A 5-year, bottom-up revenue projection — built partner by partner, across confirmed and engaged partners.
Excludes direct brand deals and data licensing revenue — see Beyond Base Case ↓.
Exposure = % of platform MAU who see the content surface. CTR = % of exposed users who tap and engage. Reached = MAU × Exposure × CTR. Every metric compounds annually.
| Partner | Region | Tier | MAU (M) | Exposure % % of MAU · with growth |
CTR % % of exposed · with growth |
Reached (M) | IAA ARPU ad revenue / user / yr |
IAP ARPU purchase rev / user / yr |
Net Rev ($M) PlaysOut share after all costs |
Notes |
|---|
*Net Rev = Reached Users × ARPU, minus iOS/Android store fees (15-30% on IAP), split 35% platform / 35% PlaysOut. Base case only — excludes brand deals and data licensing upside.
Key inputs driving the revenue projection above. All figures are per-user per-year for a single publisher's catalog of casual games and micro-dramas.
| Assumption | Value / Range | How It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Exposure Rate | 1% – 35% | % of a partner's MAU who see the PlaysOut content surface. Varies by tier and partner — publishing partners start low (3-5%) due to platform competition, social/streaming higher (15-30%). Grows 1-5pp/yr as discovery surfaces expand. Capped at 30% for publishing, 50% for all others. |
| CTR (Engagement Rate) | 3% – 30% | Of exposed users, % who tap and engage. Ranges from 3% (early-stage social discovery) to 30% (wallet/delivery apps with transactional audiences). Grows 1.5-4pp/yr as targeting and content-matching improve. Capped at 40%. |
| Reached Users | MAU × Exp × CTR | Active users per partner per year. Each partner's MAU is sourced from public earnings, app intelligence, or disclosed figures. The table above shows per-partner values. |
| IAA ARPU | $0.02 – $1.30 | Ad revenue per user per year. Formula: ~170 ad impressions/yr × regional eCPM ÷ 1,000. Ranges from $0.02 (early social showcase) to $1.30 (China video-native). Regional eCPMs sourced from Tenjin 2026 benchmarks. |
| IAP ARPU | $0.04 – $2.00 | In-app purchase revenue per user per year. Formula: regional pay rate (3-8%) × ARPPU ($30-50). Higher in wallet/delivery tiers where users are already transactional. Compounds at 10%/yr as content catalog matures. |
| ARPU Growth | 10%/yr | Both IAA and IAP compound annually as the content catalog deepens, ad fill rates improve, and user lifetime value increases with more content. |
| Store Fees | 15% – 30% | Applied to IAP revenue only (IAA is unaffected). WeChat & Douyin mini-app platforms: 15%. All other partners on iOS/Android: 30%. Deducted before the revenue share split. |
| Revenue Share | 35-90% | PlaysOut's share after store fees. Default 35% for most publishing partners; Douyin 90% (standard dev rate — 10% platform fee on IAP, 0% on IAA). Net Rev = (IAA + IAP × (1 − store fee)) × rev share. |
Each partner generates ad revenue (IAA) and in-app purchases (IAP) per reached user. Every figure here is net — after store fees and rev-share. This is the base case; see Beyond Base Case for the additional revenue drivers.
*Net Rev = Reached Users × ARPU (IAA + IAP), less store fees (15-30%, IAP only), split 35/35 platform/PlaysOut. ARPU, exposure and CTR compound annually. Base case — excludes brand and data-licensing upside.
Every monetized user generates transactions. Those transactions create a data oracle — behavioral signals licensed to third parties. Meanwhile, 10% of net revenue buys and burns $PLAY, tying the token directly to business performance.
10% of PlaysOut's net revenue buys $PLAY on the open market and permanently burns it. More revenue → more buying pressure → a permanently shrinking supply.
These numbers update dynamically with the scenario above.
*Transactions: How often a user transacts depends on the app — about 24 times a year on delivery apps, 30 on wallets, 6 on social. More transactions mean more behavioral data and more revenue to fund the buyback.
*Oracle feed value: We license that behavioral data to third parties. The more partners feeding in — and the more varied the signals — the more each feed is worth. Priced at $0.50 per 1,000 verified events, growing as more data buyers onboard.
Growth is gated by milestones that unlock step-changes in capability.
12 confirmed partners generating real usage data and first revenue from IAA + IAP. Buyback & burn program launches — $PLAY linked to revenue from day one.
Engaged partners begin onboarding. Transaction volume grows. Quarterly buyback burns become material as revenue compounds across the network.
Enough cross-vertical transaction data to license behavioral feeds to third parties. Oracle revenue adds a second revenue stream on top of IAA + IAP, further increasing buyback capacity.
Data access gated by $PLAY staking — partners stake to reach the oracle and SDK. Cross-vertical data makes the network uniquely valuable, so new partners onboard faster.
$PLAY has three value drivers: revenue-funded buyback & burn, partner staking requirements, and data access coordination across a multi-vertical, multi-region network.
Everything above models only partner revenue (IAA + IAP) and data feeds. There are at least four additional revenue drivers not included in the base case — each adding meaningful incremental value as the network matures.
Brands pay $50-100K per campaign for sponsored placements, branded mini-games and reward challenges. By Y5, with 40+ partner apps, running 10-30 campaigns a year across the network is achievable — each reaching millions of engaged users.
By Y5, five years of cross-vertical engagement signals — across delivery, finance and media — form a unique data asset. Licensed to ad networks, analytics platforms and enterprise buyers at per-feed pricing that scales with diversity and volume.
PlaysOut processes every in-app transaction on the network. A 0.2% take rate on gross volume scales with user activity — at billions in annual volume by Y5, even a thin margin is meaningful recurring revenue.
By Y5, cross-platform tournaments with entry fees and brand-sponsored prize pools run regularly across the network. Since PlaysOut already owns the game layer, cost is low — mostly a distribution and marketing play.