RAWG Video game discovery platform

The Gaming Industry

Video gaming is a fast growing industry for the past 30 years. This form of entertainment perhaps is on par with the film industry, with at least 1.2 billionpeople in the world played videogames in 2013 alone, and 700 million of them played online games. In terms on online activity, people who played online games make up 44% of the total online population – in fact, gaming is the second largest online activity after video viewing, just above television and radio. The number stated is a big picture of how the gaming industry has deeply thrust its claw in the world – and with the development of technology and a constant stream of bright ideas that can make better games in terms of visual, storyline, gameplay, features and so on – it’s about to get deeper.

That said, just like any industries, the gaming industry is not perfect. Even with all the options like multiple platforms emerging to play numerous, highly varied games such as the PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, and old systems like SEGA and SNES, or even our own Personal Computer (PC). Currently, there is no cross-platform recommendation service for gamers, yet the number of people who played on at least two of several platforms mentioned above is quite high.

Not only that, while gamers “invest” their time, skill, and perhaps more importantly to some games, patience, it is hard for them to find themselves rewarded for all their effort. Take the 2012 Dark Souls for example – one of the hardestgames of all time that it reached a memeticstatus online, mocking its players who had their player character died too many times, with that famous “YOU DIED” screen popped up every time they die. Finishing the game and getting all the achievement perhaps defines and brings out the positive qualities we often seek in job interviews – patience, perseverance, integrity, optimism, problem solving, ability to bounce back, and persistence.
To sum, the lack of cross-platform recommendation service and rewards for gamers is the thing that underlies the presence of RAWG, by coming up and bringing a unique cross-platform game search system based on preferences and rewards for gamers.

A look at RAWG
RAWG is a blockchain-based ecosystem platform specifically made to search cross-platform games. RAWG is present in order to give rewards for all the hour's gamers has logged in – for their time, grinding, skills, achievements, and so on. Not only RAWG targeted gamers in general, it also aimed at companies or advertiser who wanted to advertise their product or services in the platform, in accordance with the users’ interests.

“What kind of game I’d like to play today?”
“I just finished this great game and I would like to play a similar one –
where can I find it?”
”What should I play next?”

RAWG offers an answer for these questions gamers often ask themselves. Utilizing a cross-platform recommendation-based-search, RAWG will prompt gamers to conduct a search and find similar games, no matter what platform they’re available for. Say, if you like to play the late ‘90s hit farm-simulation role-playing game Harvest Moon, and you’ve finished all similar themed games in its platform, the PlayStation, then conducting a RAWG game search will give you result for games similar to Harvest Moon, regardless of the platform. It could be PC, Xbox, Nintendo games or the ones from other platforms. That way, you can tell that there are games of similar genre or theme to the one you play.
RAWG’s Features
Here are some features of RAWG.

1. Growing game database
   Today, RAWG owns a videogames database consisting of 50,000 games. RAWG plans to rack up those numbers to a staggering 200,000 – within a year. This will make RAWG the owner of the largest videogame database in the world. The RAWG’s system will automatically add new games and information acquired from gamers, such as total play time and achievements. Users will also be capable of adding some information manually for instance old games or games not in the catalog.

2. Personal recommendation
   RAWG will recommend games according to our preferences – not just the game type but also according to our activities with the videogame itself, like the ratings and the review we give for it, and list of played and awaited or anticipated games.

3. Gamer community
   Perhaps like a social media, here we can write a review of gaming experience from certain games. Gamers can interact here and they can “follow” each other. There will also a Q&A session, hosted by the verified profile of influencers or perhaps expert gamers

4. Targeting and advertising tools
   RAWG’s main income comes from advertisements with Cost per Impression (CPI) model, with usually a revenue is generated every 1,000 views. With all the information gained from gamers about their preferences – the games itself, the platform or device gamers own, what games they would like to play – RAWG stands with better advantage in giving advertisers ease in targeting their products. In addition, the cost for platinum advertising format in RAWG costs only US$ 3 for every 1,000 views, whereas the cost in similar sites reaches about US$ 19 to 55 for the same amount of view.

Token model

RAWG has reached a total of US$ 2 million soft cap from the Crypto Bazaar Fund. This means RAWG has reached the minimum fund amount in order to continue with their projects. The hard cap from the crowdsaleis US$ 10 million, with maximal tokens generated in a total of 333,333,334 tokens for this crowdsale. The gathered fund during the crowdsale is allocated as follows: 40% for community building, 40% for product development, 10% for security information 10%, and 10% for back office. Below is how the RAWG tokens should be used. There are three parties who could use the RAWG token in this platform. They are:

1. Gamers. Gamers are given token as a reward based on their activeness and achievements acquired in a game.
2. Partner. Tokens here act as a way to lead gamers into trying merchandises or services owned by partners of RAWG – among them are deloitte.com, playrix.com, and asia.wargaming.net
3. Advertisers. The tokens act as a payment instrument to gain premium services in advertising games and videogame-related merchandise or services.
   After the crowdsale is finished and a final number of funds collected has emerged, RAWG will make an additional token with the following as its distribution:
   

Karma

As soon as gamers created an RAWG profile, it is highly advisable that they synchronize their other gaming profile on their system, be it Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation and so on with the RAWG profile. Afterward, the gamers’ Karma – special points that can be exchanged with rewards – acquired from getting achievements will be accounted for. This cycle of Karma lasted for two weeks, and at the end of a cycle the Karma points will be updated. This will determine the gamers’ ranking that will determine the amount of RAWG token they’ll receive. Naturally, a more active gamer, or gamers who acquired difficult-to-get or rare achievements will get more Karma points. After the cycle of Karma has ended in two weeks, gamers will receive a token that will be stored in a “wallet” available in the RAWG platform, and they can use it as soon as they get it.

Status project and roadmap

RAWG has been launched since 2016 and it already has a beta version, accessible directly at rawg.io. One of the development is the creation of a cross-platorm game database that contains 50,000 games. The current next plan is to conduct a crowdsale at the end of May. Those who interested are allowed and encouraged to fill the whitelistavailable. About the RAWG token – it is targeted that at the end of August, the tokens will be fully available as rewards, and advertisement sales will also be available. RAWG targeted that by this October that users will be capable of editing database and the database itself will contain 100,000 games. Furthermore, RAWG will add UGC tools (New user profile, game reviews and discussions) as well as an addition of developer and publisher’s profiles.

Another competition

There are no current competitions that own the same features as the RAWG. Let us take Abyssas a comparison. Abyss also offers blockchain as the problem solvers, with incentives given to users should they were able to bring the new user to its platform. They’ll also receive Abyss tokens for getting achievements and being active on the platform (like creating contents), but Abyss main focus is aimed towards Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games and the referral system – like a multi-level-marketing. This system will give more advantages for those who attended it first and managed to bring someone else with them. Payment for game developers who wanted to advertise their products in the platform is doable with FIAT or said Abyss token.

Meanwhile, RAWG also offered the broader and more universal search feature, specially designed to help gamers in searching multi-platform games and giving incentive or reward based upon their level of activeness in playing and the achievements they’ve got. All in all, the gamers themselves are the ones who determine the amount of reward they got, and not someone else. Also, the payment method accepted by RAWG is the RAWG token only, at least for the next couple of years. This will make the prioritized RAWG token has a higher value compared to its competitors of similar nature.
Both the Abyss and RAWG platforms have the same concept – giving a reward to their gamers – albeit with a different target and reach. Abyss focused in MMO and its crypto games whereas the RAWG focused in multi-platform game index. So, both the platform has different advantages.

Team

The RAWG team is comprised of solid, experienced individuals in gaming, media, and entertainment industries. By February, RAWG has collected US$ 2 million from their partners. The CEO, Gadji Makthiev, has 15 years of experience in gaming and media industries. He’s also the founder of Russian outlet gaming Kanobu. The co-founder,Alexey Gornostaev, is a project manager of the game Insight, one of the largest mobile game developers in Eastern Europe. Samat Galimov, the CTO, once worked in the Russian news media Meduza.
Among the executives are the advisor, they are Igor Matsanyuk – a serial entrepreneur and investor investing over 40 companies – and Vyacheslav Makarov – the Head of World of Tanks’ Product Group and the R&D head of wargaming.net, as well as co creator of World of Tanks.

Conclusion

To conclude, RAWG offers a unique concept for cross-platform videogames search. When gamers finish a game, not only they’ll receive rewards based on their activeness and achievements acquired – they’ll also receive personal recommendation of what game that matches their preferences and interests. A full-scale usage of the RAWG tokens as the method of payment for several years to come made the token having more value than others.

Written by: Panjay (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=515495)

Get more info:

https://rawg.io/
https://token.rawg.io/en/
https://twitter.com/rawgtheworld
https://t.me/RAWGeng