The Hesserts envision that people will play their game the same way they play Farmville and Angry Birds: sitting at their computer or on their phone with multiple apps open, dipping in occasionally to place a bet.
Then the big boys with global licences arrive: Lego to make construction kits (build your own Hogwarts castle), Mattel to make Harry Potter toys, and Electronic Arts computer games including, finally, a chance to play the obscure game of Quidditch (a bit like an aerial version of polo, but with the contestants flying on broomsticks).
We wanted to make sure that the computer memory, CPU power and the graphics card were sufficiently adequate to control the character and play the game as a reasonable level of performance.
It was one of the first times in computergame history where gamers could simply connect to their ISP, start a game and choose to play via the Internet from the multiplayer option screen.