Gamification – applying typical video game elements to boost consumer engagement – is a trend that has steadily picked up steam over the last few years as marketers look for new strategies to connect consumers with products and services and keep them coming back. GameOn Entertainment Technologies (Tii:GET) / (Tii:GMETF) is a B2B player in this space that provides white label gamification services for media companies, sports leagues, NFTs, OTT platforms, content producers and more.

The company, which went public earlier this year on the Canadian Securities Exchange, has already inked deals with player-backed NFT projects, the Real Housewives, NBC Universal, and Indian OTT platform with 1 billion downloads, MX Player. TiiCKER spoke with Matt Bailey, GameOn’s CEO, who got his start working for the Brooklyn Nets, Barclays Center, Cricket Australia and CSM Sport & Entertainment. Here’s what he had to say:

TiiCKER: Please explain your business model. What problem does GameOn solve?

BAILEY: The problem we’re solving is that people aren’t watching TV anymore. People aren’t watching static content, especially the younger audience – millennials and Gen Z. Our chairman loves to always bring this up, and it’s funny, but it’s true. If he gave his remote control to his teenage kids today and said, “hey, put on NBC or ABC,” they wouldn’t know how. And that’s a huge problem. So we’re helping these media companies and content owners, so it’s not only TV, it’s OTT, even sports tournaments, governing bodies leagues. We’re helping them make their content more engaging, social and monetizable through things like predictive gaming and gamification, all through white label technology that live within their apps or websites.

As an example, we worked with The Real Housewives and NBCUniversal, where before every episode on Sunday throughout the week, you’d make predictions on things you think will happen. Will there be a proposal this episode? What color dress will Mary be wearing? Which househusband will appear first? Things like that. They’re kind of like touchdown moments throughout the episode as you’re watching. You’re getting points, you’re moving up leaderboards, you’re competing against people not only in your living room but on the other side of the country. It creates that immersive, engaging, sticky experience. Our products are scalable across any content - sports, reality TV, news, elections and so on.

TiiCKER: And how are you making money?

BAILEY: No matter the content, we’re adding a gamification layer to make it more engaging and monetizable, and we’re making money by charging a licensing fee that’s ongoing. We’re not building anything from scratch. We’re leveraging the tools we already have built, and we’re charging licenses for it. So similar to a SaaS company or a Salesforce. We’re not a developer studio that’s building anything from scratch. We have everything built, and we’re charging a license. On top of that, we participate in revenue share of any revenue the partner is generating from our products, like through advertising, sponsorship or collectible sales.

TiiCKER: Tell us about GameOn’s origins. What inspired you to start the business?

BAILEY: We started with our own GameOn-branded B2C app, where fans could make predictions for free on all the major leagues, winning cash prizes As COVID hit and sports fell off the end of the earth, we had no money in the bank and needed to innovate.So we looked to white label and very quickly, we landed a deal with NBCUniversal.Then we landed a second deal, and a third, and it kind of snowballed from there. The market pulled us into a B2B direction and the business has never thrived like it is now. B2B is now our 100% focus.

We have ten projects we’re working on. We should do mid-seven figures in revenue next year.

TiiCKER: How do you see GameOn evolving over the next 5-10 years?

BAILEY: Right now we’re laser-focused on doing more deals, executing those deals, and driving revenue and value for shareholders. Sure, I hope that one day we’ve scaled the business enough to either 1) up-list to the NASDAQ or another senior exchange, or 2) be acquired by a larger company to fuel further growth, but there are a lot of milestones between now and then that we’re focused on. I have no doubt that if we keep our heads down, we’ll be in a great position for either of those outcomes in the not-too-distant future.