A look back at the past year shaped up for Kinguin

With 2021 about to draw to a close, we caught up with Brandon Doerfler, Kinguin’s first acting CEO, to get his thoughts on Kinguin’s achievements this year. He talked us through a few of his personal highlights. 

When I look back on the last year, I’ll remember it as a year that threw up many challenges but one where, despite these, the team at Kinguin were able to come together to overcome them and drive us to success.  I've previously spoken at length about a people first culture and how important it is to me, and to us as a company, and this proves it. It also shows what incredible people work at Kinguin.  

There have been a multitude of projects we’ve activated that have made me proud - from charity projects, including Kinguin Cares, to partnerships with Prime Time Wrestling, Anonymo Esports, NeoSurf and Immutable X - we’ve achieved so much.

Here are a few of my favourites.

For all the great women out there - Kinguin’s Female Gamers Report 

We now have 1.1 million active female customers at Kinguin - a 56% increase YOY - which is no mean feat. So, back in March we decided to take a step back and celebrate them. Timed to International Women’s Day, we issued a report on the female gaming community - outlining some of their favourite titles - with Sims 4, Minecraft and Rust at the top of the list. In doing this we also found out that Germany is the female capital of Europe - though there are an increasing number of women playing games across the world! I’m looking forward to us exploring ways to carry this forward into next year.

The rotating CEO model 

In August, after eight remarkable years Viktor Romaniuk Wanli, acting CEO and Kinguin founder, announced a new chapter for the company. His plan was to adopt a fresh perspective with a rotating CEO model, which included me, Robert Kalbarczyk and Adam Gruda.

I didn’t quite know what to expect when I first took over the role - only that I had big ambitions. I knew my starting point in this journey was people because they are our greatest assets and advocates, but it was also about learning to steer our team with a new view of optimism, and showing the changes we’re implementing are positive.

I’ve still got a couple of months to go before I hand the baton over to Robert and, while I’ve achieved so much already, there is lots I still want to do. I can’t thank Viktor enough for the opportunity - this is a clear winner when it comes to highlights, for me.

Kinguin slid into the world of NFTs

NFT is the buzzword for 2021, and they aren’t going away any time soon - if you haven’t yet heard this term you must have been sleeping under a rock! This is such an exciting space and one that will continue into 2022 - the technology behind NFTs has the potential to completely revolutionise how we approach digital ownership and the types of products that will be available to us. 

Back in September, we announced a partnership with Bitcoin Vault to produce a set of three exclusive SkillzVault competition cards. This was the first time we introduced NFTs to the marketplace and, while we plan to delve deeper into this next year, this was a momentous occasion for us. We’ve also progressively been introducing more cryptocurrency payment solutions to our platform, taking our well known safe payment solutions and check processes to the next level.

Crunch time - Kinguin’s year in numbers

The numbers are integral to every business - you can’t argue with numbers - and this year we’ve been record setting.

In March we reached 10 million registered customers, in May we hit a new monthly transaction record of over 680.000, while in November we reached $15.7 million in gross merchandise volume - we also hit our highest ever Trust Score of 4.2 at Trustpilot.

It feels good to be surpassing expectations, particularly during such challenging times. I can’t wait to see what records we can break next year!

I feel lucky to be at the forefront of such an exciting, visionary company and industry - we’re always looking for new ways to reach and break through the limits. And as we leave this year behind, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us - our partners, our customers, our merchants. These milestones wouldn’t be possible without you. 

My final thanks is for the incredible team we have at Kinguin - it’s been a privilege to work alongside each and every one of you. 

I hope you and your families had a lovely Christmas and are refreshed ready for 2022!

Best wishes,

Brandon Doerfler