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Scuti is revealing a new way to monetize games today. The company helps folks earn rewards while playing games and then use those rewards to buy real-world goods from a store embedded inside the game.
The creators of Scuti (pronounced scoot-ee) — game veterans Nicholas Longano (the company CEO), Kym Nelson, among others — believe that monetization is broken in games, as they say it annoys gamers. The popular forms of monetization in games today will slow players down by forcing them to grind. It puts paywalls in front of them, makes them watch video ads they don’t care about, or fools them into buying goods that don’t really have much value.
Scuti is expected to launch this summer, and it’s another part of what I call the Leisure Economy, where one day we will all get paid to play games in exchange for our engagement.
“In-game advertising hasn’t evolved in the last decade or more,” said Nelson, chief strategy officer at Scuti, in an interview with GamesBeat. “It’s intrusive. It’s disruptive. There is trickery to it. It really turns users off.”
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Longano, who was one of the founders of in-game ad firm Massive (which Microsoft bought in 2006), started Scuti in early 2019 to benefit not only gamers but also developers, publishers, brands, and e-commerce companies. He heard his son and friends talking about how it would be cool to buy something from within a game.
“It all boils down to one thing,” Longano said in an interview. “Listen to the players. How do you do something that enhances the player experience?”
How it works
Above: Scuti lets gamers buy things with game rewards.
Game developers add the Scuti button to a game and then let Scuti handle the rest. It runs the store, purchasing, supply chain management, fulfillment, data, analytics, upselling, merchandising, promotions, and more. Players can hit the Scuti button and spend what they earn in-game on real-world merchandise, like a pair of shoes for gamers. Scuti shows them the stuff that the people say they like.
Scuti creates a button in a corner of the game lobby or main menu, and it is passive, so that it doesn’t consume resources during gameplay. Players must opt-in to access the store and rewards, which it’s dubbed “Scutis.” The gamer can shop and stay inside the game’s lobby or main menu while doing so. The ads within the store are compliant with the Internet Advertising Bureau.
The rewards give the players recognition for being engaged with a game, or basically rewarding them for something they love to do. Game developers can choose how the Scuti button should be integrated. Game developers get half the proceeds, and that means the game will monetize better.
“This is enhancing the game experience,” said senior adviser Jim Veevaert in an interview.
Brands can seek merchandise directly to gamers, who are hard to reach because they don’t watch much TV or tolerate advertisements. Scuti vets the store merchandise to make sure that it’s something that players would like. When they view merchandise in the store, the pages rotate, showing more merchandise if the player doesn’t see something they like right away.
“One nice thing about Scuti is it never interrupts gameplay,” Nelson said. “We are a platform that people will want to engage with.”
Above: Scuti puts a whole real-world e-commerce store in a game.
Scuti claims that a survey by Powell Consulting (working with Scuti) found that 90% of console, PC, and mobile players (both premium and free-to-play gamers) said they would shop using Scuti. Players can earn Scutis within the game or by doing things like watching a movie trailer; 10,000 of Scuti currency is worth $1.
“One of the developers asked us if a player could use in-game rewards to purchase products and we are exploring that option,” Nelson said.
And Scuti will take advantage of artificial intelligence and machine learning, figuring out product interest and buying intent. Then it can curate offers for the players appropriately.
Scuti is in closed beta testing now and it is expected to launch this summer. So far, about six developers with 40 million customers are testing product sales through Scuti, which uses the Unity game engine. Scuti will start with mobile and PC games, then move on to support for Unreal Engine, HTML5, consoles, esports platforms, and influencer profiles.
