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When Microsoft originally laid out its plans for the "Live Anywhere" platform, the company provided numerous extravagant examples of the type of social networking that would be synonymous with the platform. The infamous image of getting updates of your friend's gaming accomplishments across a number of different Microsoft platforms was an intriguing one, but sadly one that never materialized—at least not from Microsoft. GameStrata, a recently launched social networking portal specifically tailored to gamers, is seeking to fill that very hole.
I had the chance to sit down with GameStrata founders Barry Dorf and Lance Smith to talk about the platform. In the simplest terms, Barry explained that "GameStrata started as a place for gamers to go to get their statistics and rankings." GameStrata is, in a sense, born from the ashes of Microsoft's ambitious but ultimately unrealized "Live Anywhere" architecture. "You can call it a Facebook or a MySpace for video games, but with a very strong caveat: there's a statistical angle."
Citing a specific situation in Battlefield, Barry elaborated on one of the appeals of the platform. "I was capturing flags but at the end of the game I'd be at the middle or at the bottom. Leaderboards didn't show specific achievements; it frustrated me."
GameStrata solves this problem by breaking down statistics into more specific categories, allowing everyone to find that particular portion of a game that they're best at. "Gamers are egotistical by nature: when you play a video game, you want to win. We want to feed off of the socialization" of that drive. "And being able to take your identity in the gaming space and take it with you" is extremely attractive.
GameStrata launched in late January, supporting four major titles: Battlefield 2, Lost Planet, Guitar Hero 3, and Universe at War. Because the four games were already released, GameStrata worked to obtain information that was already available: in the case of Guitar Hero 3, for example, the data was already being produced by Activision, so the process becomes one of aggregation. The aggregated data is extended and expanded to offer unique stats to GameStrata users.
However, as the platform advances, the company is beginning to work more intimately with developers. The company's most recent addition, which was announced during the day of our interview, is Sega's new title The Club. Unlike Activision, Sega didn't have a preexisting statistic infrastructure, so GameStrata worked directly with the devs to provide that functionality. "GameStrata is a technical facilitator to company's with games that don't have that infrastructure," Lance explained. While more game and publisher support is in the works, though, the team remains tight-lipped about specifics.
Perhaps what's most appealing about the system is, as the GameStrata guys mentioned numerous times, the system is platform agnostic: data can be collected from games across all systems, and in the future this will include even handhelds and "any connected devices" such as mobile phones. The addictive nature of the Xbox Live Gamercard and the various services born from that data, such as 360voice.com, is increased significantly by this great breadth. This is combined with the addition of GameStrata-defined achievements that reward specific accomplishments in a variety of games, regardless of platform.
Our conversation concluded as the two voiced their thoughts on why new gamers should check out the service. "When people first started hearing about GameStrata, they immediately thought 'hardcore gamer.' We didn't like that," said Barry. "We want [gamers] to understand that gaming site for everybody to get better, to understand where they rank, to get their friends involved, and to really show [themselves] as a gamer. As a mediocre gamer... that did one thing well, it's a way for me to show what I do well and give back to the community by helping others improve."
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"Each of us is a fanboy (or girl) of something," Lance said. "We [GameStrata] facilitate bringing the masses together in a way that it couldn't be done before. The Xbox Live model has brought a lot to gamers [but] we take that to the next level; we're outside of [one specific console]."
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If there’s one thing gamers love more than pwning their opponents, it’s publicly bragging about it afterward. That’s the dynamic that should help popularize GameStrata, a new social network for gamers launching this week that’s backed by seed money from “top-tier venture firms in Silicon Valley,” according to co-founder and CEO Lance Smith (though he declined to specify which VCs.) It’s a bit like Microsoft’s Xbox Live, only cross-platform and web-centric.
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“We provide leaderboards, player rankings, and persistent, comprehensive statistics for popular online games,”
Smith explained to me via email, “allowing players to track their progress and compare their performance in games on a variety of platforms.” GameStrata has signed deals to publish player stats of several popular games, including Activision’s Guitar Hero 3 (pictured) and EA’s Battlefield 2, and in a smart move that may make it the universal social network for gamers, will feature player-driven platform stats from the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii consoles as well.
Initially, the company’s main revenue stream will be ad-based, including leaderboard-specific promotions and sponsorships. “I believe we’ve innovated beyond just the standard banner several years ago,” Smith observed. More compelling revenue generators may come down the road. They have three integrated Facebook apps (here’s the one for Guitar Hero III), for example, and they’re looking at statistics packaging for businesses.
From my point of view, that may be the most attractive value proposition — an aggregated collection of play data that allows game developers to better reach this coveted demographic. Smith hints at similar leveraging of “GamerQ,” GameStat’s own native point system. “GamerQ is a way to gain community ‘reputation’ or rank up within the community of GameStrata,” he explained. “It’s a simple points system to identify things you are doing and achieving within GameStrata.” His team is playing with the idea of introducing virtual item rewards, but at minimum, the desire to earn GamerQ points should help keep the site sticky. With so many other game-centric social networks rolling out nowadays (as here, here, and here), GameStata’s real challenge is dominating in this all-out war for gamers’ attention.
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