Loot

What do I play for?

As an aging gamer who is adulting full time now, I seek to have it all: a career, family, and playing the best games possible.

Adulting isn’t easy, and staying young at heart is even harder. So it’s no wonder that at 2 am, I am either sleeping or playing video games. During this time I don’t regret the fact I have to go to work in a couple of hours.

My only regret is, I could be doing something else more productive with my time.

Coming across an article on Wired Magazine, I discovered this feeling is known as Gamer Regret, also known as Gamer Guilt. Not to be confused with Gamer Remorse which according to the Urban dictionary is the regretful feeling one gets while trudging exhaustedly through the day after a dutiful night of gaming.

It turns out there are a lot more gamers; the average age of a gamer being 34 years old, that also share the feeling of Gamer regret. With this knowledge, I become obsessed with this feeling and have dedicated myself to finding ways to get rid of it.

After doing tons of customer interviews, I found that gamers who feel this way have multifaceted lives with competing interests. Their lives might include a ton of responsibilities, job, kids, and family. From 18 or younger, we tend to think we have all the time in the world and don’t reflect on our time gaming. Time isn’t an hourglass until you see how much changes around you and how much you change over time. The reflection on my time gaming and life became the genesis of Lootfeed and the question.

What do you play for?

Lootfeed as a concept is simple: the time you spend while playing a video game is also spent building value (IRL) in real life. Games today bring a person educational, therapeutic, and recreational value, but what if there could be more? A select group of streamers and professional gamers as of this decade have been able to create real-world monetary value based on virtual exploits. What is the intrinsic value?

We believe in the future. Every time a gamer plays a game, this gamer will be synchronous Looting in real life for something — for example, their savings, goals, college loans, retirement, and investments.

Approximately 2.2 billion gamers share gaming as a hobby in the world. With the estimated 7.6 billion people living on earth, this means that almost a third of people on this planet are gamers!

Gamers spend an average of nearly six hours each week playing videogames. Millennial gamers (age 18-35) spend more time watching other people play video games than they spend watching traditional sports on television. Meanwhile, younger gamers (age 18-25) spend almost an hour more each week watching online gaming than watching traditional sports. Gamers spend an average of one hour and 48 minutes each week watching other players play online on sites such as Twitch. In comparison to two hours and 27 minutes spent watching traditional sports on broadcast television.

Lootfeed is a Hobby meeting a habit.

Hobbies are recreational activities that you repeatedly do.

Habits are a regular tendency or practice.

Lootfeed seeks to marry your gaming hobby with positive habits.

On average, a person spends about 10000 hours of gaming in their first 18 years of life. What if this had tangible value outside of potential esports skills acquired?

Pay and or Invest in yourself while you play.

It’s never been so easy to save and invest but are gamers addressed in these services?

Microsaving or Microinvesting

There is a rise in personal financial technology applications (fintech apps) assisting in personal finance. Robinhood, Acorn, Stash, and Qapital are just some of the ways millennials are saving or investing their money. Not trusting a startup over a bank, especially after the financial crisis makes sense. The youth distrust of the old guard, in turn, this benefits the new guard fintech startups.

Despite the fact these startups or companies are backed by big banks, for example:

Acorn is supported by Lincoln Savings Bank
Stash is supported by Green Dot Bank
Qapital is supported by Well Fargo

Even with the highly anticipated Apple card, Goldman Sachs takes the role of the issuing bank, with Mastercard serving as the payment network.

It’s never been so easy to save and invest but are gamers addressed in these services?

Blast currently is addressing Andriod gamers, but this neglects a large percentage of console and pc gamers.

The following are factors and trends that set the stage for Lootfeed:

Saving Crisis

Earlier in 2019, many Americans went without a paycheck or two due to the government shutdown. Since then, statistics have been published to show that forty percent of people in the U.S. don’t have $400 set aside for an emergency, according to the Federal Reserve. Additionally, 25 percent of Americans have nothing saved for retirement.

Debt Crisis

College loans

Americans owe over $1.56 trillion in student loan debt as of 2018, spread out among about 45 million borrowers.

That’s about $521 billion more than the total U.S. credit card debt.

11.5% of student loans are 90 days or more delinquent or are in default.

The average monthly student loan payment (among those not in deferment) $393

Credit cards

Americans owe $1.03 trillion total U.S. credit card debt with the average credit card debt per cardholder in the U.S. owing $5,234.

196.8 million credit cardholders in the U.S. (or 79% of adults)

Car loans

Americans owe $1.13 trillion in total U.S. auto loan debt

$31,099 is the average auto loan amount on a new car

The average auto loan payment amount is $515 on a new car

Medical debt

42.9 million Americans have overdue medical debt in the U.S.

$1,766 average balance owed among people with overdue medical debt

25.7% of people under 65 struggle to pay medical bills of more than $2,000

12.6% of people under 65 struggle to pay medical bills of $2,000 or less

Accountability

Whether you are politically active, contrarian, or a disillusioned. We live at a time when Americans want to see responsibility for words and actions.

We want this from the people who serve us and the companies of the products or services we use. Primarily if those people and products affect our lives and those we love.

We want to hold ourselves and others accountable for the words we use, our actions, and why, not the time we spend.

Productivity

The average age of a gamer is 34 years old, with more responsibility and less time to play. Often feel they could be doing something more productive with their time gaming. As gaming becomes even more accessible through mobile platforms and the advent of cloud gaming, this problem will become more widespread.

Binge culture

Excess has always been apart of American culture. Many immigrants came here looking for the streets paved with gold and were ready to scoop it all up for themselves. Streaming services, social media, and food companies know that we want to consume as much as we can of the things we love. This obsession with binging can lead to financial and physical unhealthy lifestyles without a balance with a positive habit.

AI Assistant Ghost

The tread of giving orders to an application or artificial intelligence to do something of value in your absence or while you preoccupied has been on the rise in different industries.

For example:

Algorithm Crypto Bots – https://medium.com/@ShrimpyApp/the-best-automated-crypto-trading-bots-in-the-market-38e21a25d1b
Robot vacuums – https://www.pcmag.com/roundup/341251/the-best-robot-vacuums
Google assistant calling on your behalf
- https://support.google.com/business/answer/7690269?hl=en
A game called Samurai Shodown, which has a Ghost AI that mirrors your playstyle
- https://youtu.be/bPwAr8uTw5A
- https://www.gamecrate.com/incredible-potential-samurai-shodown-s-new-ghost-ai/23105

Arcade/Casino – Nothing new under the sun

During the early days of the videogame industry, a gamer could not play at home. He or she had to go to an arcade to play a videogame. The first pay to play, for a quarter a gamer could play for some time or until he/she died in the respective game. A few arcades survived if not for nostalgia, but for combining their business models with bars and restaurants to create a more stable income stream. Now it has gone full circle. We help gamers pay themselves as they play their favorite games.

Game addiction/ Game disorder

Gaming addiction has been a problem for a percentage of the gaming population. It is highly debated and discussed among gamers, researchers, health officials, politicians, and parents. The recognization and classification of gaming disorder by The World Health Organization is a significant move forward in the debate surrounding gaming addiction. Subsequently, Congress has started legislation to ban Loot boxes and Pay to Win Microtransactions.