About Octo Gaming history
Last updated
Last updated
The story of Octo Gaming goes back to August 2018 when the founders, Thomas and Robin, decided to look for a way to allow all video game players to monetize their playtime.
The observation of the market was very simple:
The gaming industry is massive & rapidly growing. It is becoming the biggest entertainment industry ahead of cinema and music
Gamers are spending more and more time playing and are reaching extremely high skill levels. Even amateur gamers train more than many soccer or tennis hopefuls
Meanwhile, at the same time, only 0.1% of gamers benefit from monetizing their gaming activity which consists of mostly pro gamers and influencers.
Based on these three points, the idea was to find a solution to make each player an e-gamer at their own scale who can also monetize their time spent playing and benefit from the skills they build.
Initially the project was called BetOnYou before being renamed Octo Gaming.
Video games are a highly competitive field, so we wanted to make seamless betting system with competition at the heart. However, we quickly realized that 99% of the players who were entering this industry were all obsessed with cash prizes & betting as bears are with honey. So we decided to break the industry norm & redefine betting from the ground up, by launching a completely free virtual currency (Golds) that players can bet on each other.
The concept was very simple:
- On arrival each player receives 200 Golds.
- If they wins matches playing games available on OCTO, i.e. the biggest PvP games of the moment: Fortnite, Clash Royale, Brawl Stars, R6S, Fifa and many more, then they win the Golds of their opponent.
- When he has enough Golds, then he can exchange them for prizes offered by our partner brands such as Lenovo, Logitech, DxRacer and many more, which offer gaming chair, laptop, keyboard, monitor, …
The idea of Octo Gaming was born! It was time to develop it! The team dived into the process head first with no knowledge of how to code or money.
So they joined an incubator to structure the project and we started learning 2–3 code rudiments to create a chatbot on messenger via Chatfuel.
The idea of this chatbot was to make a quick go-to-market product even if the interface wasn't the most optimized to see if it worked.
The bot gained traction at a blistering pace and in 7 months, OCTO had more than 40k users with $0 spent on communication & marketing.
Octo Gaming was then awarded a 30k€ grant from the BPI and the Normandy region (winner of the French Tech grant) which allowed the company to recruit its first interns and build its first mobile application. This one reached 365K users through 5 French-speaking countries in 1 year of existence. Only coded by interns and designed by Thomas and Robin, this app even reached the 19th place of the most downloaded apps in France. However, it had its limits and we had to look further. So it was used as a very advanced POC to raise funds.
So in August 2020, Octo Gaming raised 1.25 million € (with TOP French Angels and VC’s) to recruit a team worthy of the name. The objective was twofold:
A total overhaul of our mobile application and the integration of all the social aspects of our application
Revamp the visual identity to be solely geared towards gamers & gen Z individuals.
8 months after its launch in February 2021, the feedback is simply crazy and the app had more than 2 million users worldwide. It has also been ranked several times in the top of the most downloaded apps in the world in France, the US, Mexico, Spain and the UK.
Without having ever named it Octo Gaming has been doing Play & Earn for over 3 years allowing video game players to “earn” real things by playing.
But the play & earn model was starting to go out of fashion as players now want to earn cryptocurrencies & NFTs. So it was only natural to follow suit by moving into web 3.0, which is why we the company launched its first collection of NFTs named The Octos in January 2022 which has been sold-out instantly on the Solana blockchain.
The Octos are 4 444 units NFTs generated artistically with an algorithm, each Octo is unique and has special accessories. These Octos will be your avatar 3.0 in the OCTO app and will grant you numerous access to perks and exclusive content. Having an Octo offers you a lifetime premium membership on OCTO. Moreover, it gives you the possibility of earning crypto rewards, aside the other prizes.
Octo Gaming has started to develop its own 100% in-app games - with 6 already launched - to provide a more seamless & enjoyable gaming experience for the users.
By developing its own mobile casual games integrated into the application it will strengthens Octo Gaming's place in the mobile gaming industry, the largest segment of the video game industry
Octo Gaming now controls the whole game chain: more powerful matching algorithm, reduction of waiting time, automated result and end of cheating or nuisance possibilities
The company changed its name from BetOnYou to become Octo Gaming to clearly state the companies new ambitions which are clearly outlined in this Whitepaper: Create the world’s first hub for competitive hyper casual Play2Earn games.
All to push the limits of the gaming industry & set a new standard.
