With 2.2 bln global gamers and $109 bln in annual sales, the gaming industry is a growing giant. Of those annual sales, $94.4 bln is derived substantially from the sale of direct-from-publisher digital goods. And gaming is expected to grow healthily as it heads toward a projected $128.5 bln by 2020.
But despite gaming’s meteoric rise, a massive untapped opportunity exists: secure and frictionless transactions of gamer-earned digital goods, the goods that gamers earn or enhance by playing the game. Gameflip believes that a solution to this issue could easily unlock a new market for gaming worth a trillion. Unfortunately, at present, gamer-earned digital goods are relegated to useless waste, leaving gamers empty-handed when they leave a game and the same goes for direct from publisher digital goods.
Regardless of how many thousands of dollars and countless hours were spent obtaining the goods, all these items’ value remains locked within the confines of each gamer account. A number of companies have attempted to address this value drain for gamers and publishers. But the proper infrastructure hasn’t been built to conduct the transaction of digital goods safely and effortlessly.
Though forums like Reddit do facilitate digital goods exchanges, they are not an ideal solution due to a lack of transparency and an abundance of fraud. The Steam Community Market presents another solution, but it only allows gamers to transact on its platform.
This is where Gameflip hopes to make its mark as a trusted online marketplace for buying and selling digital goods. Gameflip is aiming to revolutionize gaming by extending its existing and tested platform to the open and public Blockchain. This platform gives gamers true ownership and flexibility to liquidate their goods in a fraud-free, liquid ecosystem.
Capturing the opportunity
As it stands, there is no way to capture this enormous market without directly working with game publishers. Game publishers own, develop and operate 100 percent of the game, including all of the digital goods generated within that game. They are the gatekeepers of the digital goods, and there’s no way to move the goods onto the Blockchain without their active participation.
They are also wary about integrating a new technology - especially one that’s as new as the Blockchain - that could put their current $94.4 bln digital goods revenue at risk. It’s clear that the threshold to partner with publishers is high.
Gameflip, however, is confident that they have a team capable of partnering with global game publishers to successfully build and scale a crypto-token and decentralized ecosystem for gamers. The Gameflip team believes their track record speaks for itself and believe they are well-positioned to secure the publisher partnerships necessary to realizing this massive opportunity, for several reasons.
Current thriving platform
Gameflip has invested millions of dollars to build their platform, and it’s already functioning. They already have a two million-member community that transacts millions of dollars in sales per month. Gameflip is a living case study that shows publishers not only the demand for transacting digital goods, but also its massive revenue opportunities.
Unlike other gaming goods companies trying to utilize the Blockchain, Gameflip is simply moving an already existing community and platform onto the Blockchain to take the next step toward delivering fraud-free transactions. Backed by smart contracts, the FLIP (FLP) token will enable gamers to buy and sell digital goods safely on any centralized or decentralized marketplace.
Gaming and publishing experts
The Gameflip team has gaming and entrepreneurism in its DNA. Each team member has more than 10 years in the gaming industry, and the team has more than a century of collective experience architecting, launching and operating free-to-play gaming platforms.
The Gameflip team built Aeria Games, a $100 mln game publishing business, which helps give them unique insight into the challenges facing publishers. Building on this knowledge, the team believes they have built a flexible and secure solution that makes it easy for publishers to both place their digital goods on the Blockchain and actively control what gets transacted in their decentralized ecosystem using FLIP.
Established network
When it comes to networks and relationships, the Gameflip team says they have connections everywhere, including ongoing relationships with companies like Disney, Ubisoft, Nexon, NHN, Sony, Bigpoint and GREE. The advisors to Gameflip are founders of Electronic Arts, GREE and Bigpoint, giving Gameflip even more access to executives at top global game publishers.
As Gameflip prepares to launch their Initial Coin Offering for the FLIP token, there is already evidence of significant interest from gamers, publishers and investors alike. By bringing more publishers onto the Blockchain, Gameflip hopes the snowball effect will continue driving FLIP into the spotlight.
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