CrowdChess.com is a high profile social gaming site that has received a fair bit of media coverage lately.
Well, the site is now for sale with a minimum bid of $50,000 and a Buy It Now price of $100,000.
While the concept of playing chess on the computer is not new, what makes CrowdChess different is its approach to team games — rather than your standard one-on-one fare, games of chess are played by groups of people who vote each hour, digg-style, on the next move to be played. In what some consider to be the ultimate duel of the mind, this popular web application is also the ultimate test of whether the “wisdom of the crowd” can improve or hinder the decision-making process.
In fact, the featured game on CrowdChess at the moment is between Grand Master Gawain Jones and everyone else. By that, I mean that literally anyone can become part of the team and cast votes on the moves made against this high profile opponent. If you’d like be to be part of the team that defeats (or loses to) a grand master, it’s not too late to get in on the action.
CrowdChess’s sellers are offering to include a business plan as well as consulting to ensure a smooth transition to the successful buyer. If you’ve got a mind for this kind of duel (and a cheque book to match) then check out the auction page.
June 4th, 2008 at 1:10 am
While I’ve not had a site of this caliber of website I have ran a website with about 2K unique visitors a day, and have built 4 game sites in total. I keep getting smart priced by ad companies and get no income. I think the conversion rates from Game Sites are horrible. Maybe it has something to do with the demographics behind this web site genre.
June 4th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
It’s a nice gimmick, but I can’t see a crowd making better decisions against a grand master than most people might come up with on their own. How would a crowd understand potential strategies being considered?
June 6th, 2008 at 4:16 am
Very cool! 50 000 isnt too bad either.
June 10th, 2008 at 4:19 am
The valuation is “optimistic”. What does it have going for it that I couldn’t build myself for $50k or $100k? Not much.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Development cost is not equal to value. Facebook wouldn’t cost $1bn+ to develop (whatever the market would consider it to be worth) and the only reason developers get paid is that they hopefully build something worth more than what it cost them to develop.