Why the Russian IMDb about games needed a blockchain: interview with RAWG techlide

A year ago, the RAWG recommendation service was launched — a gaming analogue of Spotify and IMDb. Now it is turning into something more ambitious: RAWG has entered the ICO, intends to reward gamers with tokens for achievements in games and sell the audience to publishers. We talked with its technical director Samat Galimov about where the service is going.

The questions were asked by the issuing editor App2Top.ru Alexander Semenov.

About the transition to RAWG

In March, you left Medusa for RAWG. Why did you choose Haji Mahtiyev’s startup?

Samat Galimov

Samat Galimov: Because of him, of course. Gadzhi came to me and said: “We are doing such and such a project, you will definitely be interested.”

By the way, the first time he came much earlier. But then it was not at the box office at all. There was an active movement in Medusa. By March, a lot had settled down and I was ready to take on something new.

Can this be called hunting?

Samat Galimov: There were a lot of things that made me want to leave Medusa. I would say that a critical mass has accumulated.

Did you have any other options?

Samat Galimov: There was another good option. But it was a standard offer. As for RAWG, Gadzhi himself came from Vilnius to Riga, caught it, told about the project. Such attention wins immediately. With hunting, Gadzhi is all top.

What are you responsible for in the project now?

Samat Galimov: I answer questions in the spirit of whether there is anything we can do from a technical point of view. If we can, what will it cost us?

Let me give you an example. The first thing I did when I arrived was to conduct an audit. Based on its results, I ordered an external security audit.

Then I realized that the site was slowing down, and I told the team about it. The team was aware. We decided to redo it.

I just explained the task, suggested what I think about it. Then the programmers offered their solutions. Ultimately, they did the optimization tasks. I just suggested some things and then checked whether it worked or not.

This is a high-level guide.

We have four people in our development team. When I came there were three people, and now there are four. Each of them is a very cool specialist, and my task is only to give them the opportunity to outline the rules of the game, as well as explain what needs to be done.

I am an intermediary between business and technology. And I had a similar role in Medusa.

What is the most important thing in a project for a technical specialist

When a technical specialist of your level chooses a project, what does he look at first?

Samat Galimov: I look at people. For me, the most important thing is who is in the team. Gadzhi is one person, but he also told me who else is in the team. And I did a little research, asked around friends and realized that I would be interested in these people.

It’s all about people, but that’s certainly not the whole story. I believe that the project itself is now coming in on time.

There is a hypothesis that 90% of the success of any startup is to be on time.

You do it before the necessary technologies become widespread — by.

You do it later, when everyone has already broken off a piece of cake for himself within the trend, — also by.

But if you’re on time, then you find yourself on the crest of a wave. And it seems to me that we came on time. The games market has overtaken the film industry. And it continues to grow rapidly. At the same time, it does not have an assembly point in the spirit of IMBb.

There is also a humanitarian side. It is important for me to do something useful for society.

We at RAWG have taken on the personalization of the gaming industry. No one knows the people behind the development.

I see this as a problem. There are game projects that have no less influence on modern culture than, for example, “Pulp Fiction”. But everyone has heard about Tarantino, and only Super Mario Bros. fans can name Shigeru Miyamoto.

And we offer a solution.

Developer profile in RAWG

Do you really believe that one service can change something?

Samat Galimov: Yes, but it won’t happen at the snap of your fingers.

First of all, it is necessary to build a good discovery. And it is for him that everyone is chasing today.

There are so many offers on the market. And therefore questions constantly arise: what you can read, what you can see, what you can play.

Netflix solves this problem. You open the app and it immediately prompts you. But it doesn’t work perfectly. There is no gaming Netflix. And we do it.

And our solution to the discovery problem, among other things, will help the audience to better understand the representatives of the industry. Users will be able to navigate by them.

How will traffic sales work in RAWG

RAWG has blockchain ambitions. The project plans to enter the ICO (and has already raised $ 5 million at the presale stage). But it is unclear why a site with a game database needs tokens?

Samat Galimov: The story of the ICO is a story about the monetization of the service. And also about how we plan to use our targeting capabilities.

Have you decided to give gaming companies the opportunity to buy targeted advertising from you?

Samat Galimov: Yes.

Will it be similar to the following scenario: I am a developer, I need a certain target audience, let’s say Heroes of Might & Magic fans. Since you target them, can you sell them to me?

Samat Galimov: That’s how it works.

The coolest thing with us is targeting.

Currently, no one in the industry has cross-platform data on the behavior of players. Separately, the sites are aware. The developers themselves and those who want to promote products among gamers — no.

The fact that we allow users to connect accounts of three main platforms (Steam, Xbox, PlayStation) opens up this data to us. And through us, companies get the opportunity to target the audience as accurately as possible.

RAWG Pages

Why do you need tokens within the framework of the “protargetil — sold traffic” system?

Samat Galimov: In order to further attract the gaming audience, encourage them to stay in the ecosystem.

And how does it generally work for you?

Samat Galimov: Watch your hands.

First. Players receive tokens for achievements and content creation.

Second. Players can leave tokens inside the system and use them to purchase partner products on a targeted offwall. We get the tokens back, the partner gets the player, the player gets a good offer targeted to his interests: it can be a game with a discount, in-game goods, fan service or goods and services from other areas.

The second and a half. If the player has not found interesting offers inside the service, he can withdraw tokens outside and do everything with them there that does not contradict local legislation. Most likely, he will want to sell them on one of the cryptocurrency exchange services.

The third. Advertisers interested in a high-quality audience buy tokens on external trading platforms and order RAWG advertising for these tokens at a serious discount of 30%. We get the tokens back.

Fourth. The player receives tokens for achievements and content creation.

The cycle closes.

A more complete demonstration of how RAWG will have to work

Did I understand correctly that from the user’s point of view, the scheme looks like this: played the game, got achievements, got tokens for them, went to buy a new game?

Samat Galimov: The model is a little more complicated. We have an economic cycle that lasts two weeks. During these two weeks, the community as a whole needs to earn some number of achievements in games that RAWG supports automatically.

If, at the end of two weeks, the community earns the required amount of achievements, then users have two days to turn already personal achievements into tokens.

Tokens can be withdrawn from RAWG, sold, donated, in general, everything that can be done with any cryptocurrency. They can also be spent directly in our platform store not only on games, but also on very real things, a la headphones, sneakers, something else.

Aren’t you afraid that the topic of earning money won’t affect the bulk of the site’s audience? Not everyone is ready to dive into these cycles, knock out achievements for the sake of games and headphones. At the same time, as I understand it, advertisers will come primarily for such users.

Samat Galimov: We have no illusions, we understand that most people will visit the site just to get information about a particular game.

And now the main visitors of RAWG are people who want to learn something about games. You may not be a movie fan, but at least once in your life you have visited KinoPoisk or IMBd. It’s the same here. Do you want to know something about the game? You get to RAWG.

We are not going to force users to play and earn achievements.

Differences in data collection between RAWG and Steam Spy

How much have you been affected by the story with Steam, which closed access to user libraries? For example, this story did not affect Steam Spy in the best way.

Samat Galimov: There is a huge difference between us and SteamSpy. By the way, thanks to this difference, we do not have a problem with privacy and GDPR.

We do not parse other people’s data.

A user comes to us. He wants to see his library of games in one place. What he wants to share with the RAWG service is his own business.

We are completely honest with the user in this regard. We tell him: “Do you want to connect your profiles? You’ll be great.” And he connects his profiles.

But this requires separate efforts from the user himself. That is, the conversion will be small.

Samat Galimov: Of course, this is an additional step. But there is a thrill from owning a library of games. It is large enough for the player to perform the necessary actions. And then. Players are the kind of people who don’t hesitate to take the time to do something.

User profile in RAWG

Can you share the conversion?

Samat Galimov: We have an average of 100 games and more than 500 achievements per user.

Each achievement is a unique data point about how you play. With 500 achievements, you can tell not only what a person is playing, but also how. For example, he plays this game on weekends, and this one before work.

Another important metric for us is that each user generates an average of 10 reviews. Feedback from us is not just a text, you can just choose an emotion.

Now you support Steam, PS, Xbox. Will there be a mobile?

Samat Galimov: Mobile stores are very protective of their data. They don’t want to share their API.

We would like to receive data, it seems to us that it would be useful for players, but I don’t see a direct way to get data from the platform yet technically. Perhaps we’ll partner with someone whose SDK is embedded in a large number of game projects.

About RAWG problems

What’s wrong with RAWG? What will you change?

Samat Galimov: Really interesting problems usually arise when you have an audience.

Of the main ones now, I would single out the fact that the site is very poorly searched in search engines, we have little search traffic. This is a problem, but we claim that RAWG is issued on request for any game.

Another important task is UGC. We want it to be convenient for users to edit the database themselves, so that they have their own admin panel. Users are potentially a very big help. For example, five of our readers have long insisted on the ability to edit game descriptions. We gave them this opportunity. In a month, they have commented out a thousand edits. Is free.

It seems to me that we greatly underestimate the desire of people to be creative, to invest in something. And giving normal people the opportunity to edit too is not only an important, but also a very big task.

Implementing a convenient tool for obtaining tokens by players is also a challenge. At the same time, it must be implemented in such a way that it also meets the constantly changing requirements of the legislation of various countries.

There are a lot of problems. But this is a good situation, because wherever you spit, you can do something interesting.