We have been hard at work all year long. From Alpha to Beta, and various partnership announcements, it was a prosperous year for Plair.
We wish you a happy holiday! We have big plans in 2020 in integrating blockchain technology into esports. It’s now the perfect time to look back in 2019 and see what our team has achieved.
Product Development
Alpha Stage Concluded: Plair started its Alpha recruitment progress back in Q1 2019 and the response was overwhelming. Our initial plan was to recruit 200 testers to share a pool of 50 million PLA tokens. We ended up recruiting over 1200+ community members within a week and the rewards, later on, were quintupled to 250 million PLA.
Alpha Test consisted of mainly two parts: survey and bug report submission. For survey, we collected valuable user feedback after testers explored the platform thoroughly. On the other hand, bug submission helped us to identify all the glitches, big or small. We made the platform better bit by bit with all the comments and suggestions.
We saw huge potential in Dota 2. Dota 2 just broke the record of the largest prize pool at a single esports event with USD $30 Million in The International 9) and it was the first game launched on Plair. Shortly after, we released CS:GO, the popular game with a strong user base since its debut over decades ago, on the platform.
Alpha was tested on Testnet which was concluded in August as we welcomed the launch of Mainnet Beta. Bounties were distributed back in September to reward our loyal community members.
Beta Stage Started: We celebrated the launch of Mainnet Beta, an important milestone in our platform development, in Q3 2019. For the first time ever on Plair, real PLA tokens were used in transactions and responded to various actions players took on the platform.
Shortly after Beta release, TF2 was added as our third game on the platform, offering more game varieties and possibilities for this blockchain-based platform. We continued to update Beta versions for bug fixes, update features, and add more game modes to create a better product. We paid a huge effort in improving server stability. Our approach is to build a strong foundation for the product that determines a platform’s success.
VeChain Summit 2019
A special thanks to VeChain for having us, we were at VeChain Summit 2019 and offered a chance to meet the community in person. Our booth was always packed and visitors had shown much interest in our product. We exchanged great ideas with community members on #CreatingValuableTXs. Plair CEO was featured in a panel, in case you miss it, watch it here in this official VeChain Summit 2019 live stream.
Partnership
B2B: Plair announced OceanEx, the VeChain-based digital currency exchange, as our token listing partner to boost the VeChain ecosystem. There were a series of marketing campaigns featuring PLA. (For details, refer to their social media platforms). It brought significant gains to both parties.
We also announced a partnership with Gameye, the high-performance game server solution provider. We ensured quality gaming experience for players with a stable network all around the world, even at some hard-to-reach locations. Read more about this here: https://medium.com/plairlife/plair-partners-with-gameye-to-make-use-of-their-unique-approach-to-worldwide-game-session-hosting-fd42798c825c
Esports Community Engagement: Product-wise, we invited esports teams including Digital Dynasty and Team Eazy; and other Dota 2 enthusiasts who shared their passion and insights with Plair to test the functionality of plair.gg before gameplay rolled out.
We held CS:GO show matches featuring team EMC & Nerf.HK (watch the epic match here) and Digital Dynasty (another great match to enjoy here). Other matches on Plair were featured on other esports teams and players’ social media accounts such as this match. User-contributed content facilitates our brand building and helps to educate others about the benefits of blockchain in esports settings.
Our backend records new signups other than users in the Alpha stage as we started guerilla marketing and recruiting Plair Ambassadors. More marketing plans will be carried out to promote the product to target both leisure and hardcore gamers. We predict the gaming community will engage even further once the Streaming feature is built.
Other Honorable Mentions
- Throughout 2019, our CEO Patrick Tang conducted both formal and informal AMA on Telegram for better transparency and updates.
- Plair Support (Admin Account) was added on Telegram to further facilitate communication and assist users when using the platform.
- We announced a PLA Buyback Program up to 2.4b to prefund reward reserve pool.
Our Mission In 2020
In 2020, we’ll continue to build and grow. We can’t wait to share what’s in-store for esports enthusiasts next year!
Plair development team has achieved great progress for the Create Your Own Tournament feature as we benefit greatly from the partnership with game server solution provider Gameye. Our teammates are dedicated and forward-thinking innovators who strive to offer high performance game connections and seamless experience to worldwide users. They are building a strong foundation day-and-night to fuel the platform’s growth. The updated release time of the feature is Q1 2020.
Streaming is another highlight for Plair in 2020. We mentioned earlier in our buyback article that we had finalized a Proof of Concept demo for streaming and allocated more development resources on Streaming to expand PLA use-cases.
In terms of partnerships and expanding business opportunities, Plair entered into an agreement with Axeso5 as the exclusive LATAM gaming partner in the early days. Axeso5 has been actively watching our growth throughout 2019. The video game publisher in Latin America with over 14+ Million users across their entire publishing platform and a massive cyber cafe network of over 7000+ cafes will become one of the earliest adopters of Plair as the agreement stated.
“It has been a blast building our product. We will keep the momentum going and continue to build and expand in 2020. Epic things will happen next year, empowering the esports community with revolutionary features. Plair will create the perfect platform and capture the right audience for blockchain technology to thrive.” — Patrick Tang, Plair CEO
Now, it’s time to wish you all a wonderful holiday season! May your 2020 filled with love and games:
Earn 2x PLA Rewards for CS:GO in this Holiday Season!
For this holiday season, featured CS:GO matches come with 2x Rewards. Participate in tournaments with a 2X stamp on the platform to double your PLA winnings. You may refer to the campaign details here: Holiday Season 2019 2x PLA Rewards
