In early December, I wrote an article on why investors should be paying attention to MobileGo (MGO). Exploding popularity of the gaming industry and an impressive partnership agreement with Xsolla led to a surge in MGO’s token price. In addition, the team of MobileGo created an application, called GShare, that has the potential to significantly increase MGO token adoption.
What is GShare?
GShare essentially allows users to rent the power of their computers to earn virtual coins. These coins can then be redeemed later for several gaming options including tournament entry fees. Through this platform, a user can control the amount of computer resources that are used throughout the process.
Although GShare is currently only at the public beta testing stage, virtual coins can still be earned by making purchases for Xsolla products. But, according to Igor (the product owner of the GShare app), the goals are much more global than just Xsolla. Fortunately, I was able to land an interview with Igor and asked him about the goals, benefits and upcoming upgrades of the project.
Interview
What is the mission and vision of the project?
Igor: Ok, the mission and vision are basically to enable anyone, with the focus group being gamers, to easily obtain free stuff. For example, for simply sharing their time and computing power, users can come away with games, in-game items, and eSports tournament tickets for free.
What is the advantage of this application as compared to other earning tools in the gaming industry?
Igor: The main advantage is simplicity. Thanks to the partnership with Xsolla, another important advantage is being able to use the virtual currency to buy games and make in-game purchases. In the future, I expect that users will be able to earn items directly within the application. While there are other programs available in the market that allow users to earn virtual currencies, typically users must spend a long time, sometimes up to a year, to earn enough virtual currency to purchase a basic product like a keyboard.
The general idea of GN Gold (GShare currency) is that we will eventually have an entire ecosystem that will support it. In the future, we fully expect there to be a deep integration between game publishers and being able to use GShare directly to get different items – this is the first step to earing free items outside of the games. We hope to separate ourselves from competitors by forming more direct integration with the games themselves.
What is the actual development status? As far I know it’s still in beta test mode.
Igor: Yes, we can say it is a public beta test. But it is available. Anyone who registers in GShare can download and use it. The test mode is available for the first 500-1000 users of the platform. This will help our team to identify and fix the bugs. At present, our internal version is 0.9.17.
If I remember correctly, there was a recent upgrade. Is that accurate?
Igor: Yes, it actually happened a few days ago. Next week, we plan to upgrade the version by adding additional languages including English, Russian, Chinese and Korean. After that, the plan is to add Spanish and Japanese in the near future.
Are there any other upgrades you are expecting soon, perhaps in the next couple of months?
Igor: I think that the first noticeable change will be some type of boosting feature. After performing certain actions or tasks, users will see an increase in their GShare Gold earning rate. An example of a boost might include increased earning power for two hours. We expect to begin working on this feature on Monday although I don’t expect it to be completed until February at the earliest.
How is GShare currently interconnected with other products? Are there any upcoming changes in this respect?
Igor: Right now, there are no direct connections except that a user can spend GShare Gold on the competitive platform. A user’s GShare Gold is used as a participation fee. If a gamer wins a tournament, they will have the option to receive their prize in either MGO tokens or GShare Gold currency.
As far as I know, both products (the earning app and competitive platform), use the same username and password. Is that true?
Igor: Yes, they do. All products of the ecosystem will be easily accessed via a single user profile. So, we will focus mostly on integrating with games and allowing game-publishers to integrate with us. In this way, users can directly spend GShare Gold within the games or use the currency to get items directly.
Okay, are there any technical requirements before someone can run the GShare App?
Igor: I wouldn’t say there are any specific requirements. Since gaming already requires significant computing power, it’s fair to say that most gamers will already have the necessary hardware to run the app.
I just want to clarify one thing. As I understood it, the eSports platform is now used mainly for casual games?
Igor: Yes. The eSports platform now targets casual gamers while GShare is targeting more of a core gamer audience.
What are the limitations and how can someone know whether they should use GShare?
Igor: At the moment, that’s a very difficult question to answer given that we’ve only just launched the beta. During this test period, we hope to learn more about whether an average gaming machine with an average GPU will be enough to earn users some profit. Although I can say that even laptops with just CPU are able to earn something right now. It’s also important to remember that the boosting feature, in which development will begin shortly, will play a pivotal role here.
What are the future goals for GShare?
Igor: For me, the goals are like most other technology businesses – stability and scalability of the application. Certainly, we hope to make the experience as pleasurable for the users as possible. Avoiding bad experiences, like application crashes, are of paramount importance.
Some of the team will be working constantly on improving the algorithms, stability and scalability, fixing bugs, and making small fixes in the background. In the near term, the priority is certainly to finish earning item features, testing it, and getting as many game publishers as possible. The boosting feature is also very important.
Does GShare have the potential to change the gaming industry in the long-term?
Igor: Well, the company’s long-term goal is to do good things. We hope that all these products and GShare will be able to support the community and create strong social values. Users can choose to interact within the framework of a thematic platform. An example of that would focus on how a gamer’s view is changing. This is not just about gaming but allowing people to use their computer for many things while not having to make any effort to go outside.
…. and what’s the scope of the project?
Igor: Well, for me personally, the scope is to provide as much profit for users as possible. It would be great if people could run the application overnight while earning a few dollars. That would really be something.
What are you doing to increase awareness of the GShare Application?
Igor: Our team is working on that right now. In January, we expect to begin introducing the app to the Chinese and Korean markets. In addition, we are negotiating with partners. Word of mouth among gamers will also play a big role. That, of course, will depend on the quality and success of the beta.
This will be my final question. What role do you play in this project?
Igor: Well, when I came to the company, they wanted me to lead the core. Prior to joining, I was a product manager for the core team in my previous role. The previous role afforded me a lot of experience but, for me, it had become a bit tiresome and uninteresting. It was really about the things that the ordinary user doesn’t see, and I was dealing with all the back-end.
This project is different. It sounds like “Oh, we haven’t go these” – now you do! Right now, I’m trying to figure out ways to give the end users as many benefits as possible. I spend a lot of my time ensuring a good user experience.
Chris: Igor, thanks so much for taking the time to give me an interview.
Igor: You’re welcome. Feel free to contact me anytime if you have more questions.
Although GShare is still in the initial stage of development, the potential is certainly there for a bright and meaningful relationship between gamers and publishers. As awareness increases, there is a strong possibility that adoption of MobileGo (MGO) tokens will also increase.
Disclosure: Chris is long MGO tokens.
