In 2022, we reached an inflection point when the average daily time spent watching online videos surpassed that of traditional television consumption. There are an estimated 3.32B gamers worldwide, making up 41% of the global population. Overplay merges these two worlds by combining videos with casual gaming, turning any online video into a casual video game without requiring any coding knowledge. Users can upload videos from their smartphones to the AI-powered platform, which transforms them into fun, lightweight, shareable, interactive, playable games in minutes. Overplay aims to unlock a wave of new game developers who have previously been unable to bring their ideas to market due to technical limitations. The business was featured on an episode of Shark Tank earlier this year and secured a $500K investment from Mark Cuban. Overplay is offered on a freemium basis for both Android and iOS, with in-app purchases and subscriptions are available for additional features and advanced customizations.
AlleyWatch caught up with Overplay Cofounder and CEO Caroline Strzalka to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, and much, much more…
Tell us about the product or service that Overplay offers.
Overplay is revolutionizing a $574 billion digital media landscape with the first frictionless platform for user-generated games. With Overplay, everyone can turn their videos into games— in minutes, with no code. Overplay is unleashing limitless gameplay and game creation.
How is it different?
Overplay’s app can be used to quickly and easily make games from anything: funny moments with your friends, cat memes, cooking tutorials, extreme sports POVs, and more! Imagine the NBA creating playable highlights reels, movie studios releasing trailers that are games, and car companies making commercials where you virtually test drive their cars. Overplay’s app and licensable technology allows billions of creators, social media users, and brands to amplify audience engagement by making their content interactive.
What market does Overplay target and how big is it?
Overplay sits at the intersection of three massive markets: social media, video advertising, and casual gaming. We are merging everything that makes these markets successful into one revolutionary form of digital media that will be consumed and created by BILLIONs of potential Overplayers worldwide.
Games are an untapped creative medium, and we’re unlocking a huge opportunity for creators. With Overplay, 200M+ professional content creators worldwide can leverage the videos they’re already creating to invite fans into their world, literally.
What is the business model?
Creating, sharing, and playing games on Overplay is free for users. Our primary revenue drivers will include advertising and licensing. Overplay’s app will also feature playable ads as native content.
With a new injection of capital, we can accelerate our API launch timeline and bring the incredibly successful playable game ad format to thousands of brands. By using the Overplay API, our technology can be inserted on other apps and websites. We will monetize out API through a B2B SaaS licensing model. The potential to monetize our technology by supporting interactive playable gaming video ads is tremendous.
What inspired the start of Overplay?
We met while working at Sesame Street where we created amazing interactive content for kids. We were always thinking how their filmed content could go further and have a longer tail. Furthermore, making games is expensive, time consuming and risky, since games are a very hit-based business. One day, while watching a POV mountain biking game, Our CEO Dan, thought that the video felt a lot like a game and wondered if he could turn it into one. Using know-how from his film and self-taught programming background, he came up with a way where anyone could add a light layer of gaming on top of streaming video. Dan wrapped me and, suddenly the realization that every creator, every TV and movie studio, every brand, every advertiser could use this technology to easily make games dawned on us. Overplay could be the goose that laid the golden egg.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
Creators (both professional and amateur) will continue to create and brands will continue to advertise no matter what the economy, so we believe that Overplay will be a bit bulletproof if the economy were to slow. On top of this, public companies (and companies that are almost public) – Meta, Alphabet, Snap, Canva etc. – will always be looking to boost their audience numbers and user base, so Overplay might look like a great acquisition to them.
What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within six months?
Here’s our roadmap:
What is the one piece of startup advice that you never got?
It will take three times as long and cost you three times as much as you are estimating to get your product to beta.
If you could be put in touch with anyone in the New York community who would it be and why?
Mark Lazarus, Chairman NBCUniversal Media Group. Mark oversees all streaming, distribution and monetization for the entire company and Overplay’s technology could help NBCUniversal take their content to the next level. Imagine interactive highlights reels from Olympic Games that were just played…or even prior with athletes creating hype for the Olympic Games by posting games made from their own training sessions. Of course, there could also be interactive movie trailers, music videos, ads. Overplay has the power to transform NBCUniversal’s content and really appeal to a younger generation who wants to interact with content in a new gamified way.
Why did you launch in New York?
First, my cofounder and I were already located here! Second, we are a media platform and this is home to the top media companies (especially sports and entertainment!) Third, there are really only a few places in the US where you can raise venture and New York is one!
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
Numero 28 on Carmine St. – best pizza in New York!
