Blockchain, ICO

Meet the Boss – Exclusive Interview with Playkey CEO Egor Gurjev

interview playkey ceo egon gurjev

Playkey, The Cloud Gaming Platform That Lets You Play the Best Games on ANY Machine (more info here) is currently running their Initial Coin Offering. Chipin was grateful to sit down with Egor, the CEO of Playkey to talk about gaming, their competition, challenges and the road ahead. Enjoy!

Hi Egor, could you please tell us about yourself.

Hi! My name is Egor Gurjev, was born in 1985 in Russia, Perm. Graduated Perm State University, got MBA in Perm State Technical University. In 2008 – 2009 I was in charge of the innovative department of «ER-Telecom Holding». 2009 – 2012 – I was CEO of Enaza, digital content company. Since 2012 I am CEO and founder of the Playkey cloud gaming platform. Playkey.net as an existing successfully operating product as well as Playkey ICO – token sale project for the decentralized cloud gaming platform Playkey.io.

How did the idea of Playkey come to life? Did pain points such as gamers not being able to play the latest games due to hardware or budget reasons contributed to the development of the platform?

Egor Gurjev CEOI never enjoy going to school but I adore all kind of technical stuff. My parents sent me to the radiophysics department of Perm State University due to my passion for computer games. My dad wanted me to major in economics, but my mom thought it was useless: She said, ‘He likes to mess around with a computer, so let him mess around.’” But for the most part, I messed around with the computer at home in any case.

I spent less money on lunches, textbooks, and tutors, so I could buy GPU card and play my beloved Jagged Alliance 2, and Hidden and Dangerous. So there is no surprise that Playkey – a cloud gaming platform – is one of my key business now.

Usually, individuals who don’t have good gaming rigs will also have at most, a decent Internet connection which may not work quite well for Playkey. What plans do you have in mind to solve the issue of prospects who don’t have fast Internet connections? Is the blockchain and decentralized the answer to this?

Internet connection matters in all cases. The video streaming technology is at the core of Playkey idea, so stable Internet connection is vitally important. Perhaps, at the past time of Onlive and Gaikai, it was not well developed and publicly accessible. But not now, so it is not an issue anymore.

But still, the decentralizing gaming platform solves a number of other real problems. Except for obvious one – to gain an opportunity to play top-notched triple-A games even on obsolete PCs – gamers will be able to choose all over the world the best and closest server for playing that reduces response time – it is important for video games like shooters, for example. And much more.

What are the biggest misconceptions of cloud gaming by the industry or public that you think needs to be addressed? Are there any myths out there that are completely wrong about cloud gaming?

There is a persistent stereotype according to which gamers believe video games in a cloud have the lag time that makes it impossible to play. That is not the truth anymore. Millions of users play in a cloud now and enjoy it. There is one more myth about cloud gaming is a costly pleasure. Well, in a long perspective playing in a cloud considerably cheaper than to upgrade regularly PC or to buy a cool gaming machine.

Some games are released exclusively on consoles such as the PS4 or Xbox One. Could we see Playkey expand their services to also include consoles e.g is it possible for users to play PS4, Switch, or other consoles on their systems?

Well, not yet. Exclusive releases are rare. But console and console games – there is no secret – are always of a higher price than the same video game for PC. So we offer something even better.

Playkey’s aim is to provide gamers with a reasonably-priced opportunity to play top-rated games anytime and anywhere, using any device connected to the Internet, without having to purchase as well as high-end PC or console.

There are other competitors in the cloud gaming scene; what sets you apart from your competitors and why?

Playkey moves cloud gaming industry to the next level by bringing blockchain on board, develop a better digital world and has no direct competitors.

Our major advantage is a high accessibility. A video gamer doesn’t need to download, install and tune up the games. Just click and play! The same logic we will implement to the decentralized platform. At first blush, one would think that Liquidsky, Vortex, GeForce, Amazon are on the same segment.

But the main difference is all those services use big cloud infrastructure providers like Amazon, Softlayer, Azure, but Playkey builds it for ourselves. It twice decreases the expenses. This is an important question while creating an infrastructure based business.

Moreover, Amazon provides servers only for commercial users. Both Softlayer and Azure provide only infrastructure, but not the gaming service. LiquidSky provides remote desktop and no such a smooth gaming experience. As for Geforce now they require to buy a gaming console, have a higher price, less coverage. Also, Nvidia cooperates with us and provide tech support for our project. So Nvidia is not our competitor but our partner. There was an article on Nvidia website about our project, you can check it.

Can you let us know more about your team or peers who’ve helped you along the way with Playkey? What are the best attributes of each of them?

playkey team

The Playkey team

Our professional Cloud Gaming and IT team, highly motivated and goal-oriented, is the main resource of Playkey.

All of them a passionated by the video games world and experienced at a gaming market. The Playkey team has 4 years of development with 45 professionals. A number of brilliant specialists also have joined now the project as advisors – all of them could be seen on playkey.io.

What are you worried about most while growing the company? Do you have any obstacles or challenges in mind that you want to tackle?

All obstacles are always only in a human mind. But there is always a way out.

How would define success for Playkey? Do you have any specific metrics or goals in mind?

Starting as an IT startup, nowadays we already have the successful product, direct contracts with game publishers and strong support of professionals and investors. We welcome 3 000 000 gamers monthly on Playkey.net, we already have 250 000 paying users and people play for about 30 000 000 minutes in a month on our Playkey platform. And there is always room for improvement.

Where do you expect Playkey to stand 5-10 years from now?

We would expand to growing gaming market of Asia, as well as the USA, EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa), APAC (Asia and Pacific) and LATAM (Latin America). We will have covered all the main regions.

Our current target within the ICO is to create an ecosystem for cloud gaming and other use cases (“The Playkey Ecosystem”) featuring dozens of independent owners of powerful computers worldwide (“miners”) united within a community and acting as cloud gaming service providers.

In this world, miners get an efficient option to utilize their computational capacities that is more efficient, more stable, and less risky than cryptocurrency mining. Gamers will be able to choose the best and closest server for playing. Game developers and publishers will expand their client base

But our mission is to make a better digital world and to give an opportunity to play cool games worldwide on any kind of device connected to the Net.

More Interviews to come

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