A couple of years ago, the only use-case people thought about crypto was as a currency. However, fast-forward to today, we have an uncountable number of use-cases for the technology. Not only that, there is an ever-growing potential of use-cases that we’ll soon get to see in the future. Out of all those, there is one use-case that is growing quicker than what the industry expected: Gaming Industry.
The gaming industry is big, and by big, I mean really really big! According to statistics from 2019, the total worth of the gaming industry stood at $155 billion. What’s even more surprising is the fact that the number is poised to grow at a rate of 9.17% between 2020-2025. It’s a no-brainer that crypto will definitely find some ground in that industry.
But for games to incorporate crypto technology, there are some big challenges. Some of these are integral to the game experience, some require expertise in the technology as well as big investments for development. However, there is one platform that is aiming to simplify all this process for existing game developers: ENJIN.
Overview
ENJIN is one of the largest online gaming community creation platforms, comprising gaming-focused content management & forum creator. Also, the platform has over 18 million registered gamers, has 60 million global views per month, and has about 250,000 gaming communities.
The platform has introduced a new crypto token named Enjin Coin (ENJ). Moreover, with this token, ENJIN wants to help game developers, content creators, and gaming communities develop and implement virtual goods backed by crypto value in their gaming ecosystems.
Team and Backers
A team of 8 members develops and manage the ENJIN Platform:
- Mazim Blagov: CEO/Creative Director
- Co-founder of ENJIN.
- He has over 15 years of expertise in creative direction, project management, and UX design.
- He is also an expert in concept & strategy development for large interactive applications.
- Witek Radomski: CTO
- Co-founder of ENJIN.
- He has overseen the technical engineering of ENJIN for about a decade.
- He also leads the core Enjin Coin currency implementation along with onling gaming ecosystem.
- Josh Woelfel: Full Stack Engineer
- He has an extensive experience in full stack development.
- He also specializes in REACT, PHP & JavaScript.
- Vyacheslav Volkov: C#/Objective-C Engineer
- He is the technical head in C#, Objective-C and Java.
- He also directs the development of Enjin Android and iOS app.
- Lilia Pritchard: Marketing/Operations
- She has over 10 years of marketing experience, well-versed in establishing partnerships with industry-leading game publishers.
- She also has some valuable insights for strategic trends besides having a strong ability in execution of campaigns.
- Brad Bayliss: Security Analyst/Full Stack Engineer
- He has over 10 years of experience in programming, security research, quality assurance and network management.
- He is respsonsible for ensuring a safe and secure network infrastructure for users on the platform.
- Evan Lindsay: Java/Game Server Engineer
- He is the lead developer and Java programmer of the Enjin Minecraft plugin, a very popular addon used by 100k game servers.
- He also specializes in game programming and Java technologies.
- Chris Hirasawa: Quality Assurance/Community Manager
- He has over 7 years of experience in the gaming industry.
- He is responsible for driving the software development process towards quality-centric methodologies.
Besides this, there are five advisors, assisting the team regarding their platform:
- Pat LaBine: Gaming Technical Advisor
- Robin Hanson: Advisor on Social Science and Economics
- Ryan Lackey: Security Advisor
- Daniel He: Business Development/Economics Advisor
- Frederick Heartline: Advisor
ENJIN Platform’s Features
Enjin with its platform will provide solutions enabling game publishers, game servers, and communities to manage virtual goods as well as in-game items. Basically, they focus on providing toolsets for monetization via Enjin Coin. Moreover, the benefits will dramatically increase with the utilization of a decentralized platform and supporting frameworks.
Benefits for Communities:
- Communities can gamifiy their website and mobile community with custom Enjin Coins.
- They can increase user participation and contribution on forums and walls.
- They can also automate rewards and setup a variety of condition based triggers.
Benefits for Game Publishers/Content Creators:
- Open-source suite of APIs and SDKs for every popular platform and engine.
- Smart wallets facilitating easy automatic payments from users.
- A decentralized payment gatewaay with no middle-man.
- Transparent transactions, no fraud, chragebacks, or cancellations.
Benefits for Gamers:
- Buying/Selling of items with no risk of fraud.
- Trading between gaming items from different games.
- Access to Enjin’s marketplace for trading game items.
- Earn Enjin coins playing games.
ENJ Coin
Enjin Coin (ENJ Coin) is the native ERC-20 type token present on the platform. 6 months after the Enjin Coin crowd sale, the team will release the abovementioned coins to approximately 30,000 verified gaming communities on Enjin.
As for the number of tokens each community will receive, the team will calculate this on the basis of previous store volume sales, member count, audience visits, and various website activity metrics.
ENJIN Platform’s Tokenomics
The total supply of ENJ Tokens is 1 billion. Allocation for the tokens is mentioned below:
- The team will sell 40% of those tokens to pre-sale purchasers pursuant to a Simple Agreement for Future Tokeens (“SAFT”).
- The team will then sell 40% of ENJ tokens to crowdsale purchasers minus any bonuses applied in the pre-sale.
- For the remaning 20%, the team will reserve 10% for itself, incentivising community, beta testers, marketing and strategic partners.
- Finally, the remaning 10% will go towards Enjin Coin Team and Advisors.
Roadmap of ENJIN Platform
The platform started its operation back in 2017 with the introduction of Core smart contracts, platform API, Java SDK, and Minecraft plugin. With time, it saw the introduction of various new modules such as C# SDK, Unity SDK, and Unturned Plugin. Besides all this, we also saw the introduction of the Enjin Mobile App, Payment Gateway Contract, and Framework in 2018.
Talking about the current progress, the platform saw Efinity securing Slot 6 on the para chain auctions on Polkadot. Also, the team is in the progress of testing Version 2 of the Enjin Wallet. The wallet is currently in Alpha is expected to make much more progress in Q2 2022.
Final Thoughts
ENJIN platform has a lot going for it. It tackles one of the basic yet unnoticed problems the gaming industry finds with crypto technology. Not only that, through providing various SDKs and toolsets, they basically eliminate the ‘middle-man’ between gaming developers/communities and crypto technology.
Also, the team behind the platform is well-versed in the gaming industry which adds to the factor of their platform’s target audience. Finally, the platform has support from multiple communities through the use of their toolsets which further drive the platform’s prospects of becoming the major force in their segment.