Decentralized Digital Game Distribution Platform

Introduction

There is a large gap in gaming industry between big and small companies (game developing studios) regarding their financial capability to drive their games further once they are released with the help of marketing. While big companies and leading brands can afford to do that, smaller usually can't and therefore their video game gets often left behind. Which is a shame, really. This is becoming a big problem and EON Foundation is aiming to solve it with their innovative approach.

The team decided way back to develop EON Protocol platform, which is a decentralized digital game distribution platform, where players of all sorts can discover, share and play games. There is also a social component, which allows them to engage with one another and communicate. The platform is backed up by innovative blockchain technology and with EOT token being the core component of their ecosystem, which is also used as incentive system for rewards.

Which Problems Is EON Protocol Solving?

When it comes to digital video game distribution, one problem always persists, which is how to deal with payments. Some distribution platforms only support local currencies in the countries where they are based. Transactions on the Ethereum (maybe even EOS in the future) blockchain are quick, safe and efficient as the payment can be sent from one part of the world to another in matter of seconds. That will also allow the use of many different cryptocurrencies.

As mentioned before, the promotion used for the game in order to be discovered and played demands a high price to pay, quite literally. With the help of decentralized platform and smart contracts, the applications will run as they are and without any third party involvement. So, they are going to cut out the middle-man, which is frankly unnecessary.

What Are the Platform's Key Components?

The key components of the platform are:

Referral System - Serving as new user acquisition mechanism with users having their own referral smart contract stored on the blockchain with auditable activities
Game Discovery System - Discovering, playing and purchasing games with multiple cryptocurrencies supported for in-game payments
Game Community - Socializing for gamers with profile pages for users as well as activities overview and in-game achievements
Developer System - Updating games, configuring referral smart contracts and setting up rewards for different in-game activities

The architecture used for the platform will be a mix of on-chain and off-chain models, utilizing the Ethereum network. There will also be a possibility to integrate with EON Protocol SDK in order to set up the rewards for gamers.

Token and Sale Details

Ticker: EOT (ERC20 utility token)
Total Supply: 2,100,000,000 EOT (circulating supply gradually increased)
ICO Token Price: 1 EOT = 0.028 USD
Hard Cap: 15,000,000 USD
Whitelist Date: July 3 - July 15 (KYC needed)

Distribution

10% for early supporters, advisors and initial partners
10% for incentives for team with 4 year vesting period
20% for EON Foundation (future R&D, marketing and community development) in lockup
30% for incentives of community members on the platforms (both gamers and developers)
30% token sale

Some of the Team Members from EON Foundation

Aron Lyu - Former Product Lead at Bytedance USA and early bitcoin adopter with experience in growth of innovative products
Tao Hu - Serial Entrepreneur and Early Employee of Oculus (acquired by Facebook)
Mark Nedzelskii - Early investor in Ethereum with ICO proficiency

Advisors:

Feng Li - Early investor of Coinbase & Ripple and Founding Partner of FreeS Fund
Dr. Michael Zyda - Founding Director of USD GamePipe Laboratory and Consultant of White House Office
Anshul Dhawan - Co-founder of Equally and Former Product Lead at Zynga

Important Dates on their Roadmap

Q2-Q3 2018: EOT token integrated into CryptoAlpaca game and Proof-of-Concept and prototype development
Q1 2019: EON Protocol platform web version is launched
Q3 2019: EON Protocol platform mobile version is launched

Conclusion and Opinion

I, for one, am very excited about this upcoming platform since I have been a gamer from the day I could walk. I have always questioned myself what could be done to cut down some of the prices that gamers pay for video games. Well, cutting out the middle-man surely would bring some fresh air and games could be cheaper (if the developers would decide so). As far as payments are concerned I have always been against using credit cards and made peace with centralized payment systems like PayPal. Nonetheless, the bitter taste stays. Because of my latest adventures in the crypto world I have become very supportive for any kind of payment processors supported by blockchain technologies. Paying for games with cryptocurrencies sounds like a bliss for me and a platform utilizing that would be a winner in my eyes. After all, most gamers tend to be tech and computer savvy and they would quickly adopt to this change. It's definitely a great sector to bring blockchain adoption closer to masses. As a gamer, I would be happy.