A Game of Pong for $1 - Monetizing an Existing Side Project
I had a fun side project that I built less than a year ago which quickly became my most popular repo on GitHub. I've got a few ideas on my plate for new projects that will take a bit of effort, but I thought why not monetize something I've already built. That project is Pong, which can be played over the web against one of your friends. Over 500 free games have been played, so I figured raising the cost to $1 a game is reasonable.
If nothing else it's a good learning tool for developers and the source is on GitHub. It is deployed on Heroku and uses Stripe for payments, Vue.js on the client side, and Rails as an API including ActionCable to handle WebSockets. Enjoy!
https://vue-rails-pong.herokuapp.com/
UPDATE: DB crashed and returns a 503, created a new db to get the app running and created a support ticket on Heroku. Also, the paywall is removed but requests a donation when the game is over.
$1 per game of Pong is much more expensive than any triple A game I've ever bought.
Yes, should have done my research. I've changed it to request a donation at the end of the game.
Great idea! Look into the laws for skill-based games, they're different than pure betting games. You could also look into domiciling this outside of the USA. You are definitely on to something with this. In terms of game mechanics, perhaps a bit of a countdown before the game begins. Also, upgrade to a paid server... heroku free wakeup time is a bummer and will drive people away.
Anyway, you are definitely on to something with this. Even if it's just pay in exchange for credits, each game costs 1 credit and the winner gets both credits with the house getting a 10% rake, and then the leaderboard gets some privilege (like advertising a link to her website)... that could be an idea!
Great suggestions, thanks!
You're welcome. I did play Rummikub (competitively) via facebook for a while. The "credits" mean absolutely nothing (except ego) but it was still interesting and I was tempted to pay actual money to buy a pack of credits to let me up the ante...
I really like the idea of a per game charge, it reminds me of the old days of having an arcade game in the pizza shop.
What if you could charge using some coin like etherium or even use a smart contract to drive tournaments.
I've been pretty excited about Nimiq (https://nimiq.com) which is a browser based coin. Maybe that could be an option and should be easy to integrate. I've already done some work on a chrome extension that mines Nimiq in the background.
Maybe try something like rake in poker torunaments. Entry to the game is $1 per player, you take rake(ie. 5% prize pool) and winner takes the rest.
Thanks, unless the laws have changed I think it's illegal in the US. I used to play poker on FullTilt back in the day before it was banned.