UK-based GameStake Technologies, a company pursuing rewarded play through their gaming app, has raised £630,000 ($808,000) in seed funding.
The company, which builds gaming apps for rewarded play (a kind of loyalty program where players receive real life, non-money, rewards such as discounts on shopping) has also secured a “growth facility” of £2.5m from game finance company Triple Dragon. The company says they have acquired over 50,000 users for their first app so far, and partnered with companies such as Uber and Amazon. This investment has also seen the company rebrand from GameStake to GameStake Technologies, and the launch of “GameStake for Business”, which looks to partner with other companies and promises to aid in their own growth via integration into the platform.
GameStake Technologies CEO, Amit Puri commented on the investment, "We are thrilled to have successfully raised £630,000 in investment capital and accomplished significant milestones during our fundraising round. The strong support from our investors, the exceptional user growth and engagement, strategic partnerships, and brand ambassadorship all reinforce our position as a key player in the start-up space. These achievements fuel our passion to continue disrupting and innovating, and to provide unparalleled value to our users."
Rewarded play
It’s not uncommon for rewarded play or loyalty programs to play a large part in building a user base for gaming. For example, Playstudios and their portfolio of not only casino-based but more traditional games such as Tetris on mobile were primarily targeted towards building player loyalty by rewarding long-time users in a similar way to how supermarkets utilise loyalty programs to offer real-life rewards for continued patronage.
The difficulty, of course, is in building a platform that provides value with brands recognisable to players and rewards that are useful to them. It’s all well and good having rewarded play but if there’s no-one on the platform that a player from their target demographic knows or uses, the point is moot.
However, judging by GameStake’s own metrics it appears they already have a solid footing, and although the £630,000 in terms of funding may be somewhat lower than startups from more established mobile game veterans, given that the main focus will be on building brand relations and pushing their business solution, it’s a perfectly feasible amount to expand the growth of their platform.
New methods of monetisation such as rewarded play have been dominating headlines as developers and publishers look for ways to skirt increasing restrictions on attribution that makes IAA more difficult. Some other companies, such as Bidstack, are instead looking at the concept of intrinsic advertising to make their in-game advertising less obtrusive and more congruent with the game world.
