen much success of the products on the market that are similar (ie Make-Your-Own-Opoly: http://www.tdcgames.com/MYO.htm).  I don't know the actual numbers, but I haven't heard any noise in the board game groups I interact with on this game.  (Or at the game creation conference I attend yearly.)

There would also be possible legal issues, ie consider how City of Heroes game got in trouble for allowing player's custom characters to look too similar to existing comic book characters so they had to change their artwork to avoid that.  I think the same problem would apply to "Just like X game" board game variations.

If you want to pursue creating board games despite me "raining on your parade", contact me via email and I will refer you to some resources that may help you on that journey.

Hope that helps.

MadScientist
Report (0) (0) |   earlier
It's a great idea.  But making it good would require a lot of creativity.

   For example most games require simply landing on a spot, playing some type of gambling game/challenge, and getting points...some of the more complex ones (IE monopoly) involve investing in property to increase the chance you can win at the mini-games challenges.

   For an example of how to break past this you could

1) have mini-games with an arbitrary shaped board (IE chinese checkers style or chess style) and assign how certain pieces can and can not move, jump, kill...other pieces and/or which sides of the board have to be reach in what order to gain points and/or which privilages each piece has (IE a queen has more freedom than a rook).  This way a person could design wide variants on checkers, chess, othello, etc. ...all from the same board-game programming tool.

2) have the actual game (IE how to get through the board and to the mini-games) have custom elements.  Design how your own player looks, what points are called, what shape the board is in and what objects are on it, if there are any power-ups that effect a multiple on the number of spaces a die makes a player move and/or what happens when they land on certain spaces (IE lose a turn, "go to jail", double the value of the next space's reward, go back x # of spaces, lose property, steal other opponent's power up, play a game of card drawing where investments represent cards trying to beat another player as the dealer, etc.)

   This way someone could essentially design, say, Othello and Poker within a Candy Land type board with the goal of investing for either good cards, hotels for other players to pay to stay at, increased freedom on the Othello-type board to earn more points...all in the same game!

  You could even create a website where people share game-configurations they made up as files for other people to download and play....and/or hold contents to have one of the games produced as an actual board game by a major company (and have the company pay you as the provider of an "automated research tool" for their game design team).  Lots of possibilities here...
Report (0) (0) |   earlier
Yes, it is not only possible, it has been done already by a large, well know site called "Zillions of Games." Check it out: lwww.zillions-of-games.com.
Report (0) (0) | earlier