The game was conceptualised in 2003 by Ben Duskin—an 8 year old American boy in remission from leukemia—and was published by the Make-A-Wish Foundation in 2004.

[4][5] The gameplay can be described as a three-dimensional version of Asteroids, but instead of a ship, the player character is the child patient on a hoverboard.

Make-a-Wish Executive Director Patricia Wilson was told that a video game would take upwards of US$1,000,000 and possibly years to create.

[6] Ms. Wilson sought the help of her Board of Directors and within days the request to fulfill Ben's wish was posted on several gaming sites.

Inquiries and offers to assist began immediately from game designers in the UK, Israel, Canada and the United States.

Ben's Game is freeware, available for Mac and Windows systems, and is multilingual (with support for 9 languages.