The Next Evolution Begins
In the last two articles I’ve over viewed Game Loot Network’s blue ocean strategy and how it solves challenges and eliminates pain points in the mobile gaming space. As promised, this week we are going to unveil Game Loot Network’s next evolution — by far the biggest one of all.
From the beginning, our vision has been to create the ultimate gaming community, bringing gamers and developers together. You may hear a phrase like “ultimate gaming community” in taglines, slogans and marketing pieces, but measured against what we’re actually doing, all of it proves to be empty, meaningless marketing speak. For us, the operative word in this phrase is “community.” I’ve always believed that if we could treat BOTH gamers and developers as collaborating partners, the inevitable result would be massive success.
We’ve already proven the concept and platform needed to make this a reality, one that is centered on social gaming where gamers can compete in head-to-head and tournament play for real-world prizes. We’ve also launched our developers program, enabling developers to bring their games and content to the community and share in the revenues. We’ve even created a first in mobile gaming, where gamers share the revenues from those they bring in to the community through our Game Ambassador rewards program. So what now?
THE GAME CHANGER
Unfortunately, what we’ve done to date isn’t enough. In short, we need to shift control from our company to the users within our community to truly practice what we have been preaching the last several years. This is a complete paradigm shift for our company AND gaming community that will mutually benefit all of us, so before I tell you how we will do this, it’s important to give you the reasoning behind this shift.
Let’s look briefly at the biggest community of them all, Facebook. You might think this is the perfect example of the ultimate community, but let’s think about who really “controls” it. Facebook is one of the largest corporate entities in history and is currently worth over $500 billion. Their value was built and is based upon every person in the community. Facebook simply provides and controls the community’s platform. On the surface, it may seem like the members themselves control Facebook’s value, and that is partially true. However, Facebook controls how the content is displayed and every bit of data that its members provide within the community. This data is then matched with advertisers, which Facebook monetizes at a rate of billions of dollars per year. Of course, they do this without sharing a dime with the people who provide their data, their content and others they bring into the community. So, who really has control?
The real question for us is, how do we shift control from the company to the users while reinforcing trust — the kind of trust that can be proven and audited by the members of the community? Well, our methodology and technology has been proven over the past several years and we are 100% confident that this is the best way for all of us to accomplish our mission. Together.
A TRUE COMMUNITY REQUIRES A SHIFT TO BLOCKCHAIN DECENTRALIZATION
Hearing the term “blockchain,” some of you may be jumping up and down with excitement while others are scratching your heads. For those that don’t know what blockchain technology is, you can learn more HERE, but to keep this article at a digestible length, I’ll assume you know the fundamental benefits of blockchain technology. Here, I’m just going to focus on the specific benefits to Game Loot Network’s gaming community.
First and foremost, blockchain technology truly allows us to begin the process of transitioning from a centralized to a decentralized community shifting control from the company to the community. Secondly, blockchain greatly improves the security of the community as it is exponentially more resistant to outside security threats. Decentralized systems are much more expensive to attack or damage because they lack “central” points that can be attacked at a much lower cost. In my somewhat bias opinion, a social gaming community and environment is the perfect use case for blockchain technology for several reasons:
1) It prevents the company from defrauding or manipulating the community to its own benefit. It also decentralizes asset ownership and management, making it easier for users to trade assets outside of the games themselves.
2) It prevents users from colluding with or against other users. In a gaming community, trust and dependability are the most critical elements. Losing either, damages our reputation and the community suffers.
3) It allows us to begin phasing out intermediaries such as Facebook, Google and Apple. They currently take up to a 30% share of revenues generated in their gaming environments, which is incredibly high. Our continued “Blue Ocean” approach will initially enable us to leverage these intermediaries to build the community while focusing on our long-term goal of separating the community from these eco-systems.
4) Longer-term plans for the community include eSports and trustless wagering for skill based games. Blockchain technology and more specifically, smart contracts are the perfect solution to further enhance and lock-in the community’s reputation and trust for these future applications. Further, our roadmap also takes us to a place where games are hosted in a strong federated network, providing a viable alternative to Google’s Play Store or Apple’s App Store.
It’s difficult to really convey how critical this transition is, not just for Game Loot Network but to the gaming industry as a whole. At least on paper, there are currently a few ambitious gaming projects underway in various stages of development. These range from impressively outlined white papers to those just beginning their first stages of development. Some will succeed, some will fail and some might not even get out of the starting gate.
POSITIONED TO SUCCEED
What I can say with confidence is that we’re ready. Our team has invested over $7 million in platform development over the past several years and has already generated over $5 million in revenue during a non-blockchain beta period in only 7 months! This beta period not only proved our concept, but also identified critical weaknesses and vulnerabilities in our centralized platform. A decentralized blockchain solves all of these problems and is a mandatory solution to build a globally scalable and blue ocean solution.
For those that know a lot about blockchain technology, scalability concerns are likely popping up. However, a tremendous amount of brainpower has forecasted the growth and daily transaction numbers. We’ve carefully thought through several solutions that will allow us to scale as quickly as needed. I will outline those solutions in future posts or you can review them in our technical whitepaper.
MUCH MORE THAN A WHITEPAPER. A PROVEN METHOD.
Why do we need a whitepaper? Well, you guessed it. As part of beginning this next evolution, we are in the final stages of preparation to do a token sale (also referred to as an ICO or ITO — Initial Token (Coin) Offering). But this is not an ICO based on a hope, a prayer and a whitepaper. The ICO space has become littered with many of those types of offerings.
Our token offering is based on what we and others see as a true “Utility Token” that will be used in multiple ways by users. Game Loot Network has taken the exact opposite approach to our token offering that most take. Rather than carefully crafting a website and whitepaper over a couple of months, we spent the last several years forming strategic partnerships, building the platform, alpha and beta testing the systems AND generating significant revenues prior to our token offering. After all of this, we now know the exact remaining steps needed to accomplish our mission — and we are really looking forward to doing it while making this transition to a true community — one that is transparent, rewarding and most importantly fun!
Stay tuned over the next few weeks. I can’t wait to unveil the next steps we are going to take together. One promise I can confidently make … it won’t be boring. 😊
Lance Baker
President and Founder of Game Loot Network
