Plays.tv

What Plays.tv does

Plays.tv, doing business as Medal.tv, operates a cross-platform gaming clip recording and sharing service targeted at PC and mobile gamers. The product is a lightweight background client on Windows, iOS, and Android that captures gameplay with one button press, supports recording up to 4K at 144fps using 100–400MB of RAM, separates game, microphone, and Discord audio into independent tracks, and generates instant shareable links. An Auto Clipping feature performs in-game event detection for Fortnite, Valorant, League of Legends, Apex Legends, and Counter-Strike to automatically save highlights, and a built-in Editor and Game Developer SDK extend capture and sharing into third-party games and Discord communities.

The platform has accumulated approximately 4.8 billion clips uploaded and 12 million+ registered users with 12 million+ social connections, making the corpus itself a meaningful content asset. Distribution is self-serve: direct Windows download from medal.tv plus native iOS App Store and Google Play listings, with social presence across Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, Reddit, Discord, Roblox, and Top.gg.

Monetization is freemium: the core product is free, with an optional Medal Premium subscription whose pricing is not publicly disclosed. The company is privately held, headquartered in San Mateo, California, led by CEO Albert Chung, and has raised a single disclosed $15 million Series A in February 2017 led by Shasta Ventures with Accel, Founders Fund, DAG Ventures, the San Francisco 49ers, and Tenaya Capital. No subsequent funding, M&A, leadership changes, or material strategic moves are documented in the source data, which limits forward visibility.

Name

Plays.tv

Legal name

Medal.tv

Website

https://plays.tv

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Plays.tv, operating as Medal.tv, is a cross-platform gaming clip recording and sharing service for PC and mobile gamers, offering one-click capture, automatic event detection in popular competitive games, instant shareable links, and a freemium Medal Premium subscription.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Gaming Video Software

NAICS

Media Streaming Distribution Services, Social Networks, and Other Media Networks and Content Providers (516210), Spectator Sports (71121), Amusement Arcades (713120)

SIC

Services-Miscellaneous Amusement & Recreation (7990), Services-Motion Picture & Video Tape Production (7812)

akta.pro primary industry

Game Streaming & Spectatorship Platforms (BPAMAKAI)

Keywords

• Gaming video platform
• Gameplay recording software
• Gameplay clip sharing
• Gaming social community
• Esports content tools

Headquarters

HQ city

San Mateo

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Medal Premium Subscription: Optional premium paid features for the free core platform. Free tier provides full recording and basic sharing capabilities; premium tier likely adds enhanced storage, analytics, or advanced editing features.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Plays.tv (now Medal.tv) operates a gaming-focused video clip platform that lets gamers capture, automatically clip, edit, and share gameplay highlights across social channels. The service is delivered through a desktop client, mobile apps, web, and a Discord bot, with a Game Developer SDK enabling studios to embed capture directly in their titles. A premium subscription (Medal Premium) adds advanced editing and extended social features.

Product overview

Medal is a unified gaming clip capture and sharing platform consisting of the core Medal application, Auto Clipping feature for automatic event detection, Medal Editor for video editing, Medal Premium subscription, Medal Mobile for iOS/Android, Medal Discord Bot for community integration, and a Game Developer SDK for third-party game integration. The platform supports 100% of PC games with recording up to 4K resolution at 144fps, and enables instant clip sharing via links.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Medal (core platform)

Quantifiable outcome

• 100-400MB RAM usage for low-spec systems

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

Feature6 records

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Emerging players

• GIPHY: Shareable short-form media (primarily GIFs, increasingly video) used heavily in gaming chat and social. Comparable short-clip, instant-share mechanic and creator/community flywheel.
• Medal.tv (the entity itself — predecessor context): Listed only as the anchor company's own identity per the data — kept here for completeness; Medal.tv is the rebadged successor to Plays.tv, not an external peer.

Others

• Top.gg: Gaming community platform for Discord bot and server discovery. Already an integration partner of Medal — comparable in gamer-community reach and complementary rather than competitive.

Broad incumbents

• TikTok: Short-form video platform increasingly used by gamers to publish highlights. Overlaps with Medal's instant-share gaming clip use case via a much larger algorithmically-driven discovery engine.
• Discord: Gaming-native social platform with native clip sharing, screen recording, and a bot ecosystem. Medal even offers a Discord bot integration, reflecting the deep overlap in community and content workflows.

Direct peers

• Twitch: Amazon-owned live game streaming and clip-sharing platform. Direct overlap with Medal as a destination for gaming video content and instant clip sharing, though Twitch is primarily live-streaming and Medal is clip-first.
• Streamable: Lightweight video upload-and-share service frequently used by gamers to post clips. Closely comparable product mechanic — quick upload, instant shareable link — though without Medal's in-game auto-clipping.
• Xbox Game Bar: Windows-native screen recorder pre-installed on every Windows 10/11 PC. Provides free, zero-friction capture and increasingly competes head-on with Medal's recording and sharing workflow.
• NVIDIA ShadowPlay / GeForce Experience: Bundled, free game capture and instant-replay tool for GeForce GPUs. Direct functional substitute for Medal's core recording workflow, pre-installed for a large share of Medal's addressable PC gamer base.
• YouTube Gaming: Google's gaming video platform with upload, sharing, and Shorts functionality. Competes for the same gamer-creator audience seeking to capture and distribute gameplay highlights.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/officialplaystv
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@medal_tv
• Facebookfacebook.com/OfficialPlays.TV
• Instagraminstagram.com/medal.tv

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors6 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Plays.tv