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This In-Game Ad Startup Wants to Rent Virtual Ad Spaces

Last Updated March 27, 2023 2:32 AM
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Last Updated March 27, 2023 2:32 AM
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The gaming and digital advertising industries are currently struggling with many issues. Swiss startup Vreo thinks it can solve those problems using the blockchain.

According to emarketer statistics  that are included in Vreo’s colorpaper , the digital advertising and gaming industries have been growing for some time and aren’t showing signs of slowing down. The amount of money spent on digital ads is already substantially more significant than the amount spent on TV advertising and continues to grow.

The value of the gaming space — which has been growing for some time — has been forecasted to reach $118.6 billion by 2019. Still, those industries are both facing some quite substantial problems.

a bar chart showing the number of people in the market

The industry’s struggles

Everybody hates ads, and there’s a reason for it. Ads significantly worsen the user experience of services that rely on them to monetize. Also, ad blockers are among the many issues with which the digital advertising industry is currently struggling. According to the colorpaper, such software could prevent up to $25 billion in lost revenue in 2020.

Ad fraud is another serious issue that nobody has solved yet, and the colorpaper reports could eat up to $12.5 billion of profits in this space. The game industry, on the other hand, isn’t without its struggles. Small development studios and indie developers have difficulty in obtaining funding.

Ads as a part of the game

To decrease how disruptive ads are, Vreo  wants to embed them into the software. A pop up that kills your immersion this way could be — for instance — replaced by an in-game graffiti. Such ads could be readily accepted as a part of the game by the players and could decrease how motivated people are to install an ad-blocker in the first place.

The colorpaper explains that such an approach preserves the user-experience while unlocking space for more ads. What’s more, the game gets to keep part of the ad revenue for watching advertisements. The tokens obtained this way can be used to fund games or exchanged. A significant advantage of this approach is that ad blockers do not block ads that are embedded this way.

Ad fraud prevention

The ad views on this platform are delivered using IDs and hashes which identify the player, the game, the advertiser and the advertisement. Such tracking allows view evaluation and renders ad fraud much more difficult.

After evaluation of the interactions with the ads, the views are stored on-chain to prevent data manipulation.

A game funding marketplace

The platform includes a marketplace called “Funding Gateway” where the developers can launch small initial coin offerings (ICOs). The projects featured on the marketplace will be selected by Vreo, and financial forecasts based on statistical data will be included.

a tablet with a space shuttle on top of it

Tokenomics and overview

There are two tokens involved in the project; one is a utility token and the other, dubbed VIT, an internal platform token. The stablecoin is for internal use only and won’t be traded on exchanges.

The utility of the other token, MERO, is that it can be locked in a smart contract to get access to features like lower transaction fees, voting rights, and market intelligence — this should also reduce velocity.

The public sale of the token is scheduled for February and will happen on the Cobinhood  and Republic  platforms. During the ICO, 390 million MERO tokens are going to be sold for $0.05 each during the project’s ICO . The accepted cryptocurrency will be Ethereum and a price in ETH will be set in under 24 hours before the sale starts.

Since high profile partnerships have become  essential for rendering an ICO credible, Vreo has managed to obtain some noteworthy alliances. Among the partners that will help in the development of the platform, the colorpaper puts particular emphasis on Iconiq Lab. This partner will be helping Vreo with its tokenization expertise, ICO legal framework, and network in the cryptocurrency industry.

Vreo also claims that it will receive help from computing behemoth IBM, which will grant to the startup access to its AI services. The startup also reportedly has established relationships with leading network infrastructure manufacturer Cisco and Wayra Accelerator, an initiative by the telecommunications company Telefonica.

Furthermore, also game producers Pixowl and Gamestorm, which according to Vreo boast millions of players each month, will be  using Vreo’s system.