RAWG: Don’t Mine. Play

June 21, 2018

RAWG is an application that helps gamers to personally answer some critical questions like ‘what to play next’ and ‘how to earn playing games’.

Video game to game enthusiasts is a way to help them relax and enjoy their time. Though not everyone is an enthusiast of video games everyone at one point or the other has been fascinated by a game which became their favorite. For video game enthusiasts, after playing a very interesting game, it is only natural to search both offline and online for another to keep their gaming spirit intact. While looking for a video game that suits their taste or desire, many rely on recommendations from friends, adverts on the internet, blogs, etc. While these are very channels to find great video games, users still need to do a long search to find a game that suits them.

I like action games (mostly 3rd person shooter with a thrilling storyline, not just long and boring ones). For most of the times, I get recommendations from friends. But this has not been okay as it seems I am staying in the shadows of the games they have played. I also want to recommend cool and interesting games to them so I go online especially watching YouTube videos. Recommendations through blogs and videos seemed to me like a paid adverts, I need something from real gamers who truly understand the type of games I like to play.

Advertisements today has taken a new turn as companies do not wish to advertise to the wrong audience thus wasting funds. In the mind of an advertiser, results are the only payback for the money spent or invested in advertising. The major problem is delivering the adverts to the purposed or targeted audience. An advert delivered to a wrong audience is also the same as wasted funds. They need an adequate understanding of the targeted audience so they can design a great or fascinating advert to turn the audience into customers.

You can imagine advertising a bra to a 99% male audience

Game developers also need targeted adverts, it will save them the high cost of running adverts or advertising to audiences that are not interested in their product.

Earning from a Gaming Hobby

As widely accepted as video games are, because they provide thrills, only very few gamers truly earn from playing games. Researchers have shown that out of millions of active video gamers all over the world, only a few thousand (who are professional gamers from the centralized eSports) earn most of all funds generated in playing games. Other active gamers who do not work for any eSports company find it very hard to get paid for their hobby. Some of what they do to earn from video games are:

They sell game resources online through game forums or social media. The disadvantage of this is that the buyer may refuse to pay after receiving the game resources.
Some provide walkthroughs through blogs and videos. Gamers provide walkthroughs for other gamers through videos, written step-by-step methods, and screenshots. When people visit their websites and videos they get paid for the number of users or clicks on their content by the advertisers. This is so hard especially for great gamers who find it difficult to truly express themselves.

Game providers also allow game players to earn points from playing games which can be redeemed to pay for in-game resources or other games produced by the same providers. These are not withdrawable into actual fiat currencies.

RAWG – The Gamers’ IMDB

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RAWG is an application that helps gamers to personally answer some critical questions like ‘what to play next’ and ‘how to earn playing games’.
RAWG is like IMDB for gamers. On the platform, users get to see or browse details of games from all popular platforms (console or game providers). With RAWG, users can get personal recommendations on what game to play next based on the analysis of their gaming records and styles. Through analysis of big data collected from the gaming history of users, RAWG is able to present them with games that suit their interests or desires. Gamers need not worry about how RAWG will get their gaming history, as they are provided an option to enter their account profiles with popular game providers (Xbox, PlayStation, etc.) so that their gaming history from different platforms can be seen. Users can manually enter the details of video games they have played previously to the platform if they are not on the catalog. Through a simplified dashboard for gamers, the platform helps each user to keep track of their gaming progress on multiple devices or platforms.

RAWG Platform Screen 1	RAWG Platform Screen 2	RAWG Platform Screen 3

Many gamers don’t use just a device to play their games they use multiple devices or consoles (some use Xbox, PlayStation, and computers). It becomes so hard to keep track of all their gaming progress since they play games from different providers and devices. But with RAWG, gamers are able to keep track of all their gaming progress no matter the platform, console, device or game provider.

Social

The RAWG platform aside being an IMDB for gamers which also helps to recommend cool or interesting games for each user, it also provides an avenue for gamers from all over the platform to interact and socialize. On the platform, each user gets to showcase or share his/her experience, achievements and impressions from games. Gamers can follow each other, share and reply to content, rate games, monitor activities in a personalized feed.

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One of the major ways RAWG makes their money is through advertisements. Because RAWG is a platform that helps users suggest new games they can play through the analysis of big data it will be the best for advertisers to come and set up targeted adverts. Through targeted adverts, companies can get more visibility at a lower cost through the platform token.

Rewards

RAWG also seek to reward gamers for what they love to do. Users can earn tokens from playing games and these tokens can be redeemed to buy upgrades or exchanged to other cryptocurrencies or fiat. Gamers will get points as an award for in-game achievements. These points are called karma. Karma can be converted to tokens at the end of each token cycle.

Personal Experience

I went over to the RAWG (https://rawg.io/) platform and registered with my Facebook account. Though it asked me to connect my Xbox and PlayStation details so data can be synchronized but I don’t use any of those platforms (I use my computer to play games and I don’t have my gaming records on windows). I tried searching for some interesting old games that I had played (halo, and Marine sharpshooter), I was so surprised to find these games on the platform. This proved to me that it was really an IMDB for video games as there is a wide range of video games on the platform. Each game has areas for users to review games. I am still going to continue to use the platform for some exciting recommendations.