Tabletop games, are in my opinion, some of the best games out there period. With one huge drawback, the fact you have to have meet friends in person to play them. Well, worry about that no more with Tabletopia, the gaming service built for those who want to enjoy board games no matter the distance. As someone who has friends from all over the world but is also an avid fan of tabletop gaming Tabletopia might as well be tailor made for me. With 22 days to go and already $33,000 over their goal of $20,000 Tabletopia is well on it’s way to eventually going live on PC, MAC, iOS and Android.
One thing setting Tabletopia apart from other games on Kickstarter is that it’s not really a game, it’s more of a platform or service. Tabletopia will not only allow you to legally play licensed games (something games like Tabletop Simulator let fall into the grey area of player choice) but also allow people to easily create digital board games, and monetize them. For both players and developers the games is not a one time purchase it is a monthly subscription, or if you want the basic package completely free, however this obviously limits a lot of what you can do as both a developer and player. Tabletopia refers to itself as a platform not unlike Kindle for books or iTunes for music, something rarely seen in a videogame Kickstarter.
Licensed – Just some of the games you can enjoy when the service starts from well known Board Game publishers.
I think the shift from game to service for tabletop games is a perfect fit, allowing players to finally play boardgames with my friends around the globe without worrying over the grey area of emulating the board game. Whatever the case I’ll be following this Kickstarter very closesly and on sheer premise alone I think Tabletopia is worth backing for any Boardgame fan.
I’ll definitely have to keep an eye on this one. My local gaming group pretty much just does roleplaying but we rarely do tabletop gaming much anymore.