ClubGames Gaming Site

Save This Page

ClubGames is a site with a lot of promise, which probably will never be fulfilled.

The site has a lot of good features. It has multiple rooms and a convenient chat area. Automated tournament software and very reasonable rakes for money games. But there is a lot more wanting.

ClubGames Backgammon Software

The software is Flash-based and quite slow. A limited and only mildly scientific test calculated it as 38% slower than GammonEmpire. And it is not compatible with Internet Explorer. IE users will experience frequent crashes; you basically need to download Firefox to get it to work.

Backgammon Software Upgrades

ClubGames has been saying for quite a long time that they plan to upgrade the software with something they call "CG3." They first promised this as of February 1, 2006. Their latest statement on the usenet newsgroup was that the upgrade would depend on CG generating sufficient revenues from their backgammon area to support the upgrade. Since they seem to have no clear plan to move themselves into the first tier of money sites, I can't see where those revenues are going to come from. CG seems destined to remain a second- or third-class site forever.

Analyzed Backgammon Matches

One good feature they do have is that all matches are automatically analyzed by GNUBG, which is a backgammon computer software. If you don't own GNUBG and would like to see your matches analyzed, this is a good place to do it. (However, if you are accustomed to downloading and analyzing your own matches, it's a rather cumbersome process. You have do download each dice log separately, and that requires going through a number of clicks.)

The sysops are helpful, but the management attitude about any problem with the site is usually a blind defense of what they have, with no concrete plan to fix any of the defects. Hmm, reminds me of the MSN Zone.

Final Thoughts about ClubGames

I thought the site had a lot of promise at first, but they seemed to run out of money before they did all the necessary things to reach the top tier of backgammon sites. I think they made an unfortunate strategic decision before they even launched, to go with a Flash plug-in rather than a downloadable client. Once they did that, they were never going to get serious money players, and were never going to have the revenue to build a really good site.

Back to top