Prepared by Krypto Kratos - Senior ICO Analyst at Coinstart
(I am not a financial advisor. This is not financial advice. Please DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!)*
Refereum is the first referral marketplace for games where viewers, streamers and influencers get paid to watch and play video games
True Sight: The International 2017 Finals (Dota 2)
Problem
I hate it when somebody says an industry is ‘massive’…..but the gaming industry is MASSIVE! The industry itself is worth $109B and is growing at 6% annually. eSports are an extremely lucrative market. To put it into perspective, the 2016 International Dota 2 Championship had a prize of $21M (see link above for a documentary on the 2017 Dota 2 Championships.
There are about 2.2 billion people worldwide who play games and the gaming industry spends about $20B per year in advertising and marketing. It is estimated that game developers will spend 2 – 3 times what it costs to develop a game on advertising and marketing.
YouTube and Twitch have built large gaming communities consisting of viewers, streamers and influencers. It is estimated that that top 10 influencers online have an audience of 242 million (double the most recent Superbowl audience).
The most effective form of marketing to gamers is referral marketing. Gamers are 4 times more likely to purchase something which has been recommended to them and the lifetime value of referred customers is 16% higher than any other form of customer acquisition.
Referral programs are difficult to track and there is currently no way to gauge the view / like / share / recommend conversion metrics of gamers. Often developers will manually identify influencers, approach them directly and negotiate deals with them usually in the form of sponsorship. This method is extremely inefficient from a time and economics perspective. Furthermore, it is difficult to reward influencers due to cross-border banking and geopolitical restrictions.
Solution
Refereum proposes a solution to these problems in the gaming industry by the following means:
• Establishing smart contracts between developers and gamers to record purchases and referrals.
• Developers can purchase Refereum (RFR) tokens to reward influencers and players for specific actions (i.e. – streaming a new game). These tokens can be used to purchase games or converted to fiat or other cryptocurrency.
Value Proposition
• Eliminates fraud, reduces fees and removes intermediaries which would usually increase costs for developers and reduce return for influencers.
• Anyone can participate without having to have a bank account.
• Developers can monitor and improve marketing campaigns and only pay rewards based upon performance.
• Influencers can monetise their following.
• Everyday gamers can earn RFR tokens by sharing links or simply playing games as they normally would.
• Gamers have contacted Refereum giving feedback about results using the platform, with some realising 74% of their views obtained through Refereum.
Current State of Product
An open source version of he product was launched in November 2017 and the Refereum community has grown to over 150,000 gamers. Refereum is integrated to the Twitch API (the leading video game streaming service) and offer tools by Unity (a prominent game development platform). Developers are already adding their games to the Refereum platform offering them for sale and incentivising influencer traffic.
Twitch has over 1 million unique broadcasters who produce 6 million videos / month. These are watch by over 45 million unique gamers each month who watch content for an average of 1.5+ hours / day.
Unity is the most used game ‘engine’ and has the largest market share of developer use. Unity games have over 5 billion times on over 2.4 billion unique devices. Unity will provide a simple ‘one-click’ tool for developers to implement Refereum tools in their games.
The Refereum team have plans to expand into other marketing and eCommerce industries in a similar manner to the gaming industry. Possible areas of expansion include entertainment, retail, fitness, beauty and travel.
Roadmap
Team
The team’s credentials in the gaming and technology sectors are impressive. They boast members with experience at Unity, EA, IGN, Zynga, Ubisoft and Google as well as cryptographers from Chronobank and Polybius.
Founder – Dylan Jones
Dylan has experience developing games at Facebook Kixeye (among others) as well as being an analytics consultant at Unity. In January 2015 he co-founded Gamenest, a co-working space for game developers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
CTO – Alistair Doulin
Alistair has over 15 years in software / game development and was the director of Opticode as well as the Director / CTO of Bane Games.
Business Development - Sloane Earl
Sloane is the Business Development Manager of Plastic Wax, an in-game animation company. She is a Biz Dev consultant for Refereum and will bring with her a world of connections made within the industry.
Tools Developer – Nick Klingsmith
Nick has previously developed some of the most popular tools on the Unity asset store and has a lot of experience as a developer.
Web Developer – Brad Johnson
Brad has a lot of experience designing and programming video games including time working at LucasArts on the Star Wars franchise and Wrath: Unleashed. He worked on other titles such as Tomb Raider and War Games as well as released Augmented Reality apps for Sony Xperia.
Engine Developer – Mark Maratea
Mark has worked on big name games at EA Games as well as other companies. He has over 15 years experience developing and implementing core game systems. Together with Nick he will be instrumental in their partnership with Unity.
Communications – Katie Williams
Katie is a journalist well known for writing about gaming and has previously written for IGN, PC Gamer, GameSpy, PC Powerplay and is the editor at Google Play.
Advisors are super solid and strategically brilliant. They include:
Ian Dunlop - the manager of the Unity Asset Store
Koh Kim - a marketing and business development expert who previously started Google Play’s business development team in Korea and led their expansion into Asia
Andrii Zamosky – founder of Ambisafe and leads their smart contract dev team
Oleksii Matiiasevych – writes Refereum’s smart contracts and returned millions in Ethereum after the multi-sig exploit in July
David Park – management consultant for large companies such as Facebook, Nextdoor and McKinsey and Co. as well as being the product manager for Facebook’s Mobile App Install Ads.
Miko Matsumura – advisor to over a dozen ICOs, marketing executive and co-founder of Evercoin crypto exchange.
Community
Facebook - 25,590 followers
Twitter - 26,000 followers
Reddit - 10,900 readers
Telegram - 75,000 members (maximum number for Telegram)
Medium - 954 followers
Refereum’s social media manager, Lauren Biedenharn is doing a great job of building the community. They have a lot of momentum which is evidenced by the fact Telegram increased their maximum user limit from 50K to 75K, which has since been filled.
Token Metrics
The Refereum token (RFR) is an ERC20 utility token.
Total tokens: 5,000,000,000
Available during token sale: 2,500,000,000
Hard cap: $25M USD
Token price: $0.01 USD / RFR
Pre-sale: 16th January 2018 – 8th February 2018
Public sale: 8th February 2018 – 8th March 2018
Currencies accepted: BTC, ETH and USD
Tokens distributed within 2 weeks of purchase subject to KYC / AML screening.
Funds distribution
50% - development
30% - marketing
5% - compliance
5% - security
5% - token protections
5% - contingencies
Token distribution
50% - token sale
20% - team
20% - platform reserves
10% - growth incentive
It is not specified in the Refereum Information Memorandum (dated 16th January 2018) if team tokens are subject to a lockup period. It also states that at the discretion of the company further tokens can be generated and distributed.
I have contacted the team to clarify the above and obtain further information. I am awaiting a reply.
Things I Like
• Large growing market
• Genuine need / use case on the blockchain
• Growth of market should drive demand for token and therefore price
• Solid team with recent and relevant experience in the industry as well as good connections within the industry
• Product in the market already with a large userbase and partnerships in place with further planned
• Positive feedback from current users which illustrates Refereum concept is sound
• Excellent advisors who give the project strategic strength and potential for rapid expansion into the marketplace
• Huge community built over a relatively short period of time
Things I Don’t Like
• The Refereum Information Document doesn’t rule out further token generation.
• No lockup period specified for team token distribution
Will I Be Investing?
Yes although it’s an investment I’ll be watching closely for signs they intend to generate further tokens.