Video Board Games - The pitch

Don’t fill up another closet with board games you only sort of like. Video Board Games allows you to play dozens of different games with the same board. It blends the best aspects of casual game apps (cheap and downloadable) and board games (tactile and fun to play with friends).

Video Board Games - The fun part

I think the hardware development for this project would be fun. How do you make a cost effective game board with programmable cards that works with a variety of games.

Video Board Games - The growth potential

I expect that if this caught on it could sell a 100 thousand units a year with ten games downloaded per unit. Using those growth numbers, the revenue would be $40 million per year and $10 million in profit.

Video Board Games - The monetization

There are a number of costs here, first of which is the board. I personally like the e-ink board idea, which would cost around $200. The cards, card programmer, and the dice would cost another $100, for a total production cost of $300. The product would be sold at near cost ($350). The other revenue source would be the games, which would go for $5 to $20 per game with an average of $10.  The revenue from the games would be split 50/50 with the creators. The user would be given the option to “return” the game within the first month if they don’t like it.

Video Board Games - The idea

To make board games easier to collect and try out, they should be more like video games. For that to happen the game board and cards would need to be able to change for each game.

The board

There are two ways to make a board that can change for different games. First, you can make the board a screen. The screen could either be a touch LCD screen (imagine a big iPad) or touch e-ink. I like e-ink more of the two because game boards are usually fairly static, which is what e-ink excels at. It’s even more enticing since color e-ink is almost ready. The board would have a microprocessor and be able to keep score and adapt to keep track of state as the game goes along.

The other way to make the board is with a pico projector with a camera. This would be functionally similar to the touch LCD screen. The biggest benefit is that it could create boards of many different sizes including ones much larger than possible using an LCD or e-ink screen.

The cards

Small e-ink screens could be used as the cards. They would be stacked into a card programmer at the beginning of the game which would program each of the cards with an image. The cards wouldn’t need batteries as the card programmer could power the cards as it changes them.

The pieces

The product would come with a variety of standard pieces including colored player pieces, development pieces (colored by player colors) and resources (colored by non-player colors). If the user happens to have a MakerBot, then they also have the option of printing any game-specific pieces.

The dice

Throwing dice is much more satisfying than pressing a button and having digital dice shown. Throwing dice makes one feel like they have control over the outcome much more than pressing a button. The dice that come in the package will be special dice. These dice will have gyroscopes that can tell which way they landed and a radio chip to pass that information onto the game board.

Developers would buy development kits (at cost). They would develop their games and post them to the game store. Users would browse games in the store and download them into the board.

Video Board Games - The motivation

Board games are starting to make a comeback thanks in part to Wil Wheaton. A big downside to board games is that building a collection takes up a lot of space and finding good games can be hit or miss and expensive.