The mission of .GAMING is to provide a namespace associated with the concept of gaming as the activity or industry of playing, participating in, or providing games. The .GAMING gTLD is intended to serve a broad range of registrants and users, including individuals, businesses, organizations, communities, projects, and other entities that identify with, relate to, or wish to be associated with the concept represented by the applied-for string.
The purpose of .GAMING is to enable registrants to establish online identities using domain names that correspond to this concept. To achieve this purpose, Acid Medal, LLC will make .GAMING available for registration through registrars and other appropriate distribution channels; maintain a secure, stable, and reliable registry infrastructure; implement registration and operational policies that support the availability, security, and integrity of the namespace; and provide ongoing administration of the gTLD to enable registrants to register and use domain names within the namespace.
The purpose of .GAMING is sustainable over time because the activity or industry of playing, participating in, or providing games will continue to play a fundamental and enduring role across society. As society, technology, and methods of communication evolve, organizations and individuals will continue to establish online identities associated with the applied-for string.
1. GAMING focuses on the act of gaming itself playing, streaming, competing, developing, and engaging in interactive entertainment across consoles, PCs, and mobile devices rather than the notion of a single game or games as static products.
While registrations would be open without restriction, the .GAMING namespace is expected to attract those engaged in the activity of gaming: players and competitive teams, streamers and content creators, developers and studios building new play experiences, tournament and league organizers, hardware manufacturers, and the media that covers the activity.
Related activities already carried out (or planned for launch) include: registry service provider evaluations, technical readiness for DNS stability and DNSSEC, IDN support, and ensuring providers meet benchmarks for resolution stability and query response time. Required rights protection mechanisms will include the Trademark Clearinghouse, Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), and Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS).
Having served a decade as Registry Operator for the .CAM gTLD, we have gathered extensive experience in registry operations, registrar communication, user awareness campaigns, and TLD promotion. We will leverage this expertise to make .GAMING a success. It is a priority to offer best practice operations, best-in-class technical infrastructure, and full compliance with Registry Operator policy. All registry operations would comply with applicable privacy and data protection laws, and registrants would be required to adhere to lawful use standards. To further protect registrants and internet users, we work alongside trusted DNS services like CleanDNS for spam handling, registry-lock services, and rapid takedown mechanisms to respond to malicious use.
Communication with Registrars will commence as soon as possible to raise awareness, and ensure an effective launch of the .GAMING TLD. Registration would be open on a first-come, first-served basis following extensive Sunrise and Landrush periods giving existing intellectual property rights owners the opportunity to secure and protect their names ahead of the general public. Followed by the outreach to gaming industry associations and esports organizations for the development of a .GAMING usage. Attendance and participation at ICANN Meetings, and other relevant events, is planned.
2. The purpose of .GAMING is to provide a dedicated namespace for the global activity of gaming the act of playing and engaging in interactive entertainment rather than a single product category. The growth of live-streamed esports tournaments, the rise of indie game development platforms, and the ubiquity of mobile play underscores the need for a namespace dedicated to gaming at scale.
This purpose is sustainable because gaming as an activity is a dominant global pastime with consistent growth across platforms and demographics. The widespread adoption of platforms such as Twitch, Steam, ESL, Unreal Engine, or Unity by millions of players and developers demonstrates ongoing demand for a dedicated namespace.
The proposed .gaming top-level domain represents the everyday world of games and play - video games, board games, tabletop and party games, puzzles, and the content, events, and gear that surround them. Gaming is a mainstream pastime and a major category of entertainment, publishing, and commerce.
Intercap Registry proposes to operate .gaming as an open namespace, available for registration by the general public without restriction.
Intended registrants include individuals, creators, businesses, and organizations of all kinds that publish, present, or offer games, gameplay content, events, or related products and services. Intended users are members of the general public seeking that content and those offerings.
Intercap Registry will make .gaming names available worldwide through ICANN-accredited registrars, promote awareness and adoption of the namespace, publish its registration policies ahead of launch, operate the TLD openly, respond promptly to reports of abuse, and comply with applicable safeguards.
Demand for this category is sustainable: games and play are a standing part of entertainment and everyday life for every age group, produced, sold, streamed, and written about across sectors, and not tied to any trend, technology, or single company.
MISSION
.GAMING is intended to create a globally recognizable digital namespace for the gaming ecosystem, connecting players, creators, games, studios, publishers, esports organizations, teams, communities, events, products and gaming-related services.
POSITIONING
A broad, category-oriented namespace for gaming identities, content, communities and businesses. It addresses the overall gaming ecosystem rather than being limited to individual players, individual games or one segment of the industry.
The mission and purpose of the .gaming gTLD is to provide an open, community-oriented namespace for gaming as an activity and a culture — the people who play, watch, create and talk about video and interactive games. The focus is deliberately on the gaming ACTIVITY and its community (players, creators and audiences) rather than on any single product or publisher, and the TLD is oriented to video, interactive and competitive gaming (esports), NOT to gambling. Gambling is a distinct market served by dedicated strings (for example .casino, .bet, .poker); this application does not target it, and the registry will not present or operate .gaming as a gambling namespace.
This application is for an OPEN generic gTLD. The TLD has a natural community flavour, but it is intentionally not filed as a Community gTLD: registration is open, with no restricted eligibility.
The intended registrants are the members and organisations of the gaming community: individual players and gamer identities, streamers and content creators, esports teams and organisers, gaming bloggers and media, online communities and clans, and gaming-related small businesses. A [name].gaming address gives them a clear, on-theme home for a profile, channel, community hub or site. Standard anti-abuse policies (the Mandatory PICs and the DNS Abuse provisions of Specification 11) apply to all registrations.
The users are the wider gaming audience — players, viewers and fans — who reach these profiles, channels, communities and content under .gaming domains and immediately recognise the theme.
Planned activities include: (i) a launch program compliant with Specification 7 (Sunrise and Trademark Claims via the TMCH); (ii) distribution through accredited registrars, leveraging the Xserver group’s existing gaming-hosting activities and community reach as a natural distribution and bundling channel; (iii) community-facing outreach and marketing that reinforce the video-gaming orientation; and (iv) publication of registration policies prior to launch.
The purpose is durable because gaming is one of the largest and steadily growing entertainment and cultural sectors worldwide, continuously producing new players, creators, teams and communities who need an online presence, so the pool of relevant registrants does not deplete. The use case is renewal-driven: a creator, team or community that anchors its identity and audience on a .gaming domain has strong incentives to retain it year after year. Crucially, the applying entity, Xserver Cloud Inc., is part of the Xserver group, which already operates gaming-hosting services — giving the registry direct insight into its target registrants, an established distribution channel, and the ability to improve retention by bundling .gaming domains with gaming hosting. All Critical Functions (DNS, DNSSEC, EPP, RDDS, Data Escrow) are provided by Identity Digital, an ICANN pre-evaluated Registry Service Provider. Together, these factors ensure the namespace remains relevant, commercially viable and operationally stable for the full life of the TLD."
1. Mission and purpose. This gTLD will be operated as an open, unrestricted generic top-level domain. Its purpose is to expand naming choice in the DNS by making this term available at the top level for any lawful use chosen by the registrant. Registrations will be available to all registrants on a first-come, first-served basis through ICANN-accredited registrars, subject only to the Registry Agreement, ICANN Consensus Policies, and applicable law. The applicant will not operate this gTLD on an exclusive basis.
2. Intended registrants and users. Intended registrants are individuals, businesses, and other organizations worldwide seeking a short, meaningful domain name. There are no eligibility or name selection restrictions beyond those required by the Registry Agreement, ICANN Consensus Policies, and applicable law. Intended users are internet users worldwide who access domain names registered in this gTLD.
3. Related activities. The applicant is an established registry operator under contract with ICANN for 35 gTLDs, including .xyz. It has in place a qualified Registry Service Provider, distribution agreements with ICANN-accredited registrars across multiple regions, and all required rights protection mechanisms and DNS abuse mitigation practices. For this gTLD the applicant will onboard the TLD to its existing registry platform, conduct a Sunrise Period and Trademark Claims Period, launch General Availability through its registrar channel, and maintain ongoing registrar enablement, abuse monitoring, and compliance reporting.
4. Sustainability. Operation is funded by recurring registration and renewal revenue and does not depend on any single registrant, sector, or campaign. This gTLD will run on the applicant's existing shared registry infrastructure, so incremental operating cost is low and no minimum registration volume is required for viability. The applicant has operated gTLDs continuously since 2014.