Datcroft Games, LTD

Sergei Shalom was a championship-level gamer as a teenager who created the first large esports tournament group in Russia for Quake. After receiving a PhD in mathematical modeling, he founded Datcroft Games in 2004 with a mission to build quality games rather than chase quick profits. The company had zero revenue for the first two years while developing their flagship title, Fragoria, an MMORPG localized into 15 languages that would eventually reach millions of users worldwide.

Fragoria launched after two years of development and became a major success story for the studio. The game operated on a free-to-play model with monetization through virtual goods sales, achieving approximately 5% conversion rate from players to paying customers. This success established Datcroft as a credible gaming company and proved their ability to build quality products that resonated with global audiences.

By 2016, Datcroft Games had grown to 100+ employees across four countries and was generating eight-figure annual revenue from five mobile games, including the revolutionary Pixel Wars. However, Sergei grew frustrated with the gaming platform ecosystem—Apple and Google took 30% of all in-app purchases, and most user acquisition still relied on app store featuring rather than direct control.

The breakthrough came when Sergei realized he could apply blockchain technology to solve the gaming industry's fundamental economics problem. Rather than just complaining about platform fees, he built his own solution: Game Credits (a blockchain coin on Litecoin's script) and announced Mobile Go, his own token issuance. In May 2017, Mobile Go became the fourth-largest crowdsale in history, raising $53 million from nearly 10,000 crypto investors—remarkable for being a real crowd rather than dominated by "whale" investors. Sergei committed to spending $26.5 million (half the raise) on marketing to acquire users directly to his Game Credit Store, planning to launch in fall 2017 with a focus on the Indian market, which he believed was at the same inflection point China had experienced years earlier.

Datcroft Games positioned itself at the intersection of gaming and crypto adoption. While maintaining profitable gaming operations, the company pivoted to building infrastructure: a Game Credit Store offering 90% revenue share to developers (versus 70% from traditional platforms), mobile esports tournaments with fair outcomes via smart contracts, and a vision to onboard millions of casual gamers into crypto without them even knowing it. Sergei rejected the venture capital route entirely, funding expansion through existing gaming revenue and the ICO, maintaining independence and the ability to pursue his non-profit mission of benefiting developers and gamers rather than maximizing shareholder returns.