EIPlatform Vision
Traditional e-sport promotion has relied on expensive marketing agencies which act as intermediaries between brands and e-sport gamers. These marketing companies are notoriously expensive and lack awareness of what e-sport fans truly seek. It's not uncommon for popular Twitch streamers to not be endorsed by any brand, even though it's obvious that it would be beneficial for a brand to do so.
EIPlatform aims to solve this issue by running AI-backed data analysis on all participants of the e-sports market in order to find the gamers and streamers that fans enjoy watching the most. These identified streamers/gamers can then be directly contacted by brands. The utility of the EIP token (called EMI, strangely enough) will be that brands will need to use EIP in order to avail of these services. The entire EIPlatform will be based on the blockchain, so the data from all participants on the marketplace is guaranteed to be secure from tampering.
Brands can also offer incentive for viewers to perform certain tasks, such as perhaps subscribing to one of their endorsed streamers. They can also request feedback from the community by offering rewards for doing so. Any feedback received can help brands ascertain the ideal gamers that they should endorse and promote.
Target Market & Platform
EIP will be targeting both streamers/viewers and brands/promoters. In essence, the platform will be divided into two separate areas - one that will be of interest to brands, and one that will be of interest to e-sport fans. Both segments of the EIP Platform will make use of the EMI token for various functionality.
For example, users will earn EMI tokens by watching streamers that brands endorse on the EIP platform. The brands can allocate a certain number of EMI tokens to be distributed to viewers for watching one of their streamers. In this way advertising of a certain endorsed gamer can happen directly brand-to-player, bypassing the need to use traditional third party marketing agencies. The benefit to brands is huge since they save a lot of costs on administrative fees and wastage, since a lot of the fees they pay to marketing agencies are wasted on expenses completely unrelated to acquiring viewers of their endorsed gamers. The benefit to gamers is obvious - no longer must they be coerced into watching streamers via ads, instead they'll be directly rewarded for doing so on the EIP platform.
EIP will also allow users to subscribe to various services and purchase goods within the confines of their platform. They can also donate money to streamers in the form of EMI tokens. The possibilities for EIP on the user-end are nearly limitless, with plans by the company to potentially allow betting agencies to also participate on the platform. If this takes off, I can see big things happening with EIP, since trusted betting platforms for e-sports are hard to come by.
In addition to acquiring AI-driven market data intelligence on gamers, brands will have access to numerous other features when using the platform. Brands will be able to directly communicate with fans of their endorsed streamers and offer customized messages and personalized interactions. They can also use the platform to offer various incentives to users to follow or watch their endorsed streamers. In essence, EIP will serve as both a data intelligence platform for brands, in addition to a direct-to-gamer marketing platform.
Roadmap
EIP will be under heavy development after the ICO, with launch planned Q1 2019.
ICO & EMI Tokens
The utility of EMI tokens is vast, since they will be required by gamers to purchase services, subscriptions and products, and by brands in order to conduct advertising and run giveaways or loyalty programmes. In essence, every transaction of value on the EIP platform will make use of EMI tokens.
The main crowdsale will be launching June 18th. The soft cap is set at $6,000,000 USD and the hard cap at $60,000,000 USD. Base exchange rate during the ICO will be 1 EMI = $0.1 USD. Total supply will depend upon amount raised, which can be calculated as being between 60,000,000 and 600,000,000 EMI.
45% of funding will go toward R&D, 20% to marketing, and the rest to operation and legal support.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that e-sports are set to become a legitimate mainstream sport. E-sports are currently the fastest growing type of sport in the world. And yet, numerous issues exist in directly connecting brands and players, most notable of which are numerous middlemen. If the EIP platform reaches its roadmap and goals, and becomes widely accepted by both gamers and brands, these middlemen will be effectively eliminated, meaning more funds will be spent within the e-gaming industry, and less on third-party agencies.
In my opinion EIP seems like a promising project, however it is ambitious. It will require both brands and players to adopt it in order for it to take off. The most important element I see in order for this project to be a success is for the AI-driven market intelligence data gatherer to be successful and highly desired by brands. If the platform can provide analytics to brands that traditional marketing agencies cannot, then I believe EIP has a good chance of reaching its goals; if not, then success is less likely.
One of the strongest points of EIP is that most members of the team have been professional or endorsed gamers themselves in the past, playing at highly competitive levels. In fact, it was their experience as professional gamers that made them see the numerous issues facing e-sports. No one would be better equipped to see the various issues facing e-sports than them. However, how they will implement this experience into a blockchain business remains to be seen.
All in all I think this project has a good vision, but a medium level of risk.
Links
Website
Whitepaper
Telegram
BCT Announcement
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://icoveteran.com/eiplatform/