Video game enthusiasts will soon reap significant rewards for playing and streaming video games. Refereum, a new blockchain startup based in San Francisco, has quickly built momentum amongst online gamers with the promise of directly connecting parties involved to transform game marketing and engagement for all.
The international games space is one of the largest media markets in the world, posting revenues of more than 100 billion dollars per year, USD. For game studios and independent developers, marketing and discoverability has long played a major role for hopeful creators looking to ensure the success of their games. Unfathomable sums are spent to market new titles, with some estimates placing the marketing budgets for AAA games such as ‘Call of Duty’ in the 9-figure range. However, money ineffective campaigns or money in the wrong places can tank a game before it’s even released, making it a wasteful and inefficient expenditure.
Meanwhile, internet personalities on YouTube and Twitch have found their calling by playing, reviewing, and generating copious amounts of content on behalf of the games they love. The ‘Let’s Play’ phenomenon has recently evolved to be more popular than televised sports, there has never before been a way for such contributors to work directly with game developers at scale to earn such marketing budgets. That may soon change, if Refereum have their way.
Refereum is a technology company founded by game industry veterans with the goal of uniting content creators and marketers using the Ethereum blockchain. Refereum bypasses traditional advertising companies and other complex, legislative or geopolitical restrictions, to funnel billions of advertising dollars into the hands of gamers and online gaming personalities.
Refereum’s team covers all different game industry perspectives from companies such as Zynga and Google. In addition to assembling an impressive team, Refereum is advised by the prominent broadcast service, Twitch, and Unity, the world’s most popular game development platform. Individual members of Refereum’s core team have made their own news recently as well. Smart contract engineer Oleksii Matiiasevych grabbed headlines in July after successfully recovering millions of dollars from hackers, following the well publicised multi-sig exploit debacle. In addition, Refereum has partnered with Ambisafe, known for their high profile work with cryptocurrency darlings such as Tether, Chronobank, and more.
Refereum is currently preparing to host an ICO, set to begin on November 13th, 2017. They will place 25,000,000 RFR utility tokens up for sale at an initial rate of $1 per token, with early adoption discounts also available for interested contributors. Gamers, developers, and blockchain enthusiasts alike are invited to subscribe to Refereum’s newsletter at Refereum.com for all future news and announcements.