PLAIR: Phase One — Propelling the Amateur eSports Scene into its Full Potential
There are approximately 2.2 billion gamers in the world. It is estimated that by the end of 2021, gamers will consist of ~35% of the world’s population (currently ~28%). Gaming is the third most popular activity in the world, and will soon be the most popular. Esports, however, is still in the earliest stages of its existence, when you look at the long term scope of the industry, and how quickly the technology within it advances.
The global Esports audience hit 335 million in 2017, and it’s estimated that number saw 380 million in 2018. These numbers will of course continue to rise every year. Esports are not going anywhere. The eSports industry has only seen its earliest days so far.
But what about Amateur Esports?
Amateur Esports is a very fragmented industry. There is no universal reputation in it. You could become the champion of all your local amateur, or university Esports leagues, but your reputation is limited to those leagues. Go to a league in another area? You’re just a new guy. Not only that, but you’re also competing with basically ZERO exposure. Most professional organizations do not scout players from these leagues. If they do, it’s usually only the biggest events that they will attend.
Another issue with the amateur scene, is the lack of a coaching market. Amateur teams don’t have access to gaming coaches (Yes, those are a thing), which depending on the game, can be crucial to making it to the big leagues (and I’m sure >90% of the people in amateur tournaments have dreams of going pro). Not that having a coach will suddenly mean you’re good, or that your team will make it anywhere in the local leagues or on the internet (and if they try for the latter, they can risk their personal information).
Since there’s little scouting done, if a gamer was actually good enough that they would make it to the pros by becoming the top at whatever university/local league they’re in, then they’d have an easier time just trying to find a team and sign up for Division 1 tournaments over at MLG, for example. While online competitions do provide great practice and tournament experience, the truest test of skill comes at the live Pro-Circuit events. It doesn’t matter how your online and local performances are. Your status as a pro-gamer will only be cemented when you’re live in front of thousands (and potentially of course millions watching at home).
So what’s the point of trying to make it in amateur leagues, if when it comes to breaking into the MLG scene, there’s little to no benefit to gamers? The answer is: There’s no point. Amateur Esports is, as I said, fragmented. Un-united. The amateur scene provides nothing but practice, a prize, & minor bragging rights for >99% of the people participating, there is no place that is safe for gamers’ personal information, and there is no marketplace for coaches (which will be in more & more demand as time goes on, and current pro-gamers begin to lose their skill with age, or fall out of the spotlight and seek coaching jobs to remain in the industry).
So what would Amateur Esports look like, if these issues and fragmentations had solutions?
More Importantly, what if said solutions were right around the corner?
Plair is just inches away from launching the first phase of their three-phase plan (which you can read about in their whitepaper): The Decentralized Matchmaking & Tournament Platform. Plair’s focus will not only be to use this platform to capture and promote the amateur eSports industry within the gaming circuit, but also to provide a solution to each of the aforementioned issues currently plaguing eSports (and gamers in general).
There are very few online amateur eSports tournament platforms that exist today. Every single one is a flawed version of what they could be. None of them cater to the player’s full expectation. One of the most popular ones today is Toornament, but they suffer from many issues. They don’t have community regulation, yet their own means of regulation fails immensely. They are at constant risk of having their users’ personal information stolen. There is also a limit to how far they can grow, because they are limited by fiat currency. People are much less likely to use a tournament platform if the rewards are in a currency that is hard to obtain in-hand in their country.
Problems like these, and others such as confusing user interfaces and potential fraud, have all contributed to the prevention of current platforms from reaching their full potential. Some also lack certain quality and features for good gaming experience. It’s problems like this that Plair is here to solve for us. Plair is building a full gaming ecosystem that properly supports the users.
Using Plair, gamers will see the benefits of:
- A Tournament Platform that serves the users to the furthest extents
- Automated, Trust-less Matchmaking and Verification Systems & Community Regulation
- Controlling Your Own Information
- A Marketplace for Gaming/eSports Coaches
Tournament Platform
As you can see in the demo video linked above, Phase One of Plair’s plans is the tournament platform that will change amateur eSports for the better, and propel it to its full potential. On Plair, anyone will be able to create or join tournaments for their favourite games (at launch, DOTA2, CS:GO, and PUBG will be available). These tournaments will vary in details, from things like the minimum PLA buy-in for participants, 1st/2nd/etc prize amounts, and many other alterable terms. This platform is not limited to individual users either. It can be used by any major organization to host tournaments. Gaming brands of various types can sponsor tournaments to promote themselves. Even something small, like local recreational centres or schools, could host tournaments on their platform. Thanks to the MPP, and optional private setting for tournaments, I could even sponsor weekly tournaments for local kids in my area, to help keep them off the streets for a couple hours a week. If I was a wealthy, giving individual, I could host daily tournaments for them. The possibilities are endless with Plair.
You will be able to chat with friends, build teams, challenge other teams, and win tournaments as you build your team’s way to the top. You will even have the option of purchasing STEAM points, gaming merchandise, and even GPU’s with your tournament winnings, directly from the Plair Store.
Automated, Trust-less Matchmaking and Verification Systems & Community Regulation
All matches initiated on Plair are automatically verified by the community: anyone will be able to run JS nodes on their desktops to earn PLA, the underlying currency of the Plair platform, through processing match data and reporting game results. It’s like how some people “mine” Bitcoin, only when you “mine” PLA, you’re actually providing some sort of benefit to someone else through match verification.
This is the digital version of competing in front of a packed stadium, where everyone watching is the collective, unbiased referee. Since match verifiers are also randomly selected, there is no room for fraud. The following is taken from page 18 of the Plair whitepaper:
A decentralized result-verification system is beneficial because it is resilient against game API policy changes, fraud from subjective reporting, and other interferences or risks. Having a decentralized result-verification system will also broaden the game list for peer-to-peer tournaments. If a game publisher decides to make changes to their API policy, Plair will not be affected by this because we are collecting data through a network of decentralized nodes that help verify each and every match. All PLA holders have the right to help determine match outcomes by witnessing matches and voting in the tribunal pool.
A match result can either be contested or uncontested. A match is contested if the opponents disagree with the result of the match. A match is uncontested if the opponents agree with the result of the match. Whether a match is contested or uncontested, it needs to be confirmed by two observers.
Our network nodes automatically connect to game APIs to cross-reference game data to make sure that there is no fraud. All uncontested matches will be automatically processed.
Controlling Your Own Information
In this day and age, your information is very valuable, and often very vulnerable. If your info is not being sold by the people you gave it to, it’s still being targeted by malicious entities who want to sell it. With Plair, YOU will control who has access to your information. The following is taken from page 22 of the Plair whitepaper:
The use of Distributed Data Vending (DDV) within Plair enables a platform where users are fully in control of their data while being able to leverage their passions for profit. DDV allows the owners to opt in and out of opportunities, restrict public data, and truly control their own profiles while providing the Plair protocol the ability to formulate their encrypted streams. Through DDV and VeVID, Plair can have a true log of individual input, allowed permissions, and voicing within a public domain. By using VeVID, Plair can become a completely KYC-serviced platform that operates globally. Mandated by KYC, Plair can truly be cross-platform and do cross-game analytics and profiles while centralizing community opportunities through decentralized technologies. VeVID does not outright eliminate online anonymity; rather, if issues arise within a community that require individual removal, VeVID allows the protocol to provide views and offer moderation logs and rulings to moderating parties while also hiding user identity. VeVID also enables streamlined payment processing and reward distribution services across any content.
A Marketplace for Gaming/eSports Coaches
Personally, I am most excited for this because there is no real alternative to this. This could be the catalyst for an entire new sub-industry within the gaming industry. You were probably just as surprised as I was when you first heard that parents were spending up to $35 an hour on Fortnite coaches for their kids. As time goes on, professional gamers are going to gradually lose their skills: their depth perception and reaction time will fade, and all the years of staring at screens for far too long will catch up to their eyes, causing a disadvantage. These gamers will, without a doubt, turn to coaching to maintain income when this happens. Plair will be the first marketplace for this.
If a player becomes good enough, and achieves high ranking (let’s take the example from the whitepaper, Gold III from League of Legends), this player is dubbed a “Veteran Player” (VP). Veteran Players can offer their services as a coach to other Plair users, at the agreed upon fee of course. It will be a recurring cycle, the Veterans will train the lower-skilled players all their way to the top of their potential. These players may in turn become VPs themselves and decide to make some extra money training lower-skilled players, and so on…
If you want to read more about this aspect of Plair, I suggest reading the “Player Reputation Score (PRS)” section on Pages 19-20 of the Plair Whitepaper, as well as “Lessons and Coaching” on Page 20.
Don’t have the money for a coach at the moment? No worries, Plair also uses Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence to study the top gamers, compare them to you, and give you tips on how to improve based on the analysis (see Page 23 of the Plair whitepaper).
So how will they obtain users?
Well, for one thing, there’s Plair’s Strategic Partners:
aXeso5: Axeso5 is the largest video games publisher in Latin America with over 14+ Million users across their entire publishing platform. They also have a massive cyber cafe network of over 7000+ cafes. Through this partnership, Plair will be rolled out into all 7,000+ Axeso5 affiliated cybercafés. Axeso5 have also developed their own payment platform that can be integrated into Plair for LATAM in the future.
Global eSports: Global eSports aims to be the biggest technology entertainment ecosystem for eSports in Asia. They own several professional eSports teams, including PandaCute, the number 1 all-girl League of Legends team in Hong Kong, and also Team Razer.
Bitrep: Founded by former twitch executives. Bitrep is a full-service talent representation and marketing agency based in Singapore. Led by experienced and proven successful executives from Silicon Valley and Southeast Asia, they are bringing all aspects of the gaming eco-system to the next level. Bitrep currently represents influencers across multiple platforms with a following of over 50M fans. “Bitrep is a strong representation for Plair’s market influencer development. We believe that the partnership between Plair and Bitrep will lead to larger developments within the eSports influencer and marketing space. We look forward to a long lasting business partnership.
Next Generation ESports (NGE): Plair and NGE will collaborate in potential offline Plair tournaments, as well as broadcasting. NGE is one of North America’s largest eSports content providers, working with some of the industry’s largest game publishers.
Asia City League (ACL): ACL is the largest offline tournament in Asia for amateurs. Players sign up and play online to compete for spots in their city. The final tournament will be held in a physical location where we will celebrate the emergence of the ultimate champion of ACL. The tournaments will be held in 4 cities across Hong Kong and China to start with and will feed their users into Plair.
Safe Haven: “By using Safe Haven’s tech users will have a seamless transition into the blockchain world by giving them tools that work similar to current transaction tools that users are already used to working with. Simply put Safe Haven’s tech will ease the transition of blockchain into gaming.”
On top of these, and the other partners Plair has amassed, 20% of the PLA supply is reserved for Enterprise & Title Partners (Blizzard, Epic Games, Riot Games, you get the idea). If you get them onboard, you don’t need to do much work to get their users onboard.
So how does Phase One lead into Phase Two?
Phase Two, is a decentralized streaming service that rewards everyone involved, from the content creators to the viewers, for their contribution to network. This has to come second, and the reason why is really simple:
If Plair launched streaming first, then they would be some no-name streaming service. How do you convince streamers to leave their current platform for that? You don’t. Here’s what you do: You get them streaming tournaments on the platform they already use (twitch, youtube, whatever). You build up your brand name as something they all know. Then, you release streaming within the platform. Instead of “no-name streaming service”, it’s now ‘Hey, now you can stream right on Plair, that thing we all already use for tournaments”. Couple that with the fact that twitch and youtube are not well-liked by their users, due to things like censorship issues, demonetization issues, and in youtube’s case, forcing their political views onto people.
Put simply, it’s like trying to sell an upgraded version of a product you sell to a current client, VS. trying to sell a brand new product to a company that’s never heard of you, and already uses an alternative they’re somewhat-okay with.
And where does this “PLA” come in to play?
PLA is the underlying digital utility token. It is the means of value transfer between users of the Plair platform, as well as the incentive for people to verify matches.
There are several different uses of the PLA token within the ecosystem. The list grows constantly, as Plair’s CEO Pat Tang, says himself in this 42 minute-long AmA, which I really do suggest watching if you have any interest in the future of gaming:
At launch, the uses of PLA in the tournament platform will be comprised of:
- Playing matches
- Voting in the tribunal
- Receiving coaching lessons by Plair veterans
- Gaining access to data analytics of players’ performances & tips to improve
- E-commerce products and services (e.g. Zenox, MSI, Razer)
- Sponsoring challenges
- Purchasing Quests (see page 19 of the whitepaper)
In future phases* of the platform:
- In future iterations of Plair, PLA will be used to:
- Pay donation or subscriptions to content providers
- Pay to have your stream and content protected through digital intellectual property services
- Pay to rent cloud computing machines
- Pay to have players conduct reviewed
- Sponsors pay to buy ad space
The ways to obtain PLA on the tournament platform will be comprised of:
- Winning competitive matches with other players on the platform
- Defeating purchased quests
- Referring a friend to play on the Plair platform
- Verifying matches by running the desktop node
- Participating in the tribunal pool by running the desktop node
- Participating in events hosted by sponsors, celebrities, or Plair
- Wallet-to-wallet transfer from another player
In future phases* of the platform:
- In future iterations of Plair, PLA can be acquired by:
- Lending bandwidth
- Lending CPU
- Lending GPU
- Streaming and content viewership
- Using the platform as a milemarker for CDN (everyone opts in automatically for this but can opt out)
*To understand what these future phases are, read the Plair whitepaper. I will cover the other phases in future posts.
I think my point has been made: Plair has much more to offer than all existing competition, and it not only solves several issues that currently exist in the gaming and eSports industries, it even creates new markets that have not yet existed. I don’t want to put too much into just one post. I will likely be making many more posts on Plair, so do stay tuned.
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