RAWG (RAWG) ICO Analysis: A Full-Featured Video Games Discovery Platform

Executive Summary

Project Description

In recent times, the online gaming industry has been growing increasingly stronger. However, there are still some parts of the sector that can be improved, some kinks to be ironed out. Firstly, gamers have to use many different platforms before they can enjoy their favorite games or discover new ones. This is quite stressful and time-consuming, and it is made even harder by the fact that all platforms are biased towards their own games, so they promote them more. Secondly, until now, there is no all-in-one library stocked with full features for cross-platform gamers. Furthermore, except professional gamers that play eSports for a living, other considerably skilled gamers do not have a platform where they can earn real life rewards/assets for their skills.

RAWG wants to tackle the problems outlined above by creating what the project calls “IMDb for games”; the biggest online library for video games — a library that will reportedly be equipped with many features to make cross-platform gaming easier and enjoyable. On RAWG’s platform, users will be able to synchronize their RAWG accounts with their Steam, PSN, Xbox and other online gaming accounts, allowing the user receive personalized recommendations for games on RAWG and connect to friends and influencers about gaming. Additionally, RAWG wants to create a blockchain-based ecosystem that allows gamers receive real life benefits for their skills — this is expected to give gamers incentive to play on and submit unique content to the platform. Rewards will be given out in form of Karma, and they can be turned into tokens. The more Karma a user has, the higher their expertise level on the platform, and the more features they will have access to.

RAWG’s token, also named RAWG, will be governing currency on the platform and it will have the following use cases: firstly, it will be used to order for advertisements on the platform. Secondly, gamers will earn RAWG tokens for in-game achievements and the tokens can be used to purchase items (like wireless headphones or premium pass for a game) on the platform. Additionally, gaming experts will be invited to consult with live audiences and get paid in RAWG.

Existing Product

The project has a beta platform; the platform currently has a library of games with over 50,000 titles. It also has other features like community recommendation, live stream suggestions, a game release calendar and so on.

Hard Cap and Valuation

RAWG raised €1 million during their seed round in January. They aim to raise an additional $10 million during their public sale (soft cap is set at $2 million). If their token sale sells out completely, there will be a total of 866,666,667 RAWG tokens and they will reportedly be distributed thus: 38.5% will be sold during the crowdsale, 33.5% will be reserved as stabilization fund, the founders will get 10%, 7.7% will be used for bonuses, the team will get 3.8%, the advisors will also get 3.8%, 1.9% will be airdropped, and the final 0.8% will be used for bounty campaigns.

Team tokens are expected to be vested, and vesting schedules should be released in due time.

Price Per Token

1 RAWG = $0.03

Important Dates

A private presale is going on at the moment, and interested parties can contact the team. Please note that allocations start from $100,000. RAWG crowdsale is expected to start in April 2018.

Roadmap

May 2018 Community-editable database.

Aug 2018 Launching RAWG token system + advertising sales.

Oct 2018 Personalized recommendations based on unique data of cross-platform interests of gamers and over 100,000 games in the database.

Nov 2018 Tokenized Q’n’A service: ask questions and receive answers from game developers.

Dec 2018 Advertisers’ self-service profiles.

Marketing Power

As at the time this post was published, RAWG had over 1,800 followers on Facebook, 250+ followers on Twitter, over 170 members on Discord, 30 followers on Medium, and over 40 members on Telegram. The project also has 700+ upvotes on Producthunt.

Prominent Advisors

Vyacheslav Makarov

• Head of the World of Tanks Product Group
• Head of R&D at Wargaming.net.
• Co-creator of World of Tanks.

Misha Lyalin

• CEO of Zeptolab, the video game developer best known for the Cut the Rope series.

Team Members’ Areas of Expertise

Business experts

Gadji Makhtiev, Founder & CEO.

• Founder and CEO of Kanobu, a video game and entertainment media company, for almost 11 years (ongoing).

Dasha Lyalin, COO.

• CEO at Svyaznoy Zagruszka, an e-commerce business, for 8 years.
• Account Manager at Debby for 2 years.

Target market experts

Quite a number of the team members have considerable experience in the gaming industry,. As a result, target market expertise is a given.

Marketing experts

Dasha Lyalin, COO.

• Marketing Director at Svyaznoy Zagruszka for 2 years
• Brand Manager at Svyaznoy Zagruszka for 2 years
• Marketing Director at Reaxion, a mobile application company, for 3 years.

Sergey Ulankin, Editor-in-Chief.

• Editor-in-Chief at Roem.ru for almost 2 years.

Mike Ger, PR & Marketing.

• Lead Product Manager at Rambler&Co for almost 2 years.
• Marketing & PR Manager at ZeptoLab, a gaming company, for almost 2 years.
• Manager of Internet and Media Projects at Yandex, a technology company, for almost 3 years.
• Head of Content Services at Yandex for over a year.
• Marketing Project Manager at Yandex for over a year.
• VP Marketing at O2tv for almost 2 years.
• Chief Editor at O2tv for almost 4 years.

Legal experts

No team member with legal expertise. However, the project is working with Deloitte legal support.

Software engineering experts

Alexey Gornostaev, CPO & Co-Founder.

• Head of Product Management at Rambler Games for almost 4 years.
• Product Manager at Game Insight for a year.
• Project Manager at Kanobu for 6 months.

Samat Galimov, CTO.

• CTO at Meduza, a Russian news media, for over 3 years.
• Technical Director for Bookmate at Dream Industries, an international IT group, for over a year.
• System Engineer at Dream Industries for almost a year.
• KIT Student at Yandex for almost a year.
• System Administrator at ABMR Lab for over 3 years.
• System Administrator at State Gulag Museum for a year.
• System Administrator at Moscow State University for a year.

Blockchain development experts

No team member with blockchain development expertise.

Token economics

No team member with expertise in token economics. Some members of their advisory board, however, are knowledgeable investors and have some token economics experience.

Token sale structure

Same as above.

Conclusion

Strengths

• The project already has a beta platform.
• Forecasts indicate that online advertising and the gaming industry will keep growing.
• Team members have profound expertise in the gaming industry.
• Low hard cap.

Potential risks for investors

• There is considerable competition in this market segment (with the likes of Refereum).
• RAWG’s community is quite small. This may be an indication that the project is not so popular.

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Disclaimers:

• Nothing written in this article is a legal or an investment advice.
• Information is provided on a best-effort basis and is subject to change without prior notice. Be sure to verify everything you read with a project team.

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The analysis was produced by Research Center team members: Alexander Bugaj, Mark Jedd, Eugene Tartakovsky.

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