Equiti Games has announced its open game distribution and resale network designed to serve game developers, publishers, and users. Equiti Games returns distribution rights to developers and facilitates the resale of digital games through smart contracts run on blockchain technology. The distribution fee is just 10%- a third of the standard industry fee today – and its leadership team brings more than 45-years of games industry and resale marketplace experience with advisors from leading game independent developers.

Equiti Games’ network and API creates a true secondary market for digital games through a blockchain-powered licensing network that enables developers to configure their sales and marketing strategies according to the resale value of their product on an open market. By utilizing a decentralized and cryptographically secure protocol, Equiti’s blockchain solution to the gray market in digital games provides an open standard to facilitate legitimate P2P exchange between various stakeholders across platforms. Equiti Games Servers (EGS) interact with game licenses through the Equiti Authentication Service (EAS), to expose APIs used both by Equiti Games clients and third-party applications. GameStop, the dominant reseller of physical games, earned $2.15 billion from the sale of used physical games in 2017, but according to Statista, 79% of all games sold in 2017 were digital highlighting the burgeoning opportunity for a digital games secondary opportunity.

“When you download a PC game today you’re not buying a digital asset, but are in effect only leasing a game, as current licensing models force gamers to trade their rights for convenience,” said Tony Caputo, CEO and Founder, Equiti Games. “Blockchain, for the first time, allows us to create a tangible digital asset that gamers can see and own, like when we buy a physical game in a store: it’s no longer just a string of characters in a company’s database. This ownership is the key foundation for creating a true secondary market for pre-owned digital games.”

Equiti Games’ Developer Portal consolidates user-feedback from the blockchain to inform developers of how the market responds to changes in pricing, new features, and reviews. Developers access better tools to connect with their community, incentivizing users to contribute by sharing a part of their games’ profits or special perks for referrals and reviews. Instead of setting a fixed resale fee, developers can create the terms of the resale percentage received by customers so the market freely dictates the true price-value, and as a result, organically grows participation in the network.

“In 2016, we found out that we lost an estimated $450,000 in potential revenue to fraud in the gray market from certain digital key resellers and it hasn’t gotten any better over the years,” said Luke Burtis, Founder at tinyBuild, Equiti Games advisor and pilot developer. “Equiti Games’ open licensing framework would allow us to not only recover that revenue, but replace the gray market with a realistic secondary market that connects developers directly with their customers. The platform also gives us access to the marketing analytics we need to build deeper relationships with our fans, grow our community and create an invaluable feedback loop which is very difficult to do with the platforms of today.”

Equiti Games Features:

Desktop client to install and play games with built-in streaming functionality

Buy and sell games on a decentralized direct B2C and P2P marketplace

API that fully integrates with any marketplace, online store or website

Comprehensive Analytics through Marketing and Sales Dashboard where developers review their customers feedback and see how their games are performing

Direct connection to top influencers by easily connecting with streamers and their followers, launch and track sponsorship performance

Micro influencers: Users receive tokens for reviewing and recommending games

DeveloperPortal for game developers and publishers to manage their titles on their terms

Instant settlement of revenue upon each sale to the various stakeholders defined by the licensing agreement

In 2010, founder and CEO, Tony Caputo began Leaptrade, LLC, a web platform to provide gamers with a unique peer-to-peer network based on operational flexibility and furnishing the lowest possible cost for trading physical games. Product Lead, Jeffrey Vier, through Ideas by Nature, has developed blockchain products for blockchain companies such as SALT Lending, ShapeShift, Coinbase and KeepKey.

For more information, visit www.equitigames.com.