One of the few activities that kept us engaged and acted as an escape during the lockdown was gaming. While media and entertainment industries such as cinemas took a hit, home entertainment demands went through the roof. As per Statista, a total of 4.3 million games were sold worldwide from March 16 to March 22 this year, which is a whopping 63 percent total increase from the previous week.
While video game sales are going up, there are some limitations to gaming such as buying expensive consoles or building a gaming PC. One way to get past these limitations is to go for a cloud gaming service. While Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other major players are vying for a bigger chunk of the cloud gaming market, smaller players such as startups are also making a name for themselves. Silicon Canals spoke with the up and coming cloud gaming startup RemoteMyApp (RMA), which wants to be a game changer in the field.
Gaming not limited by hardware anymore
Cloud gaming is a fantastic concept that enables one to play games anywhere, anytime and on any device. Even if your device doesn’t have a dedicated graphics card, it won’t be a problem since a game is processed on a remote server and the result is simply streamed to your device. One simply needs a fast internet connection and a cloud gaming service subscription to enjoy the latest demanding games, without the need to spend much on a gaming machine or console.
RemoteMyApp’s CEO Andreas Hestbeck tells Silicon Canals that the company’s mission is to transform the way players consume games and remove restraints of any platform limitations. “RMA brings quality game experience to players anywhere via low-latency streaming. We plan to put our technology into the hands of gamers in as many countries as possible through strong B2B partners within the shortest possible time frame,” says Hestbeck.
Deutsche Telekom invests €2M in RemoteMyApp
RemoteMyApp was founded in 2014 in Szczecin, Poland by Radoslaw Zawartko and Rafal Krochmal. It started off with support from Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder. In 2016, another investment from MCI Capital boosted its operations and now, it has secured a fresh capital injection of €2 million from Deutsche Telekom, taking the total investment in the company to €4.1 million.
The latest funding will be utlised to accelerate RemoteMyApp’s international growth and rapid innovation in key technologies, along with expansion of the company’s internal human resources. It will also help push the startup’s B2B partner strategy further with new partnerships expected by the end of 2020.
Freeing gamers from downloading, installing or updating games
Few things are as annoying as an untimely game update that pops up just when you are about to play. Cloud gaming completely gets rid of this problem, along with the issues of installing or downloading games. “Our technology is provided via B2B partners or Vortex.gg and our own platform. A player simply needs to download one of our dedicated apps, choose a subscription plan and that’s it. Games are then streamed from our network of powerful servers delivered by the B2B partner or via Vortex.gg, straight to the users’ preferred device.” adds Hestbeck.
RMA was started with the idea of enabling gaming for everyone, irrespective of the limitations of hardware they own. The company says their standalone platform Vortex.gg has been downloaded over 10 million times from the Google Play store globally and attracts more than 250K users every month. Currently, the biggest competitors to RMA are big players such as Google Stadia, Microsoft xCloud, Nvidia GeForce Now, Shadow.tech, Blacknut, and Gamestream.
Hestbeck believes that RMA has found its niche in the B2B area. The company’s services are said to have already attracted big Telcos, ISP’s, and Media companies. “They want to include cloud gaming in their offering for getting a piece of action in the largest entertainment channel. This also ensures users continue to pick their service over the competition. RMA is open for this model of cooperation. The crucial aspect for us is that any potential partners should bring either users, infrastructure, or content into the partnership. RMA also has the option to bring all of the pillars if the right partner approaches with enough capital to bring a product into the market,” Hestbeck notes.
Cloud gaming gains traction in the billion dollar gaming industry
The Gaming industry is a billion dollar business that generates more revenue than the movies and music industry. “It’s definitely a very lucrative market, currently worth more than $150 billion across all verticals. Cloud gaming still forms a very small part of the gaming industry, yet, 2020 is estimated to bring between $356 million and $459 million. Furthermore, according to the newest predictions, the market should be worth more than $3.2 billion by 2023.” says Hestbeck.
RMA has an edge over its competitors as it can provide a fully customized gaming experience to any potential partner. Hestbeck notes, “We see US and European markets as prime candidates but there are other less obvious markets that are just as important, if not more, to the future cloud gaming rollout. Markets in South America and Asia are going to be frontier battlegrounds when we begin seeing the wide adoption of 5G networks in the near future. We have a team with a very strong will to succeed and treat partners like equals, focusing on shared success as the only option to continue the growth into the future.”
