ICO Review: RAWG

RAWG is a video game discovery platform that converts skills into goods and services. With an already live Beta and partners including Deloitte, Playrix, Wargaming.net, as well as others from the video gaming industry, RAWG has raised half their goal of $10,000,000.

With another $5,000,000 to go on their token sale, RAWG seems like an interesting prospect to take on. Although the video game asset market is a popular field in blockchain right now, RAWG appears to have already gained some traction. Here’s what we think about their whitepaper:

The Basics

RAWG states that they’re being developed to solve two problems:

1. There are no popular cross-platform recommendation services for gamers.
2. Gamers find it difficult to be awarded for their hobby while they spend quite a bit of time on time and skill.

Furthermore, their purpose in development is to:

1. Answer the question “what to play next” based on user profiles.
2. Let gamers obtain bonuses for their skills in the games they play.
3. Provide advertisers with access to gamers and means of targeting based on actual interests of users.
4. Creates a blockchain-based ecosystem that unites all gamers across platforms.

The main source of revenue for RAWG will stem from direct advertising as well as promoting partners’ goods and services. Buying into their tokens will present the opportunity to advertise at a 30 percent discount.

Finally, RAWG also notes that they’ve added over 50,000 games in the first three months of operation from all the major platforms (Steam, PlayStation Store, App Store, etc.), as well as raised $2,000,000 in funding from Altair Capital.

Market Opportunities

RAWG’s primary market opportunity relies on the ever-growing market of video gaming. They point out that most US gamers play on at least two devices, with the number of gamers growing exponentially. RAWG also points out the expanding market potential of advertising, which is how they plan to generate revenue.

The main market they aim to penetrate in gaming is rewarding gamers. Here’s what they list as current revenue models for them:

1. Streaming, which is a donation based model where players broadcast themselves.
2. Creating walkthroughs.
3. Podcasts or video blogs.
4. Gaming competitions.
5. Feature articles, reviews, and interview.s
6. Testing games.
7. Rewards programs, which include SwagBucks, PlayAndWin, Exodus 3000, Corporationmaster, and Second Life.

RAWG notes that the disadvantages of those services include that users are limited in their choices.

How RAWG Works

Currently, RAWG is an online database of games from popular platforms with a recommendation system. They compare it to IMDb for games, including a personal library, recommendation system, social service, and calendar of events/releases. It’s built as a web app that utilizes ReactJS, Node.js, Python 3, Django, and Github.

As noted above, RAWG is being developed to help gamers both decide what to play next, as well as be rewarded for their efforts. Their goal is to build a cross-platform ecosystem where gamers will:

1. Spend time tracking their collection.
2. Share impressions.
3. Allow brands to help users find entertainment.
4. Award users for skill.

RAWG lists their starting price for advertising at $3 per 1,000 views, which they note is within market price for similar formats.

Highlights of Their Service

RAWG lists the following as highlights of their service:

Growing Game Database

With over 50,000 games already added, RAWG aims to keep adding to their collection via a service that automatically adds information about new games and how users play them.

Personalized Recommendations

RAWG uses a system based on Big Data to aggregate recommendations to users. The service is designed to not only not about games, but how players interact with them.

Gaming Community

Users can share their experiences and impressions from games with each other, which will help in providing more accurate recommendations. RAWG also plans on developing influencer profiles, Q&A systems, and personalized feeds.

Targeting And Advertising Tools

Finally, RAWG plans to implement an advertising system based on the CPM model, enabling audience targeting by socio-demographic parameters, users interests, and game interaction data. This will let RAWG target advertising more precisely than other gaming services, as well as will only count real views (not those disrupted by ad blockers).

Our Thoughts

Although a crowded market, RAWG seems to have a pretty good grasp on the video game industry with a model that’s already in motion. Their growth with the number of games on their platform and users already engaged is impressive. While looking at the idea of having a marketplace where people are rewarded for their gaming on the blockchain from afar looks promising, a little more detail on how this process specifically would work might be helpful. However, despite their shortcomings, RAWG is still pretty impressive.

Overall, if you believe that either the idea of a rewards-based marketplace for gaming is a smart idea, then RAWG might not be a bad move.