How to get paid for gaming. + Starting a Play-to-earn company

If you were intrigued back in August when we told you about the SA company that created a new way for gamers to get paid for gaming, this week’s podcast is for you. We got Chris Heaton, founder of Skrmiish to chat all about what it takes to build a pay-to-earn product on triple-A games from right here in SA.

The highlight reel…

1. All about democratising earning potential

If you didn’t know, earning actual money in gaming is normally either 1) reserved for top-tier, sponsored pro players in tournaments (like pro sports today) or 2) blockchain-based indie gaming.

But what Skrmiish did was build the world’s first product that allows everyday gamers to bet on themselves in challenges on triple-A titles like Fortnite and Call of Duty, and earn real money on their performance. It’s taking earning potential from the elite and giving it to everybody – nice and inclusive.

2. Sometimes pivot is the only option

Starting in the go-to peer-to-peer (PVP) play market, Chris says they quickly learned that to deliver a great product you would need a lot of cash and gamers, which is hard to come by. And it was only by chance in a VC meeting that they started playing with the idea of players earning based on performance against “the house” (personal-progress based).

With no cash and income, the team took a major risk and quickly bootstrapped some tech that took this entirely new angle and suddenly saw some money come in. So they took it on the chin, switched off marketing and rebuilt the entire product in 3 months. And it suddenly took off.

3. If you’re aiming global, start global

An extremely interesting point Chris raises here is that the plan was always to build a product with international reach, so they went through all the turmoil and extreme costs of setting up the company overseas.

A hair-raising process, but so worth it according to Chris.

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