GameTable Online (abbreviated as GTO) was a popular web game portal that specialized in online adaptations of board, card, and dice games. Their game platform offered both head-to-head play against other players or computer opponents for single player mode, including such games are

checkers Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers ...

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

hearts (game) Hearts is an "evasion-type" trick-taking playing card game for four players, although most variations can accommodate between three and six players. It was first recorded in America in the 1880s and has many variants, some of which are also r ...

, and

Axis & Allies ''Axis & Allies'' is a series of World War II strategy game, strategy board games. The first version was initially published in 1981 and a second edition known colloquially as ''Axis & Allies: Classic'' was published in 1984. Played on a board d ...

. There was a mix of free and "Premium" games. The "Premium" games were the most popular, and to play those against other humans required an activation fee per game title. GameTable Online used

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

to launch and play their games. They could be played on

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

, and

UNIX Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, ...

computers and required a web browser and the common Java download. The GameTable Online user base was predominantly English speaking and the website supported no other languages.

History

GameTable Online was founded in 2001 by Joe Minton. As the President of

Cyberlore Studios Cyberlore Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Northampton, Massachusetts. History The company was founded in 1992 by Lester Humphreys, Ken Grey, and Herb Perez. Since 1992, they produced expansion packs for '' MechWarri ...

, Minton sought to build a website that focused on tabletop games rather than typical computer games.Maloney, Skip. "GameTable Online", ''

Knucklebones Knucklebones, also known as scatter jacks, snobs, astragalus, tali, dibs, fivestones, jacks, or jackstones, among many other names, is a game of dexterity played with a number of small objects that are thrown up, caught, and manipulated in va ...

'', Iola, Wisconsin, July 2007, pages 64-66. In 2003, GameTable Online went public with their first set of 5 games. Since 2003, games have been added gradually. Traffic jumped up significantly when they began hosting a number of games by

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. It is currently a subsidia ...

. These games were developed by GameTable Online for Wizards of the Coast's Gleemax game site in 2007-2008 but by September 2008, Wizards of the Coast abandoned the Gleemax game portal. In the aftermath, GameTable Online adopted the games at their website. The games from this arrangement were

Acquire ''Acquire'' is a multi-player mergers and acquisitions themed board game. It is played with tiles representing hotels that are arranged on the board, play money and stock certificates. The object of the game is to earn the most money by developi ...

, Axis & Allies,

Battle Cry A battle cry or war cry is a yell or chant taken up in battle, usually by members of the same combatant group. Battle cries are not necessarily articulate (e.g. "Eulaliaaaa!", "Alala"..), although they often aim to invoke patriotic or religious ...

Guillotine A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with stocks at t ...

, and Vegas Showdown. In September 2012, GameTable Online opened a second website,rpgtableonline.com. RPG Table Online uses GTO's game technology to host

role-playing games A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal ac ...

via the Internet. GameTable shut down at the start of New Year's Day 2015. Both domains (gametableonline.com and rpgtableonline.com) were afterwards bought by (sex) advertising companies - warning for those who'd like to try them.

Games

The games at GameTable Online spanned the range from public domain classic, "beer-and-pretzel" light games,

German-style board games A Eurogame, also called a German-style board game, German game, or Euro-style game, (generally just referred to as board games in Europe) is a class of tabletop games that generally has indirect player interaction and abstract physical componen ...

to American strategy games. Games that were based on licensed game properties were built with the permission of game publishers and/or designers and were modeled to look their real world counterparts. Despite the strong presence of Wizards of the Coast games, GameTable Online featured games from a variety of publishers. GameTable Online's game list (at its peak, circa September 24, 2010): * 10 Days in Africa * 1960: The Making of the President *

(Revised and 1942 editions) *

Backgammon Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...

* Battle of the Bands (card game) * Battle for Olympus (game) * Bosworth *

Checkers Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers ...

Chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

Condottiere ''Condottieri'' (; singular ''condottiero'' or ''condottiere'') were Italian captains in command of mercenary companies during the Middle Ages and of multinational armies during the early modern period. They notably served popes and other Euro ...

Cosmic Wimpout ''Cosmic Wimpout'' is a dice game produced by C3, Inc in 1976. It is similar to 1000/5000/10000, Farkle, Greed, Hot Dice, Squelch, Zilch, to name but a few. The game is played with five custom dice, and may use a combination score board and rollin ...

* Creepy Freaks *

Dogfight A dogfight, or dog fight, is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft conducted at close range. Dogfighting first occurred in Mexico in 1913, shortly after the invention of the airplane. Until at least 1992, it was a component in every majo ...

* Euphrat & Tigris (also known as Tigris & Euphrates) *

* Hearts (with a "Turbo" version that includes special rules) * Igel Ärgern * Kill Dr. Lucky * Lord of the Fries * Lost Souls *

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

Nuclear War (card game) ''Nuclear War'' is a collectible common-deck card game designed by Douglas Malewicki and originally published in 1965 that is a satirical simulation of an end-of-the-world scenario fought mostly with nuclear weapons. It is currently (as of 2012 ...

* RoboRally *

Tsuro Tsuro is a tile-based board game designed by Tom McMurchie, originally published by WizKids and now published by Calliope Games. Tsuro is a board game for two to eight players. To play, players compete to have the last playing piece remaining o ...

* Tsuro of the Seas *

Vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mi ...

* Vegas Showdown

Notes

{{Reflist Browser-based game websites