Pulse
VIRTUAL SPORTS TECHNOLOGY
Yossi Barzely Chief Business Development Officer, Pragmatic Play
“Rendering and video processing allows the
How important is the level of realism?
In short, it’s essential, and it’s important to note the idea of realism consists of different subjective components. Obviously, from a visual perspective where the video is close enough to live-action that the players get a sense the event represents reality.
Sports betting markets that match the real sport with favourable odds and options is another and, lastly, access to history and statistics give substance to the idea that this virtual world is the same as real sports betting, complete with its own history and identity.
What specific technologies do you employ to create your products? Is there a stage of the process that is more crucial than others?
First and foremost, I would say content delivery. Te games are no good unless they can reach a global audience with sub-second latency - this includes the video stream as well as the player interface. Hosting technology must be secure with a high-performance focus. It also needs to be resilient and include load balancing and peak performance management.
Rendering and video processing allows the provision of unique events with a highly realistic representation, while fully resilient APIs and databases help to provide a coherent store of all data ranging from real-time game data, player information and decisions, back- office reporting functions, and archiving.
Has the last decade proven most influential in the development of virtual sports?
To an extent, development has been steady and continuous, especially with the introduction of new providers, but there have been constraints as the industry struggled with popularity in comparison to other verticals, and as such maybe struggled to gain the resources for further technological development.
However, for sure, the last two years has seen the biggest growth – closure of retail meant massive growth online. We’ve also seen that operators now want virtual sports as a core offering in their portfolio. Finally, I would say that explosive growth in mobile penetration in emerging markets has facilitated a huge change in in-game availability.
P114 WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS
provision of unique events with a highly realistic
representation, while fully
resilient APIs and databases help to provide a coherent
store of all data ranging from real-time game data, player information and decisions, back-office reporting functions, and archiving.” Yossi Barzely
Pragmatic P Attractive a accessible experiences
What technology advancement has made the biggest impact in the virtuals market?
For online, it would be mobile penetration. For example, if you look at the African market, increased mobile penetration gives customers who have a love for football and betting the opportunity to bet as and when they please. For the retail side, it would be the level of realism as graphic technology has taken a quantum leap.
In a recent report it has been estimated that the full value of the industry (video games, including esports) now exceeds US$300bn, more than the combined markets for movies and music. Has this been the source of any inspiration for the development of your products? What can be learned from this success to help drive virtual sports growth?
“New markets such as North America and Canada will open the doors for the development of new betting experiences. Expanding markets in LatAm and Africa will drive further niche development suited to the needs and infrastructure of these regions. Further down the line, with ever-increasing realism, virtual sports is an
area where the much talked about ‘metaverse’ might come into play. As technology
advances, people can choose which ‘reality’ they choose to partake in, and this
‘metaverse’ era could signal exponential growth for virtual sports.”
Yossi Barzely
Like all entertainment products, it is about providing an attractive and accessible experience that provides the widest possible enjoyment to players. Te success of other entertainment verticals has shown there is an appetite and ROI for virtual games, and this has provided reinforcement to the idea of investing in this space.
Due to the growth in availability, virtual sports is starting to appeal to non-sports players and games are changing to encourage this cross- audience uptake. Looking at the currently successful entertainment companies, it is this evolution of offering that has attracted more customers and therefore increased their popularity as a supplier.
What does the future hold for virtuals and the technology that powers it?
New markets such as North America and Canada will open the doors for the development of new betting experiences. Expanding markets in LatAm and Africa will drive further niche development suited to the needs and infrastructure of these regions.
Further down the line, with ever-increasing realism, virtual sports is an area where the much talked about ‘metaverse’ might come into play. As technology advances, people can choose which ‘reality’ they choose to partake in, and this ‘metaverse’ era could signal exponential growth for virtual sports.
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