Recently, GameWithMe launched its adult gaming community with the intention of allowing gamers to do their shows in the way they want, by freely expressing themselves without the restrictions of mainstream platforms.
It’s a great idea whose time has come: combine two of adult’s fastest-growing verticals — camming and video gaming — to build a fan platform that isn’t plagued by the escalating censorship found on community sites such as Twitch and YouTube.
In addition to promoting open exchanges of communications, GameWithMe is dedicated to developing an inclusive community for all gamers, whether they want to broadcast or simply spectate. Focused on esports and promoting talented teams, GameWithMe seeks to showcase players that might have been buried on bigger sites, regardless of where in the world they are from.
To find out if GameWithMe is really the closest thing to playing games while friends watch, XBIZ turned to industry veteran and GameWithMe.com CEO Steve Hamilton. Here’s what he had to tell us.
XBIZ: What led to the launch of GameWithMe?
SH: I was working with another cam site, and I was also a Twitch streamer. I got to see people getting banned for trivial things like wearing a low-cut shirt or saying edgy things. I had the idea of having a gaming site with no rules like a cam site and presented it. The upper management liked it and saw the potential, but others did not and it fell flat. When I parted ways with that company, I decided to do it for myself. It’s been an interesting journey thus far, but we’re feeling good about the direction we’re going.
XBIZ: How does the platform differ from other online communities?
SH: The market leader for video games is Twitch. They are hands down the most popular, but not the most loved. Their revenue is based on ads and they’re a prisoner to their corporate ad partners. This means that they don’t allow their streamers to say or do anything provocative.
Since we are revenue-sharing based like a cam site, it gives us more flexibility on the content we can allow. While we don’t allow nudity in public chat for SEO reasons, we do have private chats and paid group chats.
What makes us different from the cam sites is that there is more to the site than just the sexual element. We bring together video games and cosplay in a unique and sexy way. We are also a platform that is friendly to gamers who are of age having a drink on camera, and we’re very cannabis-friendly.
XBIZ: How important is inclusivity and a lack of censorship to GameWithMe?
SH: It’s not just important, it’s imperative. One of the main arguments against bringing GameWithMe to the other site was that people assumed that my plan was to go up against Twitch. On the contrary, I want to give those that feel disillusioned by Twitch an avenue to express themselves. Not everyone wants to work on a cam site, and the cam sites don’t want to promote video game playing. We think that there is a huge underserved market here.
As to inclusivity, gamers are easily the most diverse group on the planet. We want to give everyone a chance to show their skills and entertain, even if they don’t want to get naked to do so. If they want to, we believe there should be a place for that. In Q3 of this year, we will introduce a new site called GameUncensored, which will be more like a freemium cam site, giving streamers the place to have any type of show they like.
XBIZ: Who is the ideal broadcaster for the platform? What skills do they need?
SH: This is simple, anyone that loves to play video games. The stereotype of an uncensored gaming site is that we only want attractive girls that are wearing fake glasses and playing a game just for the image, and that we’re just a mashup of an adult camming site and a video game broadcasting platform. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We want everyone that has love and passion for video games and the culture to participate. The most important skills to have are to be passionate about the game you’re playing and you have to know how to joke around and have a good time.
XBIZ: Who is the ideal member? How do they benefit from the GameWithMe experience?
SH: Gamers are looking for a more authentic experience, and the mainstream gaming platforms are not allowing them to get that. We want our streamers to be themselves, not the version of themselves that a big-box retailer wants them to be.
For fear of losing ad revenue, these companies allow their larger streamers to get away with using racial slurs on the site, showing their breasts or showing adult content on the site, which they won’t allow from smaller streamers. We choose not to be hypocrites and give everyone a place to do as they choose. Members can see this authenticity in the shows and they like it.
The other thing that we do is that we have contests. This is not anything new, but we have contests for the top members as well as the top streamers. We don’t only treat our streamers differently; we treat our members differently too.
XBIZ: What are the site’s “Top Rated Legends” and how are they determined?
SH: Our top-rated legends are our top streamers on the site. They are all legendary in some way, so we choose to celebrate it. What we do differently than the cam sites is that we make the ranking more about the time spent and members they have in their room. The cam sites make their ranking weighted heavily on the efficiency of the models — the more money they make per hour or minute, the more they go up. While this is important to us as well, we have a feeling that we want our streamers entertaining more people, so we change the game accordingly.
XBIZ: Does the platform have team-based esports features and if so, how could they be leveraged?
SH: We just released a new feature which is a first to the market, it’s called “VS Mode” and we believe it’s the future of online tournament gaming. It allows for two streamers to be on the screen at the same time playing the same game regardless of geographic location. This puts us in a unique position because it’s patented and nobody else can have it.
In a “VS Mode” match, we have a voting system in which the members can use monetized votes to vote for their favorite gamer. These votes go into a progressive pot. When the stream ends, the gamers will split up the pot. This can range from 50/50 to winner take all. We plan on using this to create real online tournaments and grow esports in places where the tournament organizers miss, places like Asia, India, Africa and South America in addition to North America, Europe, Korea and Japan.
XBIZ: How difficult is it to maintain a balance between the appeal of uncensored content and the reality of operating in a mainstream world?
SH: It has definitely been hard finding the balance. The biggest problem is that game developers don’t want their games associated with nudity and adult content. They have come down hard on a couple of cam sites for people playing their games while doing sex shows in a public setting and it has forced us to have the rule that there is no nudity allowed in public chat.
While this changed our overall view of how the site will function and forced us to have a slightly different operating procedure, it has given us the ability for gamers to monetize their content better. We operate more like a private camming site in that way.
What we do as well is that we do sell the games that people are playing through Amazon, so we do promote the sales of the games that people are playing. We are working on a partnership with streaming providers like Steam as well, to give the members a way to play online with their favorite streamers. This is something cam sites can’t offer — the chance for members and streamers to bond over their shared love of video games.
XBIZ: Does GameWithMe support games on VR headsets or boast any other noteworthy technology?
SH: In addition to VS Mode, we will be providing mobile streaming later this year via our app that is currently in development. Mobile gaming is quickly becoming one of the hottest segments of the gaming vertical and we want to give mobile gamers a chance to play the mobile games that they love so much on GameWithMe.
Also, all modern mobile devices have cameras, so gamers can choose to broadcast this way as well. Can you imagine your favorite streamer playing PUBG mobile, or FIFA mobile while they’re waiting in line, or on a bus? We think this is where the future is heading and want to be ahead of the curve. Mobile broadcasting is something I always wanted in my 12 years of being in the camming industry but was never able to have. Now I can have it, and I’m going all-in for it.
XBIZ: How can affiliates and other potential partners get in on the GameWithMe action?
SH: We have a very simple and easy to use affiliate program. It’s a lifetime revenue share and the percentage varies based on the quality of the traffic sent. We give our members every possible way to pay that we can as well, including app-based payments, credit card and we accept cryptocurrency as well. The affiliates we have on board now are seeing huge growth in their earnings as we grow. We offer something unique and it allows for our affiliates to capture a huge part of the market that is wildly underserved at this point.
XBIZ: Finally, what does the future hold for GameWithMe?
SH: In terms of innovation, we want to use the technology we have spent the last two years working on to create an immersive experience for our members and streamers alike. We feel that the tournaments we create will have an impact on the global appeal of esports, and give those without the means to be a part of the large tournaments a voice and a chance to showcase their skills.
We truly believe that this is a huge game-changer. Our company slogan is “Change the Game” — that’s not just a phrase we have in place to make us look cool; this is a mindset in our company. It’s not easy being disruptors, but you can’t make history if you keep following the herd.
