Interviews
Exploring the Metaverse and AI’s role in it
with modl.ai’s CEO & Co-founder Christoffer Holmgård
- How do you define a metaverse?
The metaverse is a challenging thing to define, partly because it’s such an abstract concept, but also as no one has created one yet – so the exact scope of what we’re talking about is a bit blurry. To define the Metaverse, it makes sense to look to fiction, where the term was originally coined. In Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, the Metaverse is a digital, online universe, perceived from a first-person perspective, that exists independently of whether you are logged into it or not. It’s a persistent place that you can access, change, leave, and return to.
There’s a myriad of possible definitions, but there are common threads between them. The metaverse could be defined as a multi-user real-time virtual space where individuals around the world can connect via a network, co-exist and socialise. Many games and platforms exist already that could fit this description, but what sets apart the metaverse from a traditional multiplayer experience is the ability for players to create and share content to shape the world around them in a more or less persistent setting.
- When do you think the first Metaverse will be created?
Some think we’ve already arrived, others think the metaverse will be far grander in scale. If you look at your gaming library today, examples that resemble metaverses will instantly jump out at you in the shape of Minecraft, Dreams, Fall Guys, Roblox and Fortnite. For many people, these titles are no longer considered games but persistent spaces to connect and socialise through virtual experiences – that may or may not include gaming.
Historically, the gaming industry has seen many forms of the metaverse since its inception. World of Warcraft has had its own functioning virtual and digital metaverse in the form of a digital and virtual economy for decades. Second Life is another early example that partly fits the bill, and EVE Online in particular stands out as a persistent universe shared between all the players where large organizations and even an economy have sprung up. Looking even further back, the early Multi-User Dungeons of the 1970s – or MUDs – might be considered proto-metaverses without graphics. Each of these examples contain different characteristics that define the Metaverse, even if they didn’t manage to achieve them all.
- How are you seeing the metaverse trend being reflected in the industry right now?
We’re seeing a drive across the games industry toward creating platforms for Metaverse-like experiences. Using either existing technologies or games, and even building new ones. The trend has been going on for quite some years, but it seems we’re reaching a point where the idea of Metaverses is coming together for both players and large industry actors. What’s more, the global pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated some of these trends that were already underway.
Fortnite, Roblox, and other big titles have slowly evolved from games to online spaces where people can interact and spend virtual currency on in-game items to build relationships and experience something fun and unique. Elsewhere, the trend continues thanks to games like Fortnite, which continues to develop more virtual experiences like its famous concerts. What’s more, Fortnite’s publisher, EPIC Games, recently raised $1 billion to support its future vision to build the metaverse.
With nearly 40 million daily users, the online gaming platform Roblox has become an incredibly popular online community. The game allows its users near-limitless possibilities to create, buy and sell, customise and socialise. What’s more, Roblox no longer calls itself a game on its website anymore; instead, it’s now an experience.
In essence, it’s a collection of semi-persistent spaces created by players using the same foundational tools and protocols. They make their spaces uniquely their own by changing and expanding templates and customising them in creative ways that no single game development company could come up with on their own.
Developers who have created popular interactive virtual social spaces have realised the earning potential behind their ‘games within a game’. So the race to perfect the metaverse model is on!
Many believe the metaverse is the next logical evolution of the internet, so it’s easy to see why so many big industry players are racing to stake their claim and take as big a piece of the pie as possible. So much so that even the country of South Korea has begun laying the foundation for its metaverse, as it recently created an alliance between 17 of the country’s industry-leading tech companies. Most recently, Facebook came out and declared itself a contributor to bringing about the Metaverse.
There is currently no single metaverse, but given the recent boom in brand collaborations and cross-platform play, in the future, we may see several of them become interoperable or meld together in a shared vast universe. But the biggest hurdle will still remain getting companies to look past their own interests to drive inter-organisational collaboration.
- What do you think will be some of the main hurdles in establishing the first metaverse?
Creating a metaverse is one thing, but keeping players engaged and returning to this new frontier is another. Gaming professionals need to understand what motivates players to contribute and come back to these virtual spaces. The key lies in understanding player behaviour. It may sound obvious, but measuring the way a given player moves through and interacts with a virtual space is a great way to gauge their interests. Their interactions, however seemingly insignificant, reveal the player’s preferences from moment to moment.
Understanding a player within the metaverse could be reached by manually picking and studying the individual user, but this approach quickly becomes unfeasible at scale. Alternatively, one can sample representative users, but this form of user research is time-consuming, expensive, and doesn’t pinpoint accuracy at the individual player level. This is where artificial intelligence can help.
- What role will AI play in the metaverse?
Put simply, publishers need their players to return, continue investing, and growing with the environment itself. Tools such as AI that learns from and understands the audience could be the key to growing the metaverse as the game industry’s next frontier.
Today we’re already seeing how AI can assist in daily work, assisting with checking, testing, coding, or even generating whole segments of stories automatically. As more people become digital content creators, we expect AI to take a role as a creative assistant working next to human creators, automating boring, repetitive or difficult tasks that are part of the creation process. AI systems will learn from prior examples and patterns in the Metaverse and use the learnt information to assist with new creative processes.
An additional way in which AI will be significant in the Metaverse is that AI systems will get to know you over time and shape your experience of the Metaverse accordingly. A quality of digital universes is that they, by their nature, allow for the observation of just about everything that goes on in them. One method that can help developers understand their players is by recording their behaviour at the action level and using it to create AI Personas – which are essentially models of the players in parts of the metaverse. By first logging and replicating player behaviour, AI Personas can predict how certain players or groups would act, and by extension, what that means in terms of interests, motivations, and preferences.
These predictions can then be used to tailor and adapt the player’s experience with the most engaging content and interactions at the individual level. You could imagine having an AI system that puts together or even generates content and experiences that are tailored just for you.
It even opens the opportunity for you to leave behind imprints of yourself when you’re not signed into the Metaverse. Some video games already offer a version of this today – for instance Forza Motorsport has Drivatars: AI drivers that drive in your style, that your friends can race against if you’re not online to compete. Perhaps, in the future, we’ll have our own AI doubles or assistants filling in for us in the Metaverse, when we’re not around to play.
This idea is really an extension of character customisation, which has become a cornerstone of modern gaming. Epic Games understood early on how character customisation and avatar expression attracted players away from competing titles such as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Licensing pop-culture avatars was key to keeping people within the Fortnite metaverse. Interest amongst players is always high because there’s a chance for them to wield a lightsaber one week then wear the infinity gauntlet as Thanos the next.
This level of avatar detail and customisation, and the ability for users to express themselves in new and exciting ways, will potentially be the cornerstone of any successful future metaverse project as players use this as a form of expression.
But as games continue to increase in scope and attract more players to log on, manually managing these virtual worlds becomes much less feasible – especially in the context of a metaverse. So you can quickly see where AI fits into the equation.
From generating digital environments, shaping more realistic AI character behaviours to automated bug finding, the potential applications for artificial intelligence will be near-limitless. With regards to the Metaverse, whatever final form it takes, I believe artificial intelligence will be vital in realising projects of this scale.
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Congratulations on becoming the exclusive pricing and risk management supplier for Racing1 Markets. How important is this partnership for Pythia Sports?
This is a major milestone for us, and cements our position as a key racing innovation partner. This agreement sets us apart from our competition in the space, because we’re directly partnered with the four major rights holders in horse racing, which reinforces our position as a trusted partner. Horse racing is still a massive revenue driver for sportsbooks, often second only to soccer, and for one of our clients, regularly their highest trading volume sport. Offering an exciting and engaging experience for our customers is key and through the use of our new plug-and-play iFrame, running alongside our API integration, this new partnership will deliver a tier-one racing product for all our clients. These different delivery routes allow clients the flexibility to choose what best suits their needs for a horse racing and greyhounds solution.
Can you tell us a bit about how the overall Racing1 and Racing1 Markets alliance works and what Pythia’s role in it is?
Racing1 was put together by the four main global rights holders; 1/ST Content, Arena Racing Company [ARC], Racecourse Media Group (RMG), and Tabcorp. Those companies formed an alliance to consolidate their rights and deliver their content together internationally. Racing1 then agrees distribution deals for their content around the world.
Racing1 Markets is a fully outsourced racing solution, and Pythia is the risk management component of the partnership. When you combine Racing1’s core content package and Pythia’s racing solution, operators have a product that gives access to all the rights from those four rights holders, along with our pricing and risk management services, uniquely and exclusively via just 1 contract and 1 integration – making it the only one-stop shop solution on the market.
Did you have an existing relationship with ARC before the launch of Racing1 Markets? If so, how has that changed?
Yes, we have a long-standing relationship with ARC. The rebrand simplifies it so that it’s clear to operators they can find everything under one roof.
All the rights are now being packaged into one integration. That means sportsbooks don’t have to go and speak to each rights holder individually. They can simply speak to Racing1 and can then have a fully-packaged racing operation ready to go.
How does this tie in with Pythia Sports’ ambitions as a company this year?
We have very big ambitions this year and this is certainly the first step towards achieving those. Ideally, we want to take the product to as many partners as possible. We now have the iFrame solution, which is new for us and makes the integration process smoother and quicker for those with no front end solution for horse racing. We’re in the middle of exploring lots of exciting partnerships right now, and we should be in a position to announce those in the not-too-distant future, so watch this space.
What makes Pythia Sports’ pricing and risk management stand out above similar solutions in the market?
We’ve always been known for our specific expertise in the fields of horse racing and greyhound racing. We’ve been delivering healthy margins to operators as a B2B supplier for more than five years now but as a business we have experience that spans decades. In my opinion, our pricing algorithms are the strongest in the market, and we also want to make sure we offer the best customer experience. We’re excited to introduce several additions to our offering in 2025 and look forward to showcasing them to our current and potential partners throughout the year.
What are some current trends that Pythia Sports should be aware of?
We’ve witnessed the growth in revenue that our award-winning in-play product has been able to bring to the industry, and we’re excited to build on that growth, not just with additional markets, but also with greater on-screen content to support the in-play experience and make it easier for customers to make judgements during the race.
Following that theme, we’re focused on a mantra to “simplify and inform” across our product offering. Racing can be a challenging problem for customers to solve, so we want to place all the information at their fingertips. Early this year, in both greyhounds and horse racing, we’ll be rolling out enhanced form guides by aggregating race history into useful stats, badges and comments, while giving customers better data on which to make informed betting decisions.
SGP and Bet Builders have grown turnover and profitability in many sports, and our new Bet Builder product will be launching this year too. This will offer new opportunities for growth, both for avid fans, who can construct a bet based on exactly how they see a race playing out; through to more recreational bettors, who want the opportunity to win big from smaller stakes. That will work hand in hand with our enhanced form, highlighting market trends and opportunities in real time, and allowing bettors to really build a bet for any narrative.
How was exhibiting at ICE 2025 for Pythia Sports?
This year was the first time we’ve had a stand as part of Racing1, which was a great experience. As part of Racing1 Markets, we are the only provider to offer the complete package of data, risk management services and media rights, in just 1 contract and 1 integration. That is our USP and ICE provided the perfect setting for us to be able to discuss that. The interest in horse racing was as high as it has ever been, and there remains a global appetite for it among companies who clearly appreciate its importance as a product.
The post Pythia Sports Stephen Davison on the crucial role of risk management for Racing1 Markets appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
Nik Robinson, CEO, at Big Time Gaming, says the most successful slots combine masterful storytelling and innovative mechanics to deliver gameplay that is meaningful and memorable.
Just how difficult is it for a studio to constantly innovate and bring new player experiences to the market?
For us at Big Time Gaming, it’s second nature. Innovation is in our DNA – it’s what we do and what we’re known for. For years, we’ve set the industry benchmark, not only through iconic game mechanics like Megaways™, Megapays™, and Win Exchange™, but also by pairing them with immersive storytelling to deliver truly memorable gameplay. Our passion for pushing boundaries has allowed us to craft experiences that resonate with players worldwide. We don’t just create slots; we create games that hit differently – combining bold ideas, pioneering mechanics, and engaging narratives. This focus has led to some of the most beloved and successful slots in the market today like Bonanza, Lil Devil, Danger High Voltage, Who wants to be a MillionaireTM.
Looking ahead, we’re not slowing down. With a pipeline packed full of groundbreaking mechanics and fresh takes on interactivity and engagement, we’ll continue to raise the bar for what players can expect from their gaming experiences from Big Time Gaming, as innovation isn’t just part of the process – it’s the heart of who we are.
Are mechanics alone enough to ensure the success of a game? Or do mechanics and theme/design need to work together in harmony?
Mechanics and theme are the beating heart of any truly successful slot, and when they work together seamlessly, magic happens.
Players don’t just want games, they crave experiences, and this means games need to have innovative mechanics that serve a purpose, driving the narrative forward and pulling players deeper into a world they want to explore. It’s about creating a world where every spin contributes to an unfolding narrative that players want to be a part of. The combination of the right theme and mechanics makes the gameplay more meaningful and memorable – certainly more so than hitting “spin” on a standard 4 x 4 slot. A truly successful slot is the complete package, and this means a thrilling, immersive experience that players don’t just play but feel. This is what makes them hit spin again and again, not just to win but to see what happens next.
Its why our games from Who Wants To Be A Millionaire MegapaysTM , Golden Goose MegawaysTM too Bonanza Falls and Danger High Voltage 2 that features MegadozerTM mechanics, stand out! We craft worlds where gameplay, mechanics, narratives and music merge to deliver excitement, anticipation, that turns a slot into a hit – not just a game but an experience players come back to, time after time.
Can you talk us through some of the new mechanics you’ll be debuting in 2025?
Our first big releases in 2025 are Max Megaways 3, Big Bucks Deluxe, Crystal Towers and Castle of Terror 2, , with each showcasing new features and mechanics. Big Bucks Deluxe has been designed to evoke the opulence of high-stakes gaming and debuts our MegapotsTM mechanic to deliver colossal wins. In this game, MegapotsTM is combined with the Hold & Spin mechanic to reveal massive prizes, multipliers or MegapotsTM icons. Crystal Towers is powered by a first-of-its-kind real-time 3D engine technology that will set the benchmark for immersive gameplay. It also features a unique mechanic where winning clusters on the tower connect seamlessly around multiple sides of the gameboard to provide constantly transforming gameplay – imagine the thrill of a Rubik’s Cube fused with the sparkle of a crystal-matching symbol game brought to life in vivid 3D.
How will you combine these mechanics with the game theme, design and sound?
For me, the personalisation and potential for storytelling are two of the most exciting areas of slot development to further explore. By blending gripping narratives with cutting-edge mechanics and technology, we can create truly memorable games. Take our Max Megaways series, for example – the third instalment of the franchise, Max Megaways 3, sees players join Max on his most daring mission yet – deep in the icy mountains with Northen lights. The theme, design, and sound pull you into this world, making every spin feel like part of a high-stakes spy thriller. The game builds on proven mechanics like Megadozer™, the epic coin-dropping feature that unlocks spectacular rewards, and takes it to the next level! In Free Spins, Megadozer™ coins become the vehicle for Max’s arsenal of bonuses, creating thrilling new opportunities as different bonuses interact on the dozer. Every round of Free Spins feels fresh, unpredictable, and packed with excitement!
As well as mastering game mechanics, you set the standard for franchise and sequel slots. The second album is always the hardest, so how have you cracked the code with these games?
Launching a follow-up slot, as we have recently done with Danger High Voltage II, is no easy feat. You need to build on the original experience offered by the game, keeping true to the theme and gameplay, while also bringing in new elements. If you mimic the original too much, it won’t excite players but stray too far away from the core experience and there will be a significant disconnect. With Danger High Voltage II, we reimagined the visuals and mechanics, using MegawaysTM as the engine to bring massive win potential with up to 117,649 ways to win. We also took risks, adding in our new MegadozerTM mechanic as well as two entirely new free spins features – Fire in the Disco! and Danger Danger!! which were meticulously tested to ensure they brought the right blend of fun and volatility. The result is a very different game from the original but that still has a strong connection to the first game through the theme and of course the iconic song from Electric Six.
How will Big Time Gaming be providing more memorable player moments in 2025?
In 2025, our focus is to continue to lead in innovation. By staying true to our mission of pushing boundaries, we’ll create compelling player experiences with fun themes, captivating stories, and smart mechanics that deliver unforgettable gameplay, spin after spin. Our pioneering work on real-time 3D engine technology will signal a new era of immersive gameplay. The new game mechanics we’ll be rolling out that will redefine interactive experiences, across the entire gaming industry. We have some incredible games lined up for 2025, so watch this space.
The post Creating memorable moments appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
Fast Track, the leading SaaS technology company and CRM provider in the iGaming industry, has unveiled the second instalment of its Inside Out video series.
Titled “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” the interview features CEO and Co-founder Simon Lidzén in a candid, behind-the-scenes discussion about the company’s growth, challenges, and vision for the future.
In the 30-minute video, Simon reflects on Fast Track’s nearly ten-year journey: “Success to me is about setting goals and achieving them. This year has been intense, but incredibly rewarding. From scaling Fast Track to launching groundbreaking products like Rewards, we’re just getting started.”
The conversation explores the launch of Rewards, Fast Track’s promotional ecosystem that integrates CRM with gamification to deliver engaging and personalised player experiences. Simon also discusses the company’s rapid global expansion and the challenges of scaling leadership within a fast-growing organisation. Looking ahead to 2025, he highlights Fast Track’s focus on leveraging AI to redefine CRM and customer engagement.
Simon’s reflections also touch on the company’s culture: “Fast Track is built on relentless innovation and a team that thrives on solving challenges. Seeing how much we’ve grown and how far we’ve come makes this journey so exciting.”
For those unfamiliar with Fast Track, the company is a high-growth SaaS leader, known for pioneering the use of AI to deliver personalised experiences to customers. Its software empowers companies to automate marketing and operational workflows, enabling teams to focus on strategy and innovation. Fast Track is reshaping CRM for iGaming, setting a new standard for customer engagement.
Watch the interview here: https://2ly.link/23JyZ
The post Fast Track CEO Shares Honest Reflections in New Interview: Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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