There is a myriad of ways to cooperate and make money in the video gaming industry, so why bother creating another one? The reason is the lack of connection between various distribution and content platforms, games and gamers, distributors and advertisers. In fact, in many cases the video game business interacts using only old-school currency and the methods of a physical economy. Although there is no problem with this approach, there is definitely room for improvement. But before we talk about improvements, let’s review the most popular ways of making money from video games.

Many ways to earn Millions (if you are lucky)

Source: SuperData

Over the next few years E-Sports, the emerging AR/VR games, and video game content will become much more visible in the overall breakdown of the industry’s revenue.

Develop a game. In 2017, the annual revenue of the video game industry exceeded $100 billion, and is expected to increase 60–80% by 2020. The obvious way to make a living is to create your own game, which might require a substantial initial investment, if you decide to build a traditional AAA title. Even a start-up studio can try its luck in the emerging VR game segment or rapidly growing F2P MMO, but as we know thanks to our own experience of serving online game universes to millions of customers, R&D is typically half of your budget. The other half goes to marketing. Costs to promote your game are extremely high, thanks to both the fierce competition and the inefficiency of communication channels; they are fragmented, it is hard to measure the result, etc.

Play a game. Twitch and YouTube are established platforms to make money for streaming gameplay. It’s not only games, but the personality of a player that frequently leads to success or failure. An average Twitch user can make up to $5000 a month ‘working’ full-time. On YouTube one can expect to earn a $1000 for every million video views (this depends heavily on the theme and region), and superstars report an income reaching millions of dollars per year. Both platforms (and many smaller ones) are already crowded. If you are dedicated to become a star, it is still possible. Yet, streaming gameplay reveals a certain disadvantage for a game developer — they get an indirect advertisement benefit, but it is almost impossible to measure.

Become a champion. The E-Sports market is small compared to mobile and social video games, but at $1 billion yearly it offers a great opportunity for those really passionate about the competitive games they play. Like any other professional sport, this is a game of thousands of wannabes and only a handful of leaders. Being an excellent player is definitely not enough; one has to be a good manager, securing sponsorship deals and attending reputable ‘offline’ events.

Sell virtual goods. One of the oldest ways to make money out of MMOs, 20 years old this year and still relevant. Apart from a few difficulties faced by developers who not always expect (or want) their digital assets to become goods sold for real money, the major obstacles towards becoming a pro in online e-commerce are stiff competition and government/legal influence. It’s up to you to deal with the former, but the latter is out of control. Our industry in general has faced major troubles when its purely virtual nature met with the hurdles of a real life, economy and laws. It’s not that we are against proper policy, but everyone who spends enough time in an online game, feels a certain type of disconnect from reality. Or prefers a game environment to a real life, in some way or another?

Why?

Because in many aspects a good online universe is more effective than reality. So many things are easier online. This brings us back to the question of improving not only a single game, but a larger part of the video game industry itself, using the idea of a digital currency. How we try to create and distribute games and content, compete for goods and achievements, all in a unified connected system?

Digital currency in a Digital world

Virtual currency is definitely not a new concept. We are not implying that simply adding ‘something blockchain’ to a game will change anything. Blockchain is just a reliable technology to process and track payments, to be used as a building block. What for? We say: a better game distribution platform. We focus solely on free-to-play massive multiplayer online games, our field of expertise for almost ten years. As we were building digital worlds for tens of millions of users, we wondered:

● How can we provide for a better connection of these worlds to the real-life of gamers, content and game developers and even publishers?

● How can we connect these different worlds?

Our new project The Abyss is the answer. We are introducing a digital distribution platform with a strong accent on F2P browser and client MMO games, where cryptocurrency technology is fine-tuned to address the needs of gamers, developers and fans. When it is done, every user will benefit from the new economy that connects multiple virtual universes and millions of people. As we work on it, we invite you to become an early contributor and secure a competitive advantage for the future. Everyone is welcome: we are confident that gamers, developers, investors, marketers, distributors, designers and creative content makers have to get their fair share of a video game business model.

The Abyss’ benefits

Read about the Abyss’ benefits in detail on our website.

We introduce our own digital token called ABYSS which is based on the Ethereum blockchain technology. This token will be a priority mechanism for interaction on our digital distribution platform. We are making this platform the most convenient for developing, distributing and playing games. A single type of token will be used across the platform in a wide variety of applications. Real money will also be accepted, but we are sure that cryptocurrency will be much more effective. In fact, during the initial round we accept only cryptocurrency (Bitcoin and Ethereum) in exchange for tokens. So what is going to be different?

● We honor the achievements of gamers across a variety of games. We enable gamers to form syndicates (Masternodes) with many new opportunities to influence their digital worlds.

● We honor the hard work of developers. We introduce new techniques so that a brilliant game could provide a long-term rewards for its creators. The referral program we have designed honors the developers’ contribution even after the player leaves for another game.

● For the first time in history we connect advertisement, content creation and other related activities with the distribution platform. Your new game can be promoted with ABYSS tokens, and as a gamer you will get a rewarded for the content you generate. All with a direct connection to your cryptocurrency wallet.

● Eliminating cumbersome real-world money from the video game equation will make the entire platform more effective. If developers spend less on advertisement and promotion, directly able to see and measure the result of their efforts, they will be able to devote more time and resources to developing better quality games. Content creators will be able to sell their work for a fair price. By connecting people, the platform helps them to share the same passion.

● Oh, and we should mention an improved exchange between the ABYSS tokens and general cryptocurrency? The Abyss users will be able to withdraw funds at any time, 24/7.

The Abyss will have a dual currency payment system with support for cryptocurrency and fiat (‘real’) money. These opportunities are made possible thanks to the concept of digital currency, now fine-tuned to the needs of the video game industry.

How to participate?

We are currently looking for contributors willing to support the development of The Abyss platform, and we welcome both large teams and individuals. The public token sale will start on December 12, 2017 closing on January 24, 2018. Unlike other cryptocurrency-based financing offers, players purchasing ABYSS tokens during Token Sale will get a lifetime increased income from payments made by their referrals.

We’ve seen many cryptocurrency businesses struggling to implement the ground-breaking but highly complex technical concept of a blockchain. We’ve seen others facing legal hurdles and government intervention as well. In our opinion, the most efficient way to deploy a virtual currency concept is doing it in an environment that is also virtual. You are welcome to join us in the pursuit of creating a more convenient and fair video gaming world.