PBBG.net

What is Prison Struggle built with?

Behind the technologies that Prison Struggle was built with and its development history.

Prison Struggle is a "mafia" style PBBG game that was first launched in 2007 and has been owned and operated by numerous different owners since first launch.

Who owns/operates it?

Prison Struggle is owned by Lockdown Gaming, Inc1.

Lockdown Gaming is reportedly owned by two individuals; Dave Macaulay2 and Aaron Newton3.

How much money does it make?

Dave has previously reported that between Prison Struggle and another game that Lockdown Gaming operated, that the profit would be enough for a single person's income4.

As of 18 November 2025, the game appears to be listed on website marketplace Flippa and while it is not explicitly named and no seller information is publicly listed, the summary, the "about the business" text, and other details such as site age and location appear to line up with the game itself.

The listing summary describes the game as making $61K [in] annual revenue with 77% margins5 which is in line with the 3,926 USD per month figure indicated on the listing under monthly profit which would translate to approximately 47,000 USD per year in profit; indeed it could be enough for a single person's income in some locations.

The listing also describes the game as having stable revenue since launch, which would mean that Prison Struggle could conceivably have earned approximately 235,000 USD in lifetime profit since it was relaunched under the ownership of Lockdown Gaming.

Many games in this genre also tend to have large revenue spikes upon launch, or on relaunch in this case, so the lifetime profit figure could realistically even reach up to 300,000 - 400,000 USD if that were the case.

How much does it cost to run?

It costs approximately 1,175 USD per month (23% of revenue) to operate inclusive of server costs, marketing costs, and any other work that may be outsourced such as infrastructure maintenance or customer support.

These figures are assuming that the 77% margins and ~61,000 USD in annual revenue figures presented in the Flippa listing5 are accurate as at the time of the listing.

What engine does it use?

Prison Struggle runs on a fork/derivative of the PHP-based GRPG6 game engine.

Co-owner of Lockdown Gaming, Dave, has indicated that he has rewritten most of the code and updated it to PHP 87 and that potentially much of the code has been improved upon8.

What languages does it use?

Prison Struggle uses HTML, CSS, and Javascript for the frontend and uses PHP and MySQL for the backend.

What tooling does it use?

For performance monitoring and logging, Prison Struggle uses NewRelic9 and spends approximately 90 USD per month10 in monitoring costs for the game.

It uses Cloudflare for DNS.

It uses Wiki.js for its public wiki site.

Where does it get graphics from?

The characters and layout for Prison Struggle were created by Sergio Ordóñez Suánez of SOSFactory.

The original Prison Struggle web design layout for the game can be found as originally posted by the designer.

They additionally use the SOSFactory Avatar Creator for character avatars.

Brief operational history

  • First launched and operated by Jordan Graves in late 2007
  • It reportedly underwent at least one ownership change (based on changes to the copyright line and site footers) between launch and 2018
  • The game was then shutdown in late 2018
  • The game was acquired and re-launched by Lockdown Gaming in late 2020

  1. lockdowngaming.io ↩

  2. davemacaulay.com ↩

  3. "we're looking for a PHP / MySQL / JavaScript developer to work on our orignallly GRPG code here at Lockdown Gaming Inc. We're incorporated in Texas, USA. You'll need to be able to communicate effectivetively remotely, with the occasional voice call."- Aaron Newton via Discord at  ↩

  4. "It's very possible to make a good profit of these games, my two games would easily suffice a single persons income. The problem is you need more than a single person to do all the things, and I have a day job too.

    So there's money to be made in this area. We massively outpace our server / infra costs within hours each month. Developers are the biggest money sink if you aren't just doing all the work yourself." - Dave Macaulay via Discord at  ↩

  5. flippa: listing ↩

  6. "we're looking for a PHP / MySQL / JavaScript developer to work on our orignallly GRPG code here at Lockdown Gaming Inc. We're incorporated in Texas, USA. You'll need to be able to communicate effectivetively remotely, with the occasional voice call."- Dave Macaulay via Discord at  ↩

  7. "OH, cause I've rewritten most of it, updated to PHP 8 etc"- Dave Macaulay via Discord at  ↩

  8. "Nope! It's barely GRPG anymore"- Dave Macaulay via Discord at  ↩

  9. "I use NewRelic for this 🙂" - Dave Macaulay via Discord at  ↩

  10. "It's kind of expensive but it is usage based, each of my games is about $90 a month but I have the full APM of my app not just MySQL" - Dave Macaulay via Discord at  ↩