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Their website, ThaiBG.com, has become the most popular among Thai board-game players with more than one million users registered.

Each day, between 17,000 and 20,000 players come to the site to play various kinds of board games over the Internet. Even though they are in different areas, they can still play the games with their counterparts as if they were sitting together.

"We designed the site to be a community for board-game lovers," said the site's webmaster Thotsaphon, who is also the developer of the games on the site.

Board-game lovers can come to the site and register to play games with other players. This is the beauty of the site - players can play with actual people, and not just the computer, he said.

Thotsaphon spent just a few months developing his first online board game, Checkers, by blending his programming knowledge with Winai's board-game experience. This became the foundation for him to develop other board-game programmes. ThaiBG.com now has 10 board games available on the site. These include Thai Checkers, Thai Chess, Thai Defensive Chess, Chess, Chinese Chess, Shogi, Go, Othello, Crossword, and A-match. All were developed by Thotsaphon.

Winai and Thotsaphon said they developed their website with an aim to promote board-game playing among Thais. They hope the site will spread board-game knowledge to the community.

"We want to make board games popular in the country because they not only help players improve their thinking processes, but also offer mental exercise," said Winai.

As the site is also expected to be a source for game players to study and improve their skill, Thotsaphon said it records each game played and allows players to retrieve their records for further study.

The site has 20 million game records for retrieval.

Winai said the record was a key part of improving a player's skill. Those who want to develop their game skills can search to study how other players played the game, to develop their own strategy.

As the site was developed only with the passion of the two founders, Winai and Thotsaphon have had to spend their own money to maintain the site. Now, however, Winai has started to think about business.

"In the past, the site was operated by two individuals, but now we have set up a company, ThaiBG.com Partnership, to take care of the business aspects," Winai said.

Winai plans to use the site as a centre to create offline activities among the board-game community. This will help them find more sponsors.

Thotsaphon, the developer, hopes that what he has done will eventually be sold on the market.

"I hope that one day our board game software will be exported to other countries," he added.

Even before going international, board games under ThaiBG.com have been licensed to Advanced Info Services (AIS) on a one-year contract, to allow AIS mobile users to play board games through their mobile phones. AIS users can download Othello and Thai Chess to play on their phones. Checkers and Go will come next.

Thotsaphon said ThaiBG.com had to modify the board game programs to fit a mobile phone's screen.

Once the mobile game version is downloaded, mobile users can connect to the Internet network through GPRS services, and then play the game online with their counterparts.

Thotsaphon said he planned to develop four to five more board games to offer the players more choices.

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation