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ICO Alert Quick Facts
- Play2Live is a blockchain-based streaming platform for gamers and eSports fans.
- $0.05 = 1 LUC token
- Pre-ICO: January 26, 2018-February 6, 2018; Main ICO: February 12, 2018-March 5, 2018
- 818,000,000 total available / 1,308,800,000 total supply
- More than $16,000,000 raised in Pre-ICO
What is Play2Live?
Play2Live platform introduces a full-blown ecosystem for eSports and gaming industries with a focus on content generation and practical needs of streamers, providing unique interactive opportunities for all participants of the ecosystem — eSports tournament organizers, the streamers, and the viewers.
While the blockchain industry is flocked with gaming projects, Play2Live claims to be different creating a unique economy of the streaming platform based on the revenue sharing model. Altogether, the streamers will be able to monetize their content in 11 ways, versus the four to five available for them on the existing streaming platforms. They can earn money from a very first stream regardless of the size of the followers base and withdraw money instantly. The platform offers top-notch mechanisms for the streamers to boost their followers count via such mechanisms as a system of interactive tasks during a stream between streamers and viewers, betting service, enhanced communication in the chat, and other engaging activities!
Whereas viewers can monetize their content in five ways — compared to zero elsewhere in the eSports video streaming industry. They can earn income through watching adverts (by default, the platform is ads-free and viewers can enable advertising and earn tokens), performing tasks set by streamers, voting for content, and sharing their Internet bandwidth via a peer-to-peer CDN. Viewers can place bets with bookmakers without leaving the P2L site and can purchase games using project tokens that can be received through various activities within the platform. Ultimately, P2L has 15 sources of revenue, which is three times more compared to the streaming industry leaders.
— Alexey Burdyko | CEO
Q&A with Alexey Burdyko, CEO
ICO Alert: How does the Play2Live token (LUC) function within the platform and why is it needed?
Burdyko: Level Up Coin is used as the only cryptocurrency inside the Play2Live streaming platform. LUC is a fuel that allows to build up an economic model of interaction between streamers, viewers, and tournament organizers.
The picture below describes the usage of LUC within the platform. At Play2Live, we use the token to create 15 unique features that provide a competitive advantage over the existing streaming platforms. Usage of blockchain-based cryptocurrency is facilitated by the advantages that blockchain technology provides. For example, using LUC for settlements within the platform will allow streamers to instantly withdraw money from the system, which is a much more user-friendly way compared to the conditions suggested by affiliate programs today.
Ultimately, LUC allows to facilitate a seamless adoption of a revenue sharing model where, due to the blockchain system, we can create brand-new monetization schemes as well as novel interactive opportunities such as:
– System of tasks between viewers and streamers, which allows to determine the scenario of the stream
– Ad-free platform, where users can enable advertisement at their own discretion and earn tokens together with the streamers
– Peer-to-peer CDN which allows to earn tokens just by watching streams
– Betting and gambling: users can place a bet and attempt to win LUC while watching an eSports tournament/during a stream
ICO Alert: How does the blockchain technology benefit the main challenges of the eSports industry?
Burdyko: Key problems of the eSports industry, which are addressed by Play2Live, are:
Opportunity is skewed to professional players with very little being available to amateurs or those in lower leagues. League of Legends has 250 million players who want to build, grow, and manage their teams, but there are only 100 League of Legends clubs worldwide.
Gamer community toxicity includes players abusing others, threatening to throw games if they don’t get to play their chosen character or cheating.
Because of all the betting, the game is becoming susceptible to corruption. This is no different to traditional sports — one only has to look at the recent scandals around Slatter and FIFA. But it is possible for blockchain technology to set up smart contract frameworks for tournaments. This reduces the chance of cheating and automatically distributes prize pools.
Monetization of digital goods is problematic. Players spend inordinate amounts of time and money to earn digital goods — but they have no value if the player turns to a new game. It’s difficult to know exactly what the value of a skin is. There is also no secure way to sell these digital assets to other players or across games, and to convert skins to fiat. Blockchain and tokenization are the obvious answer here.
Related to this is
skin gambling. Virtual goods, such as skins, are used as virtual currency to bet on the outcomes of games — or are even used in other games, such as blackjack or roulette. There is a significant amount of money involved here — in 2016 it was estimated at $5 billion, and the value of collections is thought to be close to $50 billion.
Play2Live aims to use blockchain potential at full power to solve these problems and offer new solutions. It creates a comprehensive ecosystem for streamers, gamers, and eSports fans — a streaming platform (p2l.tv) which integrates Bitshares 2.0 blockchain functionality.
Some of its features — all integrated in a simple and seamless way — include:
– Easy interoperability that encourages other products, partners, and users to join its ecosystem, rather than competing with them (this is much like the Steam model).
– Blockchain technology ensures a revenue-sharing model that is fair and transparent and allows everyone to benefit — including viewers. There are 15 different ways to generate revenue for the platform — and 11 of these are shared.
– An inbuilt crowdfunding system can be used for tournament organization or for streamers who need funds to launch their broadcasts. Funds can be collected for many events simultaneously.
– An escrow system where the platform itself facilitates goals to be set according to the funds raised ensures that conditions are met and that payments are distributed correctly
– A ticketing system for major tournaments
– A streaming platform, like Twitch and YouTube Gaming
– Packages of benefits to participants and premium subscription services
– Integrated betting and gambling on the platform, allowing viewers to place bets during tournaments (with no middleman required) or to place bets with outside bookmakers, without leaving the platform
– The use of cryptocurrency — all transactions on the platform are via its own token, the LUC. LUC can be bought using either fiat currencies of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Winnings and earnings can be re-converted into any of these currencies, or used on the platform to buy games from partner stores, to make donations directly to streamers, for bets on teams and competitions, for subscriptions, and for fees to participate in tournaments.
– Interactivity on a new level allows viewers to influence the content and the end-result of tournaments. They can use LUC tokens to vote for the teams they’d like to see competing against each other, the tournament format, the commentators, and even the locations. Play2Live works with tournament organizers to set up tournaments to match the wishes of users.
– Interactivity allows streamers to set tasks for viewers (e.g. to watch other streamers, or to watch adverts) and reward them for completed tasks. Streamers have 11 ways of monetization and can start to earn LUC from their very first streams, without any limitations. They are B2B partners on the platform, incentivized to attract new viewers.
– A new approach to advertising sees advertising disabled by default on the streaming platform. However, viewers are incentivized to watch the adverts, as they are rewarded with LUC every time they do.
– P2P CDN service on the platform allows for content to be distributed via users’ PCs/laptops/gadgets, thereby reducing CDN maintenance costs for the platform. At the same time, users are rewarded with LUC for sharing their resources.
ICO Alert: Can you briefly describe the top five ways viewers and streamers can earn LUC token?
Burdyko: Revenue sharing model is used to determine the percent of income provided to streamers/viewers/tournament organizers.
Top five ways streamers can earn on the platform:
Performing tasks assigned by the viewers during a stream (users vote for the scenario with their tokens, and part of the tokens is provided to streamers according to the revenue sharing model)
Betting service where users place bets during a stream
Premium subscriptions
Exclusive agreements with advertisers/publishers with a marketplace with prizes distributed during a stream
Creating a special content on the platform based off the voting carried out by the users
Top five ways viewers can make money from the platform:
Simply by watching streams — due to peer-to-peer CDN technology, which allows to use free Internet bandwidth in exchange for tokens. This bandwidth is used to reduce the costs of traditional CDN.
By watching advertising — it is disabled by default, but viewers can turn it on
Performing tasks set by the streamers
By making bets during a stream/eSports tournament
By voting for the content and providing other contributions on the platform
ICO Alert: What is your current user base of streamers and viewers? What is your strategy in growing the community?
Burdyko: We are currently negotiating deals with Twitch streamers. Although we can’t disclose any information on these due to the Affiliate program of Twitch that prohibits streamers from cooperation with other streaming platforms. Numerous streamers are ready to leave Twitch and migrate to our platform upon the release of the beta version of p2l.tv.
Actually, we are now arranging an eSports tournament. The tournament in CS:GO will be held on February 24–25, 2018, on
Falcon Arena (Minsk), where eight international top teams (seven invited and one from the open qualifiers beginning soon) will compete for the main prize — $100,000 in LUC (Level Up Coin) tokens.
The main challenge of the project is audience attraction. Our goal is to achieve 10 million MAU by Q2 2019. We plan to achieve this goal not only by implementing a set of new features described in the questions above, but also by allowing streamers to fine-tune the parameters of the in platform economy (for example, allowing them to choose subscription fees or percentage of revenue from advertising provided to viewers). In other words, we provide an opportunity to freely control numerous economic parameters that affect interaction between a streamer and a viewer.
ICO Alert: How are you planning to compete with well established eSport companies like Twitch?
Burdyko: We consider the existing streaming solutions (Twitch, Youtube Gaming) as our competitors. Twitch.tv (https://www.twitch.tv) — high market share (80%), the majority of tier 1 streamers use Twitch.tv as a platform for streaming. The weaknesses: only streamers can earn (and very few of them can call streaming their full-time job), mediocre level of interaction (the features have remained unchanged for the users for a while, for e.g. a chat system), neglecting Asia market, and ultimately the reliance on five sources of revenue generation. YouTube Gaming — moderate market share (18%). The platform was launched in 2015 as a competitor to Twitch. The product is very identical to Twitch with only a few novel features added. Hitbox, Azubu are not the competitors since Play2Live will not operate in Asian market. The share of the other competitors is insignificant.
We are confident that Play2Live users will be attracted by various monetization options currently unavailable on the existing streaming platforms as well as interactive features that can become possible due to blockchain. Clearly, blockchain popularization as well as the boom of eSports will contribute to the growth of P2L.
ICO Alert: As a non-Play2Live question, we like to ask for unique predictions for the ICO and cryptocurrency space in the future. Where do you see both in the next 3–5 years?
Burdyko: As any hype technology, blockchain has reached its maximum of expectations. Really value-creating use cases for the blockchain technology can hardly be found, so the public interest to the technology is now decreasing, which is absolutely ordinary process for any innovation. Obviously, the hype is now going down, which means the industry will shortly stop being fueled with enormous amounts of investments. This will stimulate much more valuable R&D in the sphere of blockchain application in various industries. Hopefully, within the next five years some real practical applications of the blockchain will be found, which will help the technology become massively adopted.
As for the ICO, it is now extremely hectic as a crowdfunding method. This spoils its reputation, but doesn’t make it a bad tool. Once properly regulated (not restricted), it can become a conventional fundraising option, just as VC is today.
ICO Information
Pre-ICO began on January 26, 2018 and will end on February 6, 2018. The main ICO will begin on February 12, 2018 and will end on March 5, 2018. There are a total of 818,000,000 Play2Live tokens (LUC) available during the main ICO, representing 62.5% of the total LUC supply. A hard cap of $30,000,000 is set for this period.
$0.05 = 1 LUC token
Currently Play2Live accepts only Ethereum. Investors can visit the following website to contribute. Play2Live is an ERC-20 token, so it’s important that contributors use ERC-20 compatible wallets to send funds to the ICO smart contract, and to receive the Play2Live tokens.
Token Distribution Information
There are a total 1,308,800,000 LUC tokens being created, with 818,000,000 available during main ICO.
Contributors will have their tokens distributed shortly after the end of the ICO. Visit the Play2Live website for more information and the contribution address.
Token Proceeds:
Purchasing the right to broadcast esports tournaments 20%
Negotiating exclusive broadcasting contracts with streamers 15%
Marketing 10%
Play2Live platform development 10%
Blockchain (Level Up Chain) development 3%
Legal fees 3%
Personnel expenses and other OPEX 8%
Administration and project team 10%
Outsourcing 3%
CDN and maintenance fees 18%
Allocation:
Maximum amount of tokens to issue: 1,308,800,000
Sold on the open market: 62.5%
Operations funds: 11%
Founders and project teams: 10%
Partners of the project (eSports teams, tournament organizers and streamers): 7%
Advisory Board: 7%
Bounty campaign: 1%
Roadmap
Q1 2018 | Planned inception of the development of the streaming core of Play2Live as well as blockchain Level Up Chain.
Q2 2018 | Planned alpha-version launch and World Championship broadcast in CS:GO broadcast.
Q3 2018 | Planned beta-version launch (60% of conceptualized features), attraction of the seed users.
Q4 2018 | Planned implementation of all remaining features (40%), active marketing promotion and purchase of rights to broadcast top eSports and streaming content.
Q2 2019 | Commencement of the planned active attraction of the users to the platform. MAU of the Platform reaches 10M users. New markets expansion. Reach of break even point.
Q4 2019 | It is anticipated that MAU of the Platform will reach 20M users. Focus on sustaining internal infrastructure and bringing organic traffic to the platform, integrating of new services.
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View the Play2Live website here.
View the only comprehensive list of active and upcoming Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) here.
References
- Play2Live Website, Play2Live (2018)
https://play2live.io/en/ - Play2Live Whitepaper, Play2Live (2018)
https://play2live.io/storage/b/2/Whitepaper_eng.pdf
Source: ICO Alert
