More than 300 million people spend a minimum of 10 minutes every single day on Facebook playing social games. They pay more than 2 billion dollars per year on virtual goods and in-game benefits, in what represents one of the fastest growing sections of the Internet. But the effects of all this in real life is almost 0. Fortunately, things are about to change! Win the planet is a social gaming platform with impact, bridging the huge market gap between pointless games (from companies like Zynga) and boring donations (from organizations such as Kiva). On one side, we offer people the chance to play games, have fun, and do good as a result. On the other, we allow organizations to embed our games on their websites. This creates a meaningful interaction method with their visitors and offers a completely new monetization channel.
Our first game is called The Race, and it has a very simple dynamic: players try to answer questions as fast as possible while advancing towards a prize. These prizes are either eco-friendly/socially responsible physical items or real-life experiences at a project location. Positive impact is achieved by helping producers in a “market driven” way (we buy their products and then offer them as prizes) and by furthering the activities of relevant “on the ground” organizations (half of the ticket revenues from the “real-life experience” races goes to the organization offering the prize). At the beginning of November, after several months of hard work, we launched the beta version of the platform. Everything works, users can play races and win prizes. As well, we are very close to finalizing the first partnership with a major global NGO.
In 2012 we will raise our first 100k seed round from VC/angel investors, hire four web developers, sign ten partnerships with big NGO’s and get at least 10k active users on the platform.
Suggestions or help from Hub members on any of these topics is highly appreciated.
If you want to check all the previous featured members on Hub’s Advent Calendar and stay updated of the upcoming ones, take a look at our Facebook page: Hub Vienna’s Advent Calendar