Hi all! We're Nate, Devon, and Jared, the founders of StartPlaying.Games. StartPlaying.Games is a platform that helps players find tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) and professional Game Masters.
I (Devon) have been a professional Game Master for over five years, running games for players all across the country. I even started hiring other professional GMs because I had more groups than I could run! The biggest issue I've been seeing with people getting into the hobby or trying new game systems is finding someone to run the game for them. A lot of solutions involve digging through discord servers and forums, which aren't very friendly to new players and require a lot of time and effort. I knew there had to be a better solution to this, and started creating some Pro GM groups to network with others.
A few days after the pandemic hit San Francisco in March 2020, I got a call from Nate, who wanted to pick my brain about being a professional Game Master. He was working on a similar idea, but with a tech-focused twist: an Airbnb-type marketplace to find Game masters and other virtual game masters. That first night, we spent hours on the phone chatting about what the platform could be, and for hours each evening for the next several weeks as we began to build StartPlaying.Games.
Over the next few months, we spoke with over a hundred Game Masters and Players while building out StartPlaying.Games. We launched our platform 3 months ago, and since then we have had over 2000 bookings and around 300 GMs join our platform. And with 40 million+ D&D fans around the world, we know there is a market for our platform.
We offer users the ability to join solo, book for yourself, and a group, as well as hand-picked options for custom and corporate requests. We make money by taking a percentage of game bookings.
On StartPlaying.Games, Game Masters get more time to focus on planning and running games instead of building a website and business platform. We’re now chatting with game publishers to help them find players for their game systems, and working with convention organizers to help them run virtual conventions. We are also chatting with charities on how to get more involved in helping them run game-driven fundraisers.
We would love to hear your ideas and any feedback you have!
I've been a user on the site for about two weeks. I'm hopeful that you'll succeed. Currently my group maintains a discord community that helps us find players and connect with vetted DMs.
Can you please un-SPA your site? It's really hard to use and the current use pattern is to find a DM and move the discussion off your site as quickly as possible.
- The infinite scroll feature makes it really hard and slow to find DMs.
- The site doesn't let you open a DM's profile in a separate tab which forces you to lose your place whenever you visit a DM's profile
- The profile summaries are unhelpfully inconsistent/dishonest (Professional for 80 years, Hosted over 1M games, etc.) The profiles can't be true and make any sorting/filtering impossible.
- The DM's platforms and supported games aren't on the find a DM page.
- The DM profiles lack structure and rich content features. Please add a native video embed so that we can see videos/clips. Most DM's offer that by linking to their twitch/youtube properties. Make the profile fields less generic.
-- DNDBeyond content share?
-- Roll20 content share?
-- Audio provider? Discord/Roll20/Zoom
-- vtt supported? Roll20/FantasyGrounds/etc
Looking forward to seeing where you go and excited for your success.
Hi Dataminded! Yes! This is something we have all talked about as future optimizations for the best user experience. We'll be changing a lot of our buttons over to links first.
We plan to change how our GM search functions to make it easier to see a number of GM's at a glance as well, and probably moving to paginate those pages.
These additional ideas for the profile are fantastic, and I will be adding them to our optimization list for profiles! Thank you so much!
I came here to say the same thing. :) I also wish I could see the hourly rate in the search results or at least in the profile (it seems like you have to click "Book..." currently).
I see session of $10 to $30, which seems really low to me.
Your audience are basically guys making plenty of money and not afraid to spend it. I know a few guys who spends tons of money on Games Workshop kinds of things, buying even more than they have time for.
So I was wondering why are your prices so low? I would think the lowest price would start at $50 or something.
Like everything, price is set by supply and demand. I'm pretty sure the demand is there. So are there so many great GM's that flood the supply?
We let GM's set their own prices. So we expect a lot of prices to fluctuate as demand continues to drive them up, or lower as more GMs join the platform.
I’m in a campaign right now that is around $20/hour/person. Over time (given good site curation) there should be development of premium GM’s and cheaper GM’s. A better analogy is more like freelancer sites than gig economy sites, since a good GM is not a commodity.
I've never seen a GM charge more than $5/hour/player. The premium market either doesn't exist or I haven't been able to find it. It's not due to an inability to pay. I've had DMs push back when I suggest that they raise their prices.
Congratulations on launching! One thing - allow me to select a time zone and see game schedules in my local timezone...
I'm currently playing in a group that's transferred from in-person to videochat - as we're several players that have moved to different cities (same timezone) and a GM who's emigrated to Canada (we're on GMT+1/2 depending on DST). It can work - but please make it easier to figure out - avoiding the need to calculate offset :)
I used to work nights a few years back, and I'm sure I'd love to be able to join games after work (before the weekend) - say 8 am local time...
Other than that, maybe a bit more information for potential GMs?
Hi e12e! We actually show all games in your local timezone based off your browser. Do you think you'd still want to be able to change your timezone knowing that? Also, what are some details you'd want to see about potential GM's, we're always looking to flesh out more details for our users.
I see the other times appear to be local (although a timezone would be comforting to make it more obvious).
And personally, I'd love a 24h display option.
Re: GM - I was thinking along the lines of expectations etc - as this is (potentially) something players will be paying for. I'm sure I'm not the only veteran player/GM who's never really considered charging money for GMing (well, directly I did "teach" rpg as an elective subject for half a year).
Ah yes, we def want to change that to be dynamic for campaigns! We will need to def need to make timezones more apparent. Thanks for these suggestions!
had a similar idea a while back but to incorporate a suite of tools for the gamemasters to use, maps, npc name generators, voice modulators, things like that.
Awesome that you are seeing some traction so early on, looking forward to your success.
I (Devon) have been a professional Game Master for over five years, running games for players all across the country. I even started hiring other professional GMs because I had more groups than I could run! The biggest issue I've been seeing with people getting into the hobby or trying new game systems is finding someone to run the game for them. A lot of solutions involve digging through discord servers and forums, which aren't very friendly to new players and require a lot of time and effort. I knew there had to be a better solution to this, and started creating some Pro GM groups to network with others.
A few days after the pandemic hit San Francisco in March 2020, I got a call from Nate, who wanted to pick my brain about being a professional Game Master. He was working on a similar idea, but with a tech-focused twist: an Airbnb-type marketplace to find Game masters and other virtual game masters. That first night, we spent hours on the phone chatting about what the platform could be, and for hours each evening for the next several weeks as we began to build StartPlaying.Games.
Over the next few months, we spoke with over a hundred Game Masters and Players while building out StartPlaying.Games. We launched our platform 3 months ago, and since then we have had over 2000 bookings and around 300 GMs join our platform. And with 40 million+ D&D fans around the world, we know there is a market for our platform.
We offer users the ability to join solo, book for yourself, and a group, as well as hand-picked options for custom and corporate requests. We make money by taking a percentage of game bookings.
On StartPlaying.Games, Game Masters get more time to focus on planning and running games instead of building a website and business platform. We’re now chatting with game publishers to help them find players for their game systems, and working with convention organizers to help them run virtual conventions. We are also chatting with charities on how to get more involved in helping them run game-driven fundraisers.
We would love to hear your ideas and any feedback you have!