Bringing Warmachine/Hordes Tabletop To Digital Arena - Need Advice

News & General Discussion
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I am an avid Warmachine/Hordes Tabletop player and while I love to play against people in gaming stores, it’s often not easy and sometimes I just want to play. Outside of platforms like Vaasal, there aren’t many options to play virtually and all are slow and clunky.

So, I’m interested in creating my own digital game, that would bring this element of gameplay to the digital realm. There are some other things I’d like to do to make the game profitable long term.

A. When new models are released to the public, I’d like to offer rare and unique versions of the original sculpts to be auctioned off to the public. These would be limited edition and sought after by players.

B.Create an online market place whereby players can sell their models to one another with a percentage of each sale going to the dev team.

C. Id like to develop the game with 4 starting factions. Approx 20 models in each.

D. Weekly releases of new models.

E. A software install that contains a variety of environments with which to play on. Grassy, snowy, etc.

F. Individual environmental pieces that players can purchase to individualize their favorite settings.

G. Quarterly tournaments whereby players can compete for a prize that consists of a percentage of all sales of the same for that quarter. The more popular the game, the more prize benefits.

H. I want players to be able to customize their models in various ways within the limits of the scupts, but also digitally “paint” the models so as to create their own styles and themes. Once locked, the models can’t be repainted and when sold, they are sold as painted.

I. The kicker, I want everything tracked and stored on a blockchain and utilize a cryptocurrency as the currency of the game. In other words, every game, action within the game, win and loss, sale, model, transfer of model from one person to another, tournaments, results, prizes etc, all stored and operating on a blockchain.

So, my question is. for those of you that work a lot with Unity and understand the nature of tabletop gaming, how difficult would an endeavor like this be?

What kind of budget would I need to build it all out?

I’m just gathering information right now but I have private funding depending on the potential costs.

Thanks

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In my “real” job, I’d probably charge 4-8 hours of time just to put together an estimate for what you’re asking for. In other words, you’ve just listed a bunch of complex features, without providing significant detail on any of them. And just for fun, you want someone to create a new cryptocurrency? My back-of-the-envelope estimate would put this at somewhere in the $5-$50 million dollar range, but I’m probably a bit low, given all the things you want this system to do.

What really concerns me is that you have this lofty idea of making probably the most complex possible version I could imagine for this kind of game, all based on the premise of copying some other game. Have you built a prototype yet that focuses on some basic features, to see if your game idea is even fun and enjoyable to people? I think your main problem here, above all the logistics, is that you’re planning this immense experience, with all these small details, all based on the assumption that you’ll make a fun game simply by copying how some other game does it.

Anyway, what you’re asking for is a ridiculous amount of work that would need a fairly large team with diverse technical backgrounds (game devs, 3D artists, blockchain specialist, IT infrastructure, etc). If you want a more specific estimate, I’d recommend hiring a consultant to assist you in scoping the whole project, estimating the effort associated with each piece, and coming up with a business plan.

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I generally agree with @dgoyette , though I would estimate it a bit lower — I think it could probably be done for $1M - $2M, if you assemble the right team.

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I was figuring 1-2 mil myself.

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OK, you’re coming it to it with realistic expectations then.

The biggest risks, in my view, are legal rather than technical. Can you set up an online marketplace that uses real money, or will the government see that as gambling? If you use a cryptocurrency, will that be seen as money-laundering? Will your product be too close to existing IP, and get you sued by the IP holders?

If you can confidently iron all those out, and raise maybe $500k for a prototype, I think you could be on to something.

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I’m unclear if you want to implement those specific table top games, or your own game only loosely inspired by them. If you want to exactly implement those games, you’re in for some trouble. Vassal and Tabletop Simulator skate by in a gray area, because they are just sandboxes. The community surrounding them actually implement the modules of the copyrighted games and don’t charge money for the modules. It is analogous to say a player creating a Star Trek mod for a Civilization game (every Civ game seems to have one), where the makers of Civilization don’t end up getting lawsuits over the mod’s existence, and going after the guy who made the mod is usually not worth the potential backlash.

But if you’re trying to implement the actual tabletop games here, and directly monetize them, you will need to license the IP or you will be receiving lawsuits.

I find it curious you’ve talked only about game assets, monetization schemes, and custom marketplaces, but haven’t yet mentioned anything about how the actual game will work (which undoubtedly will be even more work than all the above here).

Why? You’re talking about adding what is likely an enormous amount of work, but for what benefits? If it is about security, this tech doesn’t automatically mean secure. It is only as secure as you design it to be. You’ll probably need an experienced expert in blockchain, which you keep on staff permanently for ongoing maintenance and support, because this isn’t the kind of thing where any programmer can just muddle through and expect the thing to be secure.

Sounds like years with a decent sized team. Probably $$$ millions to create it. Then if this is your own game instead of based on an existing IP, you’re going to have difficulty getting people to play it by your rules. Vassal works because everyone already knows the games from table top, knows the rules, but applying the same thing to your entirely fresh game with no tabletop counterpart will be a difficult sell and probably confusing when people try to pick it up.

Good luck though

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It doesn’t make a lot of sense to talk how how much it will cost when what you describe is an ongoing business. How much will cost to have weekly model updates? Well for one week it might be 20k, for 100 years thats around 100 million.

You need to define milestones which can be delivered, targets which can be reached, operating model and costs, etc.

You also don’t set any kind of quality target. Triple A kind of quality could mean your game costs 10-100 times more than it might if you just want to get something ‘indie’ out there.

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