The blockchain gaming sector took a significant leap forward on February 19, 2017, as GameCredits Inc. announced the development of MobileGo, a revolutionary peer-to-peer smart contract token designed to power the world’s first blockchain-based mobile game store. The announcement came just one month after the company revealed plans for its groundbreaking gaming marketplace, scheduled to launch in spring 2017.
TL;DR
- GameCredits announces MobileGo, a smart contract token built on Ethereum and Waves blockchains
- The token will power the first blockchain-based mobile game store
- GameCredits payment gateway already live in two successful games with thousands of gamers
- MobileGo crowdsale will fund marketing and smart contract development
- Bitcoin trades at $1,047.87 as blockchain innovation extends beyond currency
A New Era for Gaming Payments
GameCredits Inc., an international blockchain payment company founded in 2016 in Serbia with a team of over 100 people across five countries, has been steadily building infrastructure to bring cryptocurrency payments to the gaming industry. The company’s GameCredits (GAME) digital currency, originally launched in 2014, has already proven its utility as a payment mechanism for online purchases of goods and gaming services.
The newly announced MobileGo token represents an evolution of this vision. Built as a peer-to-peer smart contract token leveraging both the Ethereum blockchain and the Waves platform, MobileGo is designed to enable decentralized gaming tournaments, peer-to-peer matchmaking, and a developer-friendly payment ecosystem that eliminates traditional intermediaries.
Smart Contracts Meet Mobile Gaming
The MobileGo token’s dual-blockchain architecture was a notable technical choice for early 2017. By utilizing both Ethereum’s robust smart contract capabilities and the Waves blockchain’s user-friendly token creation tools, GameCredits positioned MobileGo to benefit from the strengths of both platforms. The crowdsale proceeds would fund marketing and branding efforts for the Gamecredits Mobile Store, as well as the continued development of smart contract technology within the platform.
This approach reflected the broader trend in early 2017 of projects exploring the intersection of blockchain technology and consumer applications. While Bitcoin dominated the cryptocurrency landscape with a market capitalization of approximately $16.95 billion at the time, projects like GameCredits were demonstrating that blockchain’s potential extended far beyond digital currency.
The Blockchain Gaming Landscape in Early 2017
The announcement came at a pivotal moment for the broader cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin was trading at $1,047.87 on February 19, 2017, according to CoinMarketCap data, with a 24-hour trading volume of approximately $77.4 million. Ethereum, the platform upon which MobileGo would be partially built, was priced at $12.76 with a market cap of $1.14 billion.
The total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at roughly $19.5 billion, a fraction of what it would become during the bull run later that year. Tether (USDT), now the dominant stablecoin in crypto markets, was ranked just 14th by market cap with a modest $24.95 million valuation on this date — a stark contrast to the tens of billions it would represent in subsequent years.
Building the Infrastructure
GameCredits had already made tangible progress before the MobileGo announcement. The company’s payment gateway had been successfully integrated into two games, enabling thousands of gamers to make purchases using the GAME cryptocurrency. This real-world adoption distinguished GameCredits from many blockchain projects of the era that remained purely conceptual.
The vision behind MobileGo was ambitious: create a comprehensive ecosystem where gamers could compete in decentralized tournaments, developers could receive direct payments without platform fees eating into their revenue, and the entire system could operate trustlessly through smart contracts. While the concept of blockchain gaming would take years to mature into the mainstream phenomenon it is today, projects like GameCredits laid important early groundwork.
Why This Matters
The MobileGo announcement on February 19, 2017, represented one of the earliest serious attempts to bridge blockchain technology with the massive mobile gaming industry. While the project would eventually face challenges common to many early crypto ventures, the fundamental insight — that blockchain could transform in-game economies, tournament structures, and developer compensation — proved prescient. Today, blockchain gaming and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) represent a multi-billion dollar sector, and the seeds of that revolution were being planted by pioneers like GameCredits in the early months of 2017.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational and historical purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments carry significant risk. Always conduct your own research before making investment decisions.
GAME token was actually one of the first gaming coins that had a real product behind it. the payment gateway was live in actual games. most 2017 icos couldnt say the same
the MobileGo crowdsale raised what, 53M in a few days? wild to think about now. gaming tokens became a much bigger narrative in 2021 but GAME was early
Dual blockchain on Ethereum AND Waves was ahead of its time. Most projects back then just picked one and hoped for the best.
a team of 100 across 5 countries in 2016 is insane for a crypto project. serbia was quietly building real crypto infrastructure back then