Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari and founder of family entertainment chain Chuck E Cheese, is serving as an executive advisor for GameWager, a free online platform and reward system designed for online gamers.
With GameWager, players can earn virtual tokens in multiplayer titles by completing in-game actions like kills, objectives, and team wins. They can also wager tokens against each other in real-time. The tokens can later be redeemed for a chance to win sponsored prizes such as Alienware laptop computers, Nvidia graphics cards, and more.
The platform's currently supported PC games include first-person shooters
CounterStrike, CounterStrike Source, and
Team Fortress 2, as well as several casual titles. Support is currently planned for
Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty 4, World of WarCraft, and
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3.
The service also offers customizable profiles, leaderboards, and social tools enabling users to "brag, share, and compare" their aggregated game stats across GameWager-enabled servers.
Based in Austin, Texas and founded in 2007 by Thomas Marriott and George Giannukos, GameWager so far claims over 60,000 registered gamers and 25 million earned tokens since launching in July 2008. The company recently secured $3 million in a Series A round of funding.
This is the latest venture for acclaimed industry veteran Bushnell, who also founded restaurant chain uWink. The restaurants feature game interfaces at each diner's table through which they can play games and order food via a proprietary, microtransactions-driven game credit system.
