Why Gamerholic is Awesome
Living in San Francisco I hear about a new startup more often than I get an email from one of my long lost brothers in Nigeria who wants to wire me $8,000,000 and just needs to be reminded of my banking credentials (among other things). It’s not too often however that I hear about a Startup that I feel is noteworthy. Sure, we see founders, boot-strappers, and visionaries almost around every corner but how many of them have you spoken to, heard out, and felt that their IDEA was something you would invest in, yet alone have an interest in (after your conversation ended)?
Well, last week I had the chance to meet one of these diamonds in the rough; Anari Sengbe co-founder of Gamerholic. It was during this encounter where he told me about what Gamerholic is – “an innovative competitive gamification service”. Gamerholic enhances natural competition with cash and prize rewards. Additionally, Gamerholic prides themselves on being able to gamify just about anything. Whether it be: marketing campaigns, promotions or trade show presentations.
Here’s a few examples of some of their recent projects as explained on their website:
“Popquiz– After a ruby class, our founder felt follow up was a bit lacking. Granted the class was free, the light information about ruby on rails collected that weekend was good, but it could be better. PopQuiz is a way to gamify your online lessons or live classes. Offer prizes to the student with the best score.
Berole– We set out to see if we could gamify Shakespeare with a live video role playing game.
Dreamybids– One incredible gamified shopping experience. Earn bids in the high score arcade, then use your bids to win prizes in games. “
Still not enough to check it out?
They even have their own theme song.
Below are a couple images for challenges that can be accepted from anyone, anytime. What I find most fascinating (and why I’m even writing about Gamerholic) is Gamerholic’s ability to bring the competitive nature of gamers everywhere onto a platform that allows them to put their money where their mouth is.
Simple as that. Maybe all those years of playing World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike, or DOTA will finally pay off eh? ;).
In a short interview with Sengbe, we discussed what were some current concerns and considerations:
What is your main goal right now for Developers who want to use Gamerholic?
“Having developers consider standarizing the scoring model with whatever algorithm they’re using to determine how the game is scored has to be standardized across the boards.”
What about security?
“The most important thing for this platform is security, the minute you start mixing money with Tetris you’re going to have to have people try to hack the game, hack the site, and so on and so forth…It has to be a very, very secure platform where if you have the high score you can feel confident someone’s not going to cheat you out of the high score. So the API that we’re putting together, each time there’s a score change we have a time stamp. So, if 5 seconds ago your score was 300 – and now it’s 12,000 – we know you cheated. So there’s some really, really cool things we’re going to be able to do with the API including possibly, creating in-game challenges.”
What are your guys’ plans to integrate the API’s into some of the very popular games that are out there?
“It really depends on the partners we decide to work with if they feel that Gamerholic would be profitable for them.”
A common agreement both Sengbe and I have is: regardless of your acquisition startegy (online or mobile) as a developer or owner of your product you can’t expect the leads (users) that are flocking to your app/business to close themselves. Follow-up is still necessary in both instances, and in addition to what was mentioned above one of Gamerholic’s goals is to help provide this user data to Developers that are using their platform.
If you have questions, you can check out their FAQ’s here.
If you’re a Developer..
Monetize Short Games
Monetize 1-3 minute games or the demo of your current full games with our high score arcade. You will earn $0.025+ each time your game is played in a competitive format. Use mini games, perfect for the boring train ride to work or school to monetize, while you work on your dream game.
No Ads
Gamerholic is not an advertising service.
Lots More Free Play
Gamers play free as much as they want to practice your game.
10 Lines Of Code
10 lines of code are all you need to add to your game to Gamerholic. It’s really easy.Take a look at this asteroid game example on Github
Kevin is an Online and Mobile Marketing Strategist who has worked with companies of all sizes over the last 6 years. You can follow Kevin on any of the social platforms below.
