Having great content might not be enough to win the battle for eyeballs. The gamification of viewing could be the edge a movie or TV show needs. Rewarded TV delivers it with a web 3.0 viewing platform that unlocks new value in the watching experience.
While at NAB 2023, I spent some time with Bitcentral’s Greg Morrow. One of the projects he told me about was Rewarded TV. Bitcentral creates the linear channels provided by the service. However, Rewarded TV is not a standard FAST platform. It takes a new approach to the flow of value between viewer and content provider and eschews the traditional ads or subscription approach.
What is Rewarded TV?
Rewarded TV is, on the face of it, just another video aggregation and viewing service. It includes on-demand and linear channels providing various content, including comedy, news, documentaries, and much more. However, you won’t see any ads and won’t be asked to give up credit card information and pay a subscription. Instead, the service uses web 3.0 technology to gamify the TV viewing experience and take a different approach to the value exchange between the viewer and content provider.
Rewarded TV was created by the Web 3.0 native Imagine Replay Inc., which describes itself as a “crypto native VoD & live streaming service powered by Replay Blockchain.” Replay uses RPLAY tokens as the currency to exchange value within Rewarded TV. Users can earn RPLAY tokens for watching and completing challenges and use them to unlock access to content available within the experience.
How viewers benefit from Rewarded TV
There is plenty of free content to watch on Rewarded TV. For example, you can find on-demand titles like My Music Brain, Born2Race, and Bad Therapy and on linear channels like FlixFling Now, Thriller TV, and Poker Night TV. And users earn RPLAY tokens for watching it.
Reward TV further gamifies the experience with incentives to continue to watch. There are also opportunities to attend scheduled watch parties. For example, you can join a scheduled watch party for the Alan Arkin comedy Flag Raising this Wednesday. A viewer also earns achievement badges for watching. Watch the Alan Arkin movie, and you’ll receive a Replay Watch Party Badge. Watch for 50 hours on Roku and receive a badge for that achievement too.
The service also provides a marketplace where users can buy collectibles, accelerating the rate at which RPLAY tokens are earned. For example, if a user buys the Cyko KO Bubble Gum NFT for $9.99, they will earn double the rewards for attending the Alan Arkin movie watch party.
The marketplace is powered by Theta Drop, an NFT marketplace from Theta Networks, which provides Web3 blockchain infrastructure for video, media & entertainment.
What content providers get out of Rewarded TV
Some content providers might wonder why viewers need to be rewarded for watching. After all, isn’t the content its own reward? Andrea Berry, Head of Business Development at Theta Labs, explains why rewarding viewers with RPLAY tokens matter to content providers:
“It’s a points system, a loyalty system. Airline miles are a great example of gamifying, incentivizing behavior, doing something that makes it more likely that I will only fly Alaska Airlines because I get status, I get my free vacation.”
Viewers get exposed to free content from content providers and can use the RPLAY tokens to buy access to more. They can also buy access from the Theta Marketplace. For example, FlixFling – a free channel on Rewarded TV – also has subscriber-only content. Buying the FlixFling Platato on the Theta Market gives viewers access to the paid content until at least June 2024.
Rewarded TV is a work in progress
Though a viewer can already enjoy the content, earn rewards, and buy collectibles in the marketplace, much work lies ahead for the effort. For example, in the first half of 2023, the technical team plans to allow the redemption of RPLAY tokens for VIP Membership Tiers and implement ratings and reviews. So, watch for the ecosystem for the gamification of viewing to fill out over the coming months and years. And as it does, we will see if it creates a thriving environment that reinforces the value exchange between viewers and content providers.
