GameRoom.com

Expanding on the post about Gamester I have decided to change the company name to GameRoom for several reasons.  First, GameRoom sounds like the concept; a digital representation of a game room where users can join up and play digitized versions of "physical" board games.  GameRoom puts the focus back on meeting up with your friends in a "space" to play games face to face rather than playing a video game.  Second, I wanted a quick word that could be used as a noun or a verb much like Facebook.  I want users to be able to says things like  "invite me to your GameRoom" or simply "GameRoom me." 

More on GameRoom.com

The initial instance of GameRoom.com will be a social network website where users can manage contacts, create gaming groups, trade game ideas, and host games.  Hosting a game will allow the host to create an instance of a digital model of a game room one might invite their friends to in real life.  The focus will be on the game table which players will be able to add images and overlays (grids or area maps for partitioning the game table.)  The model itself will not monitor the game play (i.e. nothing prevents a player from performing an invalid action within the context of any given game.)  Instead the game room model manages the state of the table (i.e. it maintains the location of game elements such as pieces and chits.)  The easiest games to run in this state are tactical miniature war games such as Warhammer and Chaimail.  Players will communicate via instant messaging or by a VoIP feature such as TeamSpeak or Skype.

Progression of the company

As the GameRoom grows I plan to include custom games that can only be played via the GameRoom interface to increase traffic to the site and to serve as a demonstration of the site's functionality.  Once the GameRoom has successful custom board game packages the company will try to solicit existing game companies to digitize their successful game titles.  Game companies that I have in mind include Flying Frog (Last Night on Earth, A Touch of Evil), Fantasy Flight, Wizards of the Coast (Avalon Hill, Dungeons and Dragons), Days of Wonder (Smallworld), and many others.  

Exit strategy

After building this company, its technologies, and its customer base the natural exit would be to sell the company to an established social network site such as Facebook.  These companies try to maximize the number of users and the amount of time these users spend using their service.  GameRoom has the potential to assist this strategy by including a group of users that are not currently being targeted.  This group's member are already accustom to setting aside hours of recreational time playing board games.