The global boom in the global gaming industry continues to create companies that develop content solutions based on the player’s personal experience: Israeli Edge Gaming, founded just less than a year ago, has completed a $ 10 million round led by Playtica, the casual gaming giant. In addition to Playtica, existing investors, venture capital funds Stardom and AnD Ventures participated in the round. Since its inception, the company has raised $ 12 million when the pre-seed was raised last July.
Edge Gaming is developing a first-of-its-kind platform that allows any player (gamer) to create at the touch of a button short game segments (15-30 seconds) that he himself has performed, share them with other players and allow them to play them themselves. The platform is considered a breakthrough in the world of social networks in general and gaming in particular because it changes the relationship between content creators and content consumers. If until today this relationship was expressed in a comment or Blake, now the need for content can also play in the content itself and thus feel part of the content creator’s experience.
Thus, Edge Gaming first puts the player itself at the center and actually turns the player into a producer and consumer of content according to his desires. As a content creator, the platform allows the player to define the game moments he wants to share and challenge his community. On the other hand, as a content consumer he can choose which game segments he wants to play. On the Edge Gaming platform, the player can only play the highlights of the game, those moments that connect and bring the players back to the game over and over again and thus Edge Gaming intends to increase the long-term value for the game makers – a critical parameter for them. Thus, Edge Gaming’s innovative platform creates the potential for future collaboration between it and gaming giants.
Edge Gaming calls the game segments Playables, meaning content that can be played. The company’s patented technology allows the player to produce the Playables in 10 seconds and upload them to the Edge Gaming social platform just as he uploads a video on social networks such as Facebook, Tic Tac and others. This is in contrast to the existing way of creating game segments (called in professional parlance Mod creation) that lasts between hours and weeks, and is done mainly by the game giants themselves.
Edge Gaming’s vision is to actually be a key player in what has recently defined the future of the gaming industry: UGC – User Generated Content – content created by the users themselves, in this case gamers. In the current era, this is mostly about short content, created on a regular basis, about the weight of tic tac-toe videos. Thus, a gamer can be a game creator and a new ecosystem is created where every gamer becomes a content creator.
The company’s platform is currently operating in a closed beta version, and Edge Gaming intends to start distributing it commercially over the next year, initially mainly in very popular AAA games such as CSGO and more. The company’s initial business model is to use its platform for a subscription fee that the gamer purchases, and at a later stage – to create collaborations with popular content creators in the industry.
Edge Gaming employs 17 people and plans to increase their number to 25 by the end of the current year and to 40 by the end of the first half of 2022.
Edge Gaming was founded by the brothers Omri (33, Deputy CEO) and Assaf Gazit (29, CEO) – both gamers themselves. The company’s other senior executives include Tamar Ruham (VP of Technology), who previously managed development teams at the world’s largest companies, including Go Daddy; Israeli online; And Uri Lebanon (VP of Collaborations) with extensive experience in the worlds of gaming and content creation.
Edge Gaming operates in a market that rolls in hundreds of billions of dollars a year, hence its potential. According to a recent study, conducted by consulting and research giant Accenture, the gaming market as a whole has an annual turnover of $ 300 billion. Under the heading Gaming: The New Superplatform, the research company based its findings on data analysis of 4,000 gamers in the 4 main markets: China, Japan, the UK and the US, in order to understand gamers’ consumers and what drives the industry’s growth. , The number of gamers has increased by half a billion and currently stands at 2.7 billion gamers worldwide.According to Accenture, by the end of 2023 the number of gamers will increase by 400 million.
In the social context, which connects to the platform developed by Edge Gaming, the study claims that the social aspect of the game grows and becomes a key experience for gamers, far beyond other in-game experiences. 75% of gamers responded that more and more of their social interactions take place on gaming platforms.
“With Playables, game developers can focus on creating perfect graphics and physics within their games, while the players themselves will have the power to determine how the game will be played – on their own terms,” explains Assaf Gazit, CEO of Edge Gaming. That we have created for the gaming industry and the value it brings with it to game developers and gamers alike. We look forward to continuing our mission to allow the player to sit in the driver’s seat. “
“There are great products, great market opportunities and great timing, but rarely has a company been set up that marks ‘V’ on all three of them the way Edge Gaming does it,” says Lee Mozer, managing partner at venture capital fund AnD. “The way entertainment is consumed today – custom, short, high-frequency content created by content creators and members of their communities – has finally reached the gaming industry. Edge Gaming is developing the future of the gaming industry by allowing players to get much more value from the games they love. And the producers of the games they follow. “
“Edge Gaming’s Playables platform is the key to realizing the full potential of social interaction between players by creating an infinity of new scenarios that allow players to improve their skills,” says Raz Friedman, VP of Chief Product at Playtica. “Edge Gaming’s platform is going to change The gaming scene as we know it, and we are excited to support the company and contribute to it from our expertise and knowledge. “
Playtica, the Israeli casual gaming giant, is traded on NASDAQ at a value of $ 7.5 billion and is careful to invest in gaming companies that have an innovative line.
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