Is This Revolutionizing the Online Game Industry?

In another Kickstarter campaign, Matt reviews the product ChessUp 2. This product allows players to play the game virtually with either a friend or an AI bot. Matt has one suggestion though, so make sure you watch that part.

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Video Transcript: 

Product Promo Video:

This is chess. Chess is an experience. The excitement. The joy. The devastation. The undeniable drive to play again and again. Chess is an experience that’s meant to be shared. What if you could experience chess in a completely new way on a real chessboard? With the power of AI at your fingertips. This is ChessUp 2. Take everything you love about playing on chess.com and experience it on a real chess board. Play a blitz match against a random online opponent. Conquer the boss you’ve been stuck on for months. Or challenge your friends halfway across the world. ChessUp 2 is always ready and always connected with built-in Wi-Fi. Never miss a move with full piece recognition. And review all your games right on chess.com ChessUp 2 is more than a chess board, it’s a chess trainer. If you are new to chess, ChessUp will teach you. If you already know how to play, ChessUp will teach you how to really play.

Matt:

Okay, that’s probably enough. I think, I mean obviously it’s a good idea. They had ChessUp one so this is an improvement over that, which you know products generally benefit from improvement. The only thing I don’t get about this is why they bother to do it with Kickstarter. They probably have you know the list of all the people who bought the first one that they could sell to. They have chess.com which would be a great place to advertise this. Maybe they just did it as another way to kind of generate some advanced revenue, which isn’t a bad idea. And some additional publicity by putting on Kickstarter for people who might not be part of the chess community to get it out there. But I mean overall I think it’s a great idea. The only thing I would think would be an improvement over this or maybe you don’t necessarily even need the board but it would be kind of cool if you had a way to you know prop up an iPad or something and do – play this with Facetime. So you’d actually see the person you’re playing and that makes it even more interactive. They don’t have to be in the room with you but you’re not just seeing where their pieces move but you’re seeing their reaction and them thinking and the real time. And honestly, I’ve had this idea a long time ago. Never did anything with it, so somebody wants to do it now or it already exists let me know. But I mean really there’s all kinds of board games where you’d like to, you know, maybe you’re home sick for the day and you know you’d like to play Risk or Monopoly or you’re into The Settlers of Catan or whatever, and you don’t have anyone to play with though. But just playing it online isn’t the same as playing it on the board with the real pieces. So it would be cool to have an app you’d find somebody who wanted to play the same game as you, or you join three or four people to play Monopoly. You’d set up the board at home and each person’s board would have the same setup. It would show each person’s move and you could have a game of Monopoly with people who wanted to play Monopoly instead of dragging your friends and family that don’t really wanna play but just start trying to make you happy to play. So, you know, you could do that in the middle of the day, or the middle of the night, or the weekend, or whatever you wanted to play. There’d be board game enthusiasts who you could play with and enjoy the game and have a little social interaction even though it wasn’t somebody sitting directly across from you but you’re still playing with a real person in real-time with a real board. So anyway, I think this is a cool idea. Obviously, they’ve already been successful with it. I’m sure this one will be successful as well. But I think you could take the concept without having to make an actual intelligent board but take the concept of being able to play with other people to other games as well. So that’s my two cents on the idea of you know shared interactive board games. So hopefully somebody turns that into an idea and actually launches it.