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Play2Live is the first full-blown decentralized streaming platform for gamers and esports fans, operating on BitShares 2.0 blockchain basis. To learn more about Play2Live, see our recent interview with Alexey Burdyko, CEO of Play2Live:
Q: What is your mission?
A: Our mission is to create an ecosystem where every participant, including viewers, streamers and esports tournament organizers will have a better interaction and various monetization tools. At Play2Live we use Level Up Coin (LUC) token, which is a sole mean of payment within the system. It can be easily converted to other cryptocurrencies or fiat money through a gateway/API.
We provide a unique economy based on the revenue sharing model. Play2live offers 15 sources of revenue, which is three times more compared to the streaming industry leaders. Streamers will be able to monetize their content in 11 ways versus 4-5 available on existing platforms. They can earn from the first stream, regardless their audience size, as well as boost their audience via interactive tasks during the streams, betting service, enhanced chat communication and other engaging activities! Viewers will have 5 monetization tools – compared to zero elsewhere in streaming industry. They can earn by simply watching adverts (P2L is ads-free by default), performing streamers’ tasks, voting for content, and sharing their internet bandwidth via peer-to-peer CDN.
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Q: Tell us something more about upcoming ICO?
A: We are moving according to the roadmap. The public pre-sale for the LUC token started on January 26 and ended February 6. During pre-sale we secured more than $18 mln. And we are truly excited about the results. It means that we are moving in the right direction and will be able to build a solid business that will grow and develop in future. The main token sale event begins on February 21 and ends on March 14, 2018.
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Q: What are your thoughts on the future of esport?
A: If you look at platforms like Twitch or YouTube Gaming, you will see, that gamers are everywhere. Occupying a 105-billion-dollar market share, with more than 2.2 billion players all over the world, video games have become so popular, that they surpassed film industry and became the world’s number one entertainment. Viewership for esports is surpassing that of many traditional sports.
Gaming industry has exploded in the recent years riding on the wave of three emerging trends: the omnipresence of mobile, the evolution of the gaming business model and the growing popularity of esports. According to forecasts, the revenue of the gaming industry will reach $115 billion by 2018 and by 2020 will approach the $130 billion mark.
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Esports is one of the most dynamically developing segments of the gaming industry. By 2020, the market is expected to reach $1.5 billion. Millennials contribute significantly to the overall growth of esports market. The existing users of streaming platforms are willing to spend their time and money in exchange of the new products and solutions, constituting a lucrative target audience for many brands worldwide.
A growing number of esports projects have embarked on crypto industry lately. This is not surprising — both blockchain and esports industries are booming and share much in common: gamers are aware of the concept of in-game currency, have an inquisitive mind trained by the years of following games’ storylines and quests. So, it is fair to assume they are ready to delve into the interesting topic, another ‘quest’ — let it be a streaming platform based on the blockchain, an Ethereum-based esports tournament platform, a skin trade platform or any esports project that has seen its potential in merging with blockchain technology.
Q: How blockchain technology can game up the industry?
A: Blockchain technology is a solution to many of the problems related to esports and gaming. It will also make the esports industry more efficient. Some direct benefits of blockchain technology for esports include transparency — it is incorruptible; smart contracts ensure fairness, security and speedy implementation of payments and other agreement terms. The key here is tokenization, where value is held and distributed via peer-to-peer networks rather than centralized hubs. Esports is a perfect application of tokenization, and there are predictions that, in the future, game-purchase transactions will occur exclusively in cryptocurrency.
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Blockchain shifts power relationships — so, in esports, this means putting some of the power currently in the hands of publishers and large tournament organizers into the hand of players and viewers. Therefore, platforms become facilitators of decentralization, rather than providers of centralized services. Financial and geographical restrictions become irrelevant — this is important to esports, which, after soccer, is the first truly global sport. Blockchain technology allows it to introduce a unique mixture of interactive features and monetizing tools, currently unavailable on existing streaming platforms.
Q: What are your plans? What new features do you plan to implement?
A: We are determined to further development of functionality of the platform. The launch of user streaming on MVP and several additional features are scheduled on the start of token sale on February 21st 2018.
And we are super excited to host the world’s first esport tournament with crypto prize pool. The Play2Live CryptoMasters tournament will take place in the capital of Belarus, Minsk, and will be broadcasted by P2L worldwide in seven languages: English, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, and German. The tournament in CS:GO will be held on February 24-25, 2018, on Falcon Arena, where 8 international top teams (7 invited and 1 from the open qualifiers) will compete for the main prize – $100,000 in LUC (Level Up Coin) tokens. Play2Live invites all the esports and crypto enthusiasts to watch the tournament in Minsk and meet their favorite teams. The event is scheduled to the release of the 2.0 version of MVP!
