It’s easy to pigeonhole cryptocurrency enthusiasts, but when it comes to blockchain gaming pioneers, many dislike free-to-play mechanics.
For BitGuild CEO Jared Psigoda, it’s not a defining trait, however.
Game developers are fascinated by blockchain, 100%
Indeed, his criticism is measured. Perhaps that’s not surprising given he was CEO of Chinese F2P PC and mobile developer Reality Squared Games for seven years.
“As a gamer, I wasn’t super happy with monetization trends, and as a CEO of a listed company, I think it became a case of game design versus monetization,” he says.
Which, in a roundabout way brings us to BitGuild, a blockchain-based gaming platform Psigoda hopes will provide the development community (and gamers) with new game design – and monetization – opportunities.
A new opportunity
“Game developers are fascinated by blockchain, 100%,” he says.
“F2P gaming has reached a not fun place. The market is monopolized by big companies who have the marketing to succeed.”
That’s not to say blockchain gaming is currently a viable alternative but Psigoda passionately believes it is a future, if not the future, for the industry.
“I remember taking to other developers in 2009, 2010 when the first wave of F2P games were released in Asia,” he recalls.
“I got laughed at for making these simple free web games, which had 2D graphics and used Flash. There was no reason for the big established companies to take it seriously and it’s the same now with blockchain gaming.”
And that suits Psigoda and BitGuild just fine.
Having just closed the ICO for its ERC20 PLAT token, which raised $14.5 million, the globally distributed company – which as well as China has staff in Hong Kong, the Middle East and the US – is working hard to build out and launch.
It hopes to release a preliminary version of its portal in May, with the self-developed BitGuild: The Game, the item wallet and auction house due in Q2. The first wave of third party games are expected by the end of 2018.
But that’s the easy part.
BitGuild it and they will come
Given the most played blockchain game CryptoKitties only has around 1,000 daily active players compared to millions of DAUs for the top mobile F2P games, a prolonged education process may be required to turn gamers into blockchain gamers.
Psigoda argues BitGuild already has a sizeable community to build on, however.
BitGuild has just closed a $14.5 million ICO to build out its platform
“We have 14,000 followers on Twitter, 13,000 on Telegram, and in time we will be rolling out a more traditional marketing and UA campaign,” he says.
Throw in those opportunities for game developers to exercise their creative juices and come up with something novel, all within in an ecosystem like BitGuild in which there are no Apples and Googles to take 30% of their revenue, and perhaps the analogy with F2P gaming in 2010 isn’t so far-fetched.
You can keep up-to-date with BitGuild via its website.
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