An Industry Ripe for Disruption

3 min readJan 4, 2022

-Written by Todd Young, COO Gamestar+

Market Opportunity

It’s no secret that people always have and will continue to enjoy playing board games with friends and family. This part of the entertainment industry has been sustaining, even with the lack of innovation. At a $16 billion valuation, the cards and board game industry will experience a compounded annual growth rate of over 8.7% over the next five years. This will result in a 50% increase in market size to over $21 billion by 2025.

What Will Disrupt The Industry?

The board gaming format has remained unchanged with the usual cardboard boards, game pieces, dice, and cards over the last few decades. Although if you consider other industries that have evolved and taken the digital leap, like movies, books, and music, board games are the last entertainment mediums to cross over.

As the digitization of the products we use nowadays has become a part of everyday life, like with IoT devices, we’ve noticed the shift in how much value these devices provide consumers regarding the convenience of request content, actions, and entertainment. That’s why we wanted to incorporate the use of IoT home devices, speakers, and lights to give Gamestar+ users an awesome, immersive gaming experience.

To future proof this experience, we’ve built Gamestar+ on blockchain technology, using innovations like NFTs to create personalized avatars, key achievements like high scores and wins, and much more. In addition to this, we’ve developed an in-game currency called GSTAR token. Players can use GSTAR in the platform to access premium content, participate in tournaments, stake for additional rewards, and a lot more.

Who Will Disrupt The Industry?

My partner and Co-Founder of Gamestar+, Shane Yeend, has disrupted the board game industry before and is the most proven in the last 25 years. He is also responsible for many entertainment successes as CEO of Imagination Entertainment.

Shane first disrupted the industry in the early 2000s by introducing DVD board gaming, which got famous and familiar game shows like Family Feud into the hands of the audience. In the game, players could act as contestants in their game show, answering questions to the game with the click of their remote.

“We’re good at interactive entertainment, and we’re good at games, so we basically wrote the software to make the DVD box interactive and started a seven-year mission to launch DVD games around the world”
— Shane Yeend, Gamestar+ CEO”

Shane’s product launched a new way of thinking and a new category of multimedia-driven board games which have amassed over $500 million in global sales.

Conclusion

Most of the entertainment mediums that have evolved and we now consume are on streaming platforms. Board games are the last sector to evolve and join the streaming war. With a proven, industry-disruptive track record with DVD board games, Gamestar+ is pushing the industry to new heights with streaming, blockchain, NFTs, and metaverse potential. The technological advancement and social demand will launch traditional board games into a new era. The industry needs something new, and audiences are ready to play. Gamestar+ is ready to play.

Yours Truly,

About Gamestar+

Gamestar+, the “Netflix for Game Night,” is the next-generation streaming app that combines an innovative ‘Play to Earn’ blockchain architecture to deliver unique social gaming content through TV, mobile, and connected devices. Industry experts from Sony Pictures, Imagination Entertainment, Disney, and HBO form the executive suite. And advisors from Hasbro, CNN, Jeopardy, and Shark Tank are already on board. In addition, Gamestar+ has secured globally recognized IP rights with titles such as Family Feud, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Scene It? and more.

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