imapp Makes Their First Investment Into Video Game Startup
Blockchain project, Hoard, seeks to disrupt the $80 billion a year virtual items market by facilitating true ownership of virtual game items
COPENHAGEN, March 26, 2018 (Newswire.com) - Hoard, which released its website and crowdfunding paper on 28 February 2018, aims to disrupt the video game industry by enabling true ownership of virtual items and downloadable content using blockchain technology. imapp, the company which conceived and initiated the development of Golem, a decentralized, blockchain-based market for computing power, has recently announced an investment in Hoard.
According to an IDG Consulting report in 2017, sales of virtual goods raked in more than USD $80 billion of the total gaming industry’s revenue of $103 billion. The top five grossing games that year were free-to-play, a model which generates income from sales of in-game content.
Hoard is making it possible for people to trade virtual goods and services. Monetizing secondary markets by facilitating game developers with a trusted platform is truly game-changing.
Jun Hasegawa, CEO of OmiseGO
Further, the video games are the world’s largest entertainment industry with approximately 1 in 3 people partaking. With only 400 million of the total 2 billion gamers actively trading virtual content, this market represents a huge opportunity.
This is imapp’s first investment of this scale. Andrzej Regulski, COO of imapp, says that Hoard fits within its project portfolio for the following reasons:
“Over the last few years, imapp has been increasingly focused on building expertise in blockchain. This has resulted in our involvement in some of the most innovative projects in the Ethereum ecosystem, including Golem (which spun off from imapp) and OmiseGO. By investing and contributing to Hoard, we hope to share and implement our expertise in the fascinating world of game development.”
The Hoard platform aims to facilitate 3 main outcomes:
- Global marketplace for game items
- A revolutionary new model of game financing
- Virtual employment opportunities
Hoard is founded by Martin Amor, a gaming industry veteran who was lead programmer of one of the first sci-fi MMORPGs, Anarchy Online, technical producer of the Hitman series and technology director IO Interactive. Its co-founder is Wendell Davis, a tech entrepreneur who was involved early on some of the largest blockchain projects, including Ethereum, Golem, Cosmos, OmiseGO and Streamr.
Of their reasons for supporting these founders, Regulski says:
“Martin demonstrates the rare combination of business vision, focus on delivering valuable products and technological leadership. He has managed to build a team of passionate and experienced engineers and managers who have increased the likelihood of Hoard’s success.”
In turn, Hoard CEO, Martin Amor says:
“This partnership with imapp has been the perfect opportunity for us to leverage their deep blockchain knowledge and industry experience. It has truly helped to kickstart Hoard’s vision.”
Hoard has also received support from other projects, including OmiseGO (decentralized, real-time P2P exchange) and Danish game development company, IO Interactive (best known for the Hitman series):
“Hoard is making it possible for people to trade virtual goods and services. Monetizing secondary markets by facilitating game developers with a trusted platform is truly game-changing.”
- Jun Hasegawa, CEO OmiseGO
“Hoard provides an interesting opportunity to raise funds for game development as well as bring game developers closer to actual gaming communities.”
- Hakan Abrak, CEO IO Interactive
Of the potential for this market, Regulski says:
“This was a very convincing vision presented to us by Martin and Wendell. The growing potential to monetize in-game assets and DLCs can finally be addressed by blockchain technology.”
The Hoard platform also plans to disrupt the industry of game finance by enabling game companies and developers to host crowdfunding activities on their platform. According to imapp:
“Hoard’s solution for crowdfunding game development is a very logical addition to the exchange platform and together, they create a unique business case. This combination is likely to trigger network effects and facilitate a paradigm shift in the way games are financed, developed, distributed and monetized.”
More information about Hoard can be found at their website: https://www.hoard.exchange.
See also:
- Blog: https://blog.hoard.exchange
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/hoardexchange
Media contact
Adora Goh
Communications & Community Manager
communications@hoard.exchange
About Hoard
Hoard is a platform founded by gaming industry veterans that aims to disrupt the $80 billion a year virtual items market by facilitating true ownership of virtual gaming assets.
About imapp
imapp is a software company specialising in distributed computing, blockchain technologies, computer graphics and game development. They are involved in some of the leading projects in the Ethereum ecosystem, including Golem, OmiseGO and Hoard.
Source: Hoard