How did Octo Gaming became a precursor of Play to Earn 3 years before the hype

Play to Earn is the word on everyone’s lips right now in the gaming world. Billions upon billions of Google searches in November 2021 alone. The concept without details is very simple: win money or financial assets by playing video games.

The statement

The story of Octo Gaming goes back to August 2018, when we came up with this crazy idea with Thomas during our exchange program in Mexico: to allow all video game players to monetize the time they spend playing.

Our observation was very simple:

1. The gaming industry is making a lot of money. It is becoming the biggest entertainment industry ahead of cinema and music
2. Gamers are spending more and more time playing and are reaching extremely high skill levels. Even amateur gamers train more than many soccer or tennis hopefuls
3. On the other hand, at the same time, only 0.1% of gamers benefit from monetizing their gaming activity: pro gamers and influencers on the side.

Based on these three points, we had to find a solution to make each player an e-gamer on his own scale who can also monetize his time spent playing and benefit from his skills.

The development of a simple concept…

Video games being a very challenging field, we quickly wanted to make players compete against each other around a bet. However, we quickly realized that 99% of the players who were entering this industry were all obsessed as bees with: cash prizes and betting. So we decided once again to break out of this already clogged funnel that everyone was still trying to get into, by launching a completely free virtual currency (Golds) that players can bet on each other.

In our minds the concept was very simple:

- On arrival each player receives 200 Golds

- If he wins his games on the video games available on Octo Gaming, i.e. the biggest PvP games of the moment: Fortnite, Clash Royale, Brawl Stars, R6S, Fifa and many more, then he wins the Golds of his opponents

- When he has enough Golds then he can exchange them for prizes offered by our partner brands such as Lenovo, Logitech, DxRacer and many more, which offer gaming chair, laptop, keyboard, monitor, …

…but with its share of complexities

There were two questions to settle before launching:

1. Are brands willing to offer free products to gamers? To tell the truth, we never really doubted it and we were right because brands are completely fascinated by generation Z and gamers. This audience is certainly the most sought after of all because:

- It represents the future

- It allows to rejuvenate its brand image

- They have a strong purchasing power despite their younger age

- They are very hard to reach because they use adbock and can’t stand traditional advertising

Thus, we quickly established our first partnerships with Gaming and High Tech brands before realizing that all brands were interested in the idea of being referenced on Octo Gaming to reach young gamers, from food brands to lifestyle.

2. The second issue was to ensure that the project was completely legal. It’s no secret that betting is highly regulated today in France and throughout the world. Octo Gaming offers 100% free betting with a virtual currency. The player receives it when he downloads the app and if he runs out of it he gets more by watching advertising videos. Thus, the player will never make a financial sacrifice to play a game at Octo Gaming. We have taken care to have the concept validated by our lawyers and the ARJEL, the online gaming regulatory authority.

How to develop all this? From a chatbot to a mobile app!

The idea of Octo Gaming was born! Now we had to develop it, and that’s a different matter when you’ve never learned to code and you don’t have a penny, having just graduated from school.

So we joined an incubator to structure the project and we started learning 2–3 code rudiments to create a chatbot on messenger via Chatfuel.

The idea of this chatbot was to make a quick go-to-market even if the interface was not at all the most optimized to see if it worked.

Very quickly a traction was born and in 7 months, Octo Gaming had more than 40k users with $0 spent in communication.

We were then awarded a 30k€ grant from the BPI and the Normandy region (winner of the French Tech grant) which allowed us to recruit our first interns and build our first mobile application. This one reached 365K users through 5 French-speaking countries in 1 year of existence. Only coded by interns and designed by Thomas and me, we loved this app which even reached the 19th place of the most downloaded apps in France. However, it had its limits and we had to look further. So we used it as a very advanced POC to raise funds.

The big jump

So in August 2020, we raised 1.25 million€ (with TOP French Angels and VC’s) to recruit a team worthy of the name. The objective was twofold:

1. Total overhaul of our mobile application and integration of the entire social dimension
2. Change of visual identity much more marked by the codes of gamer and generation Z.

8 months after its launch in February 2021, the feedback is simply crazy and the app has more than 2 million users worldwide. It has also been ranked several times in the top of the most downloaded apps in the world in France, the US, Mexico, Spain and the UK.

P2E reinvented with blockchain?

Going back to the original point about Play to Earn, we are happy to note that we have been allowing video game players to “earn” real things by playing video games for over 3 years. On Octo Gaming, gamers play Fortnite, Fifa, Clash Royale and plenty of other games to win Lenovo speakers, Logitech headsets or DxRacer seats.

So, without having ever named it, we have been for 3 years in this trend which is becoming a whole new model at the moment when we see the gaming giants like Voodoo for example making the shift.

Welcome to the Web3.0

It is therefore natural that we are proud to announce with Thomas that we are jumping into Web 3.0 and launching our first collection of NFTs: the Octos!

Just in case, what is an NFT and why is it useful?

An NFT is a non-fungible token, meaning a digital object (any file, media, image) that has a digital identity number that proves its uniqueness and gives its holder a digital ownership proof.

It provides its holders, the exclusive ownership of digital items that can be used into all sorts of industries and especially gaming! Each NFT is unique and can only be owned by one owner, thus making it rare! Imagine buying a Fortnite skin or a COD camo that you are the only one in the world to have or use. You could use it, display it, and even sell it for a higher price! Have you seen the movie Ready Player One? NFTs are the real first step into this incredible world.

What are the Octos NFTs and why get one ?

The Octos are 4 444 units NFTs generated artistically with an algorithm, each Octo is unique and has special accessories. These Octos will be your avatar in the Octo app and will grant you numerous access to perks and exclusive content.

Octos will be your 3.0 avatar in the Octo app, having an Octo offers you a lifetime premium membership on Octo. Moreover, it gives you the possibility of earning crypto rewards, aside the other prizes. Imagine this, playing all the available Octo games to earn bitcoins! However, some octos hide special gifts and rewards that you will only be able to see on the mint date: 15th of January at 11pm UTC.

Go even further!

The company also has strong long-term ambitions to create their own P2E games where the NFT will be the playable avatars in game. Those utilities should be very appreciated by our users and also by the Crypto community which is looking for more and more serious projects with already committed teams.

This is a revolution for gaming and for Octo Gaming 🚀

👉 For more infos and if you want to participate to the mint head here:

Website: https://octo-gaming.com

Discord: https://discord.gg/octo-gaming-514829821419716609

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Octo8gaming