TESTRUGBY.COM was at the top of its game for over a decade (beginning in 2003), it began as an off-shoot of Fantasyrugby.com which I also helped to design and build. TR was definitely a huge leap forward in the fantasy gaming world at the time as we incorporated a new level of 'gamer' interaction with social media, chat rooms, even a Rugby Wiki.

Fans had to be dedicated to play, they needed to study 'real' rugby players that were taking the field, playing in 'real' competitions that were known around the world. We had a team of rugby analysts who watched every game and noted down rugby stats in our online stats collection system.

Every minute of every game was watched, every tackle, go-forward, line out, scrum, etc was noted against every player and they were awarded virtual points for their performance. Our punters would create their own teams within a salary cap, and be allowed a limited amount of trades to swap out players for each coming round.

It was hugely popular and a lot of fun to build. Running it was time-consuming, and in the end was the reason that we had to mothball it as it was affecting our 'real' client work. TR was in fact totally free to play, we got some revenue from advertising and by selling virtual trades and in-game insurance but all of this income just covered costs.

At it's peak TR hit 53K users, of which about 30-40% were keen and returned each season to play in the divisions that they had set up (usually against friends and club supporters). TR spread from the viral nature of these parochial leagues.

In all, working on TR was great lesson in building a start-up from the ground up. Building a product that a niche group really engaged with and fully 'GOT' what it was and what it contributed to their lives. Right across the team, we all enjoyed working on this project, it stands head and shoulders above the corporate, ecommerce, business solutions that we were building day to day.