Boardgame, Card or RPG players?

[lizthefair]

For those of you who like to play "in-person" games (as opposed to the video/ on-line variety) or who used to play but stopped because you don't have people to play with anymore, I want to let you know about a new site called Spielerz.com.

My partner and I started the site because we like to play games, but for gaming to really work you need people to play with-- and it's really best to have the right people. So we started a matching service to help gamers find people in their area that play the games they like--and also to find people whose personalities will "mesh" with theirs.

We've just started the site, so when you visit your first thought might be, "but there is no one else in my area." If you are really interested in meeting new gamers, I hope you will sign up anyway--first because for these things to work, you need critical mass and someone has to be the "early adopter," but more importantly because then when the **next** person from your city visits, they will be able to find you. Also the site is totally free, so hey, what do you have to loose?

Note: As of this minute, the site only supports US gamers. We are working on an upgrade (that should be done in the next 10 days or so) that will include international searches. So if you are from outside the US I hope you will bookmark the site and check back in a couple of weeks. (or send me a note and I'll let you know when the upgrade is live.)

[lizthefair]

Just a quick note to let you all know Spielerz now supports gamers outside the US as well as Zip and Postal Code search.

If you are a gamer, please come check us out!

[Brutha]

If you want to reach non-englishspeacking countries you have to give them a version of your site in their language.

Have you thought about facebook plugin integration?

How do you want to market your site?

You are proably well advised to target small niches first. Getting the critical mass everywhere is nearly impossible.

Getting the critical mass in a small sectore like: Chess players in New York is much easier.
Fortunatly chess players play also other games so you can use that niche to expand into others.

You should visit all sorts of gaming conventions armed with flyers and bring them to the people.

A lot of games (like chess) have open gaming meetings that take place every week at a fixed location.
You should somehow implent them in your site. Maybe your site could even give such meetings a plateform to share their news with the world (who wins tournament xy). That way you service would be more viral because someone would get the other people in his gaming meeting to join your site.

Google Maps integration is also nice, to see what is up in your area.

[lizthefair]

Hi Brutha,

Thanks for your thoughts. We are doing a lot of what you suggested (the attending gaming conventions has been really useful for us)

It's always good to hear ideas from others--it's also gratifying to hear people recommend some of the exact things we've been thinking about--makes me feel pretty good about my marketing plan!