What is GiverBoard?

GiverBoard is the technology and service which connects a game to a charitable cause. The technology connects premium items in games with charities on your choice, so that the players you have can fundraise for the cause through the purchase of these virtual items.

How much work does it involve for me?

The technology behind GiverBoard ensures that the whole process is seamless, and you do not need to spend precious time making it all work. We really are not exaggerating when we say GiverBoard does all the hard work for you.

We will issue you with your own, unique API token to integrate with your game. The rest is done by us.

What do I get out of it?

Game Developers have told us that one of their most important business strategies is to develop a method for standing out from the competition. Offering premium virtual products linked to real world benefits is something that will most certainly enable you to achieve this.

The GiverBoard platform will also assist in earning you extra credibility by showing your game players how much good they have contributed by playing a game through the unique GiverBoard leader board.

Your game will also be cross promoted with the cause it is connected with, resulting in a completely original way of tapping into existing gamer audiences to attract a new wave of players to your own game.

Your existing players will be converted in to paying players; those that already pay for items in your game will increase their buying behaviour and those new to

Online and traditional media is extremely interested in new charitable initiatives which has allowed us to achieve massive exposure for games and charities. We make it our business to market the campaign and our portfolio proves are effectiveness in this area.

Further information

We have a dedicated page for testimonials we have received from game developers and charities that we have worked with. You can also find out how GiverBoard works for charities by visiting the PlayMob Blog.

If you require any further information you can contact us by clicking here and you can follow us on Twitter. We have a dedicated team who can answer any queries that you may have.

Just like the Nintendo Wii, social gaming is killing off assumptions about just who gamers are. The assumption before the millennium would have been that no matter what, your older relatives wouldn’t ever play video games. In fact, I’m sure that if anybody approached business angels in 2001 with the idea of creating a game targeted at 40-50 year old women they would have struggled to get any financial backing.

If you said to somebody just a few years ago that you predict the average age of online social games to be 43, as research by PopCap has now found, you would have been laughed at!

Even now there is a pretty strong assumption amongst the general population that nerdy men play console games and teenage girls play social games.

We at PlayMob find that one of the most exciting aspects about being in the gaming industry is that today’s assumptions are tomorrow’s misconceptions. Bob Dylan pretty much summed it up in his song ‘the times, they are a-changing’.

“SOS Children is working in East Africa with people whose lives are falling apart because of drought and conflict. We are delighted to see players of Parallel Kingdom who are choosing to help us to feed these people in desperate need. We are incredibly grateful and hope the players will stay in touch with us and our work.”

Meryl Davies, Director of Fundraising, SOS Children

“We’re really excited to be involved – seems like this opportunity could not have been more timely and we’re all champing at the bit and ready to throw the SpecialEffect Towers Kitchen Sink at it!”

Dr Mick Donegan, Director, SpecialEffect

“War Child is proud to be part of Play Mob’s ethical trading campaign. As a small charity, we’re always looking for innovative ways to fundraise and we look forward to partnering with some exciting new games.”

Catherine Gledhill, Head of Music and Marketing, War Child 

“Here at FFI we’re very excited by the world of possibilities Playmob have opened up for us. With Playmob’s guidance we’re very much looking forward to establishing an entertaining presence within digitial environments that will make it easy and rewarding for people to support conservation and development.”

Chris Greenwood, Director of Communications & Development, Fauna & Flora International

We are excited to be the first Latin American social gaming company to be part of PlayMob’s new platform, GiverBoard. We are always looking for new and innovative ways to monetize our games and feel this is a great solution to try, as well as create a positive social impact on the world.’

Diego Meller, CEO, Atommica

“The partnership between PlayMob and PerBlue has set the bar for virtual giving campaigns. We are so happy with the final results of the initiative. PK has some of the most generous players around, thank you to all who gave.”

Justin Beck, CEO, PerBlue

Briefly, GiverBoard technology connects computer games with Charities, so that players can donate through in-game purchases such as virtual objects or bonus packs. But what does this mean?

This means that as a charity you have access to hundreds of millions of players, during the 3 billion hours per week spent playing games.

Within many of these games, players are able to purchase virtual objects to enhance their playing experience. For example, an online Virtual Farm game may offer an in-game tractor that can be purchased by players.

The beauty of GiverBoard is that these virtual objects can be directly related to a campaign in your charity. GiverBoard connects virtual objects to charities, this enabling real world impact.

The tractor purchased by game players could be linked to a charity which plants crops in Zambia. Using the money received from the purchase of a virtual tractor a square metre of wheat will be planted for a family in Zambia.

GiverBoard in Action

A ThanksGiving campaign was run in November 2011 where virtual food hats were sold to raise funds for Thanks Giving meals for homeless children and families in New York. Over 700 people were fed thanks to this campaign.

In this example players of Parallel Kingdom were able to purchase a special edition virtual soup hat for their character which in turn provided a meal for a homeless person via the HELP USA charity.

We at PlayMob passionately believe that charitable causes and social media are a perfect match, particularly when you see the symbiotic nature of both social media’s and a charity’s core values.

Social media at its core, is a platform to provide people with a way of connecting to others around common interests, which is concordant with the core values of charities; to raise awareness, bring people together and create communities around causes.

Charities are now looking at online social games, raising money through virtual goods on online social games. Virtual goods simply are items that exist in online games that users can purchase with money. The virtual goods revenues this year have increased by over 156% since 2010 and has an estimated worldwide value of $41million. The projections for 2015 show that this will increase by a staggering 775% to a worldwide value of no less than $318million.

Your organisation has the potential to reach new customers for your charitable causes by utilising new media in an ethical, profitable and engaging environment; online gaming, an area that we at PlayMob specialise in.

Click here if you require any further information or would like to contact us.

Apple, with their Siri featured iPhone 4S, has shown the mass consumer market just how powerful speech recognition technology has become. As a tech enthusiast I remember trying out Microsoft’s voice commands system, officially known as Speech Recognition in Microsoft XP. I was far from impressed. In fact, I was left pondering my own sanity when I realised that not only was I barking commands at an inanimate object, but I was also engaged in a full blown argument with it about what I actually said!

Since then, organisation’s like Dragonsoft and Apple have shown a sceptical audience that a computer can understand human speech almost flawlessly but can also as a result with this directly interact with the end user.

Surely if Siri can give the mass market both confidence and enthusiasm for speech recognition technology this opens up the unexploited arena of voice command based games.

To be fair, when we say that voice command based games have been an ‘as-of-yet’ unexploited area, we should also point out that there have been some games like Kinectimals, Kinect Star Wars and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 which do have some elements of voice command based gaming. But, within our office and our circles, we can not think of any exclusively voice command based games or games that go beyond a few voice commands.

With the roll out of the Xbox 360 dashboard update incorporating voice commands, could this be a sign that voice command based games will become the next big thing in gaming? If you are sceptical do remember before the Wii came out many people scoffed at the idea of movement controlled games..

In 2011 the Tech Hub Magazine wrote that we were revolutionising giving through ethical games. Mobile Entertainment described us as a pioneer of in-game donations. Tech Crunchdescribed our charity-based business model as incredible. Following this overwhelming coverage last year, we felt the next step was to hold our own event to publically share the GiverBoard platform and our vision.

So the Play Nice event was born, with GiverBoard our show and tell for the evening. For those of you who haven’t yet heard of GiverBoard the service works closely with game developers internationally and across platforms, designing charitable campaigns which place virtual objects in their games, that link and raise money for a specific cause and charity.

When we told PerBlue’s Brand Director, Forrest Woolworth, that we were planning this event he jumped at the chance to create a video presentation about the collaborative work we’ve done together. Forrest explained PerBlue’s relationship with PlayMob and just how effective GiverBoard was in the SOS Children Kenya  campaign in this video. (We’ll get the video up for folks to watch shortly!)

GiverBoard doesn’t just benefit game developers; Mick Donegan, Founder and Director at SpecialEffect charity, provided a moving presentation on the inspirational work his charity undertakes. Hearing the stories of the beneficiaries worked to reinforce why it is so important that new, engaging fundraising routes are developed – and why developers ought to get involved with GiverBoard.

To demonstrate the simiplicity of GiverBoard, PlayMob’s Caroline Howes assumed the role of Cilla Black, and hosted live match-making between a randomly selected group of game developers and charity representatives. Three quick questions were asked of the chairty – who they help, projects they run, target audience – whilst the game developer was asked to describe their flagship game. In a matter of moments, an meaningful relationship was identified for a charity object within the game setting.

The night also included a fascinating panel discussion which included Ian Livingstone (Life President of Eidos), Andy Payne (CEO of AppyNation & Chair of UKIE) and Michael Green (Co-Author of Philanthrocaptialism) where they discussed the role games and the gaming industry had in changing the world.

If you missed the event you can visit http://www.spring-giving.org.uk/events/ . If you attended the event and were unable to speak to a member of the PlayMob team or have some questions please do not hesitate to contact us. You can also keep track of what’s happening in the world of PlayMob by following us on Twitter.

We would like to thank everybody for attending, those that helped organise the event and the fantastic speakers who helped inspire all in our quest to use gaming as a source and power of giving.

The Fauna & Flora charity dedicate their time, expertise and money raised towards helping conserve endangered species across the earth, describing themselves as conservation innovators.

As part of their commitment towards conservation innovation they have launched an initiative together with game developer Atommica and PlayMob through Giverboard for a game that raises money for endangered jaguars and snow leopards.

The game is aptly called Magicats and features very naughty felines battling it out with the cutest of the cute moggies in a game involving magic balls and a launcher, a game reminiscent of Puzzle Bobble but with an extra special twist.

Players of the game are able to purchase premium add ons; a 48 hour life where $0.75 of the sale goes to helping conserve jaguars and a Pawerz add-on where $0.75 also goes towards Fauna & Flora’s snow leopard initiative.

The work that Fauna & Flora do is phenomenal. With the proceeds raised they plan to conduct key landscape research on snow leopard and jaguars’ habitats as well as improving the capacity for effective management in two reserves in Kyrgyzstan.

The logistical basis for the fundraising will be powered by PlayMob’s product GiverBoard which provides an important logistical and technical bridge for charities and game developers to work together for giving through gaming.

If you’re not yet convinced here are some awesome App Store statistics that will blow your mind!

The top 5 have been in their corresponding top 5 position for a combined 1518 days, which equates to over two years!

15 of the top 20 paid apps are games, with the top 5 occupied by games

Since the App Store’s launch there have only been 11 apps that have graced the top spot in the paid apps table

Only 40 apps have been in the top 5, a whopping 35 of these have been games

The App Store has helped Apple have the biggest selection of games, more than Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 combined

Ninety countries have access to the App Store featuring over 425,000 products making it the biggest software repository in the world

Apple paid App developers over $2.5 billion in June 2011

Earlier in 2011 Apple announced there had been an earth shattering 15 billion downloads – this is the same as each person on the planet downloading 2 Apps each, and then some! 

THE OPPORTUNITY

You will join a very experienced and welcoming management team who are bringing together a long-term nucleus of people who will drive the business forward and successfully deliver a novel affiliate market place for the games industry, on a global scale.

We are looking for a ‘genius of the class’ – a great coder, collaborator and inventor, all rolled into one. You must be able to demonstrate your RoR capabilities, your desire to build and contribute your knowledge in this area, and your ability to work as a team player. You will have a burning desire to succeed.

You will work on building the core platform architecture; database optimisation; reviewing and maintaining our API’s; and administering and maintaining the platform servers, with special consideration towards scaling.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE:

• Delivery of core platform components, from initial scope through to release and within the set roadmap development time
• On-going maintanence and optimisation of core platform functionality
• Write and execute code tests
• Collaboration on platform, interface, and database structure
• Maintain and update API’s
• Maintain and optimise servers, with particular attention to scaling
• Keeping fully abreast of evolving game and web technologies

ESSENTIAL EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

• Ruby on Rails, with a minumum of 5 years development experience
• Experience working on projects with large volumes of traffic
• Information Architecture
• SysAdmin knowledge, preferrably with AWS-EC2 experience
• Written / Maintained API’s
• Create Tech Spec documentation
• Tack-sharp analytical abilities and a strong sense of ownership, urgency, and drive.

OTHER REQUIREMENTS

• Highly motivated with a burning desire to succeed and a great attitude.
• A team player
• University Degree in Computer Science or a closely related field (Ph.D. a plus).
• Previous experience working on software development project, especially launching and maintaining a web solution.
• Experience in dealing with large amounts of data, a rapidly increasing user base, and scalability issues
• Enthusiasm for solving interesting problems and a desire to bring order to chaos
• Strong appreciation of consumer needs
• Business oriented
• Methodical approach to work

Technology Experience

• Ruby on Rails
• MySQL
• AWS – EC2
• Git
• Linux

If you think you have the skills and personality to fit in to our team, please apply by sending a cover letter and a copy of your CV to our Operations Manager – Caroline@playmob.com – and successful candidates will be contacted for interview.

Through player purchases Ecotopia has been able to pledge for 25000 trees to be planted. This, could remove approximately 100 tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere.

If this wasn’t daring enough a pledge they also set themselves the target of achieving this in just 25 days, that’s not all- they succeeded! They’re now aiming to raise enough in game donations and purchases to plant a further 25000 trees in Brazil!

Talkie describes their mission as a way to “push the envelope in social games, with state-of-the-art illustration and design, industry-leading game mechanics, and story driven undertones through games that sit amongst multiple social media networks”.

So far the Ecotopia game has approximately 1000 monthly users.

We at PlayMob commend Talkie for this incredible social good campaign and urge you to play Ecotopia on Facebook and support the campaign by clicking here.