SiGMA World Podcast: Wesley Ellul en una era nueva del juego

SiGMA’s Kamil sits down with one of Malta’s gaming technology leaders, Wesley Ellul, a prominent face among SiGMA events, to discuss the new era of gaming and technology

Wesley Ellul is a serial entrepreneur who has worked in different sectors. He was one of the first digital entrepreneurs to work in technology in Malta. Since 2005, Ellul has opened a number of companies such as Untangled Media, Keepmeposted, and TicketLine. Currently, it has 13 companies in operation.

His latest company is Quizando. Quizando is a brand that allows players to play classic quizzes, anytime, anywhere. Although he is in the gaming industry, he focuses on the area of skill games and later became heavily involved in the blockchain industry.

“I’m a guy who sees opportunities and sees how we can develop them and make better industries for everyone.”

Speaking of his venture Quizando, Wesley says that the idea behind it is that it is based on knowledge. He describes the idea of Quizando being a game of skill as a happy point for him. “The fact that players who play do so because they think they can win, makes it less of a betting site,” explains Ellul.

In Quizando, there are multi-level games that allow people to compete at different levels. When the initial version was released in late 2016 and early 2017, over a period of three to six months, it worked so well that the servers crashed, making everyone involved in the project realize they had something good, he continues.

“Quizando has become a social gaming platform where games are based on skill and communities relate to each other.”

It’s evolved in different ways, it’s no longer just about you playing against a diverse group of people, but now you’re part of a community playing against another community and seeing who’s the best at what they do.”

Quizando has evolved drastically. The first major evolution was between 2018 and 2019, when the team was building the platform at scale. It is a platform that can accommodate around a hundred thousand concurrent players playing at the same time. Apart from this, the brand also started looking for anyone who has some sort of audience to expand even further.

YouTubers, celebrities, and charities opened up to the reverse Twitch version of Quizando, where instead of everyone watching someone play a game and then chatting about it, the exact opposite began to be executed.

YouTube creators host the game, and players actively participate in it, rather than passively watching and commenting on it.

He says this really changes the dynamics of the community, bringing players closer together and engaging them much more in the long run.

When asked if people have easily adapted to this new game model, Ellul replies that everyone who has tried it has loved it so far, so they have been working with several different communities in this regard. The largest community with which Quizando has worked has been that of India.

Working with a global wildlife fund and a thousand schools across India, their biggest game was 50,000 players. 50,000 children from all over India played 2 million games during the seven days following the game.

“So people adapt to it very quickly. They get into the concept because the idea is that when you play and you see that you can do something, it pushes you to do it a little bit better every time. We mix it with education, and even with simple social gatherings, which makes people adapt very easily.” The numbers and achievements have been quite satisfactory so far, he says.

Embracing technology in the gaming industry

Being in the tech industry since the early 2000s, the interviewee has seen a drastic change in the community. When he started the process, Web 2.0 hadn’t really started.

He describes the web as a one-way communication system, in which people visited websites to search for information or, in the early days of e-commerce, to buy an item online.

There has been a considerable change in the way items are communicated and marketed to customers. The idea of distributing a product and asking the customer to buy it is over, and now it’s time to start conversations and create a narrative so that people feel part of a community they belong to.

It is at this point that customers feel welcomed enough to go try the product and commit to being part of the community. “So there’s been a very big change in how we engage customers, but the core of the games remains the same.”

The element of getting the highest score or winning a prize during a game has remained the same, Ellul clarifies. In addition, the only thing that has changed is the way people are attracted and made to feel that they are part of a community. “The way to take care of this community is to keep it with us.”

With the iGaming communities constantly growing, what we see is a merger. In the past, we had a traditional gambling community where players played slots, poker, and other 바카라 games. Wesley says that in the next three to five years we will see a lot of growth where video game communities will join these communities, making the industry even more competitive.

On the change in the reward system that games are adapting, Ellul says that games are now seen as something that can really give value in return. Whereas we used to play for fun, coins that turned into nothing, and a higher leaderboard, today games are moving to reward players with a reward system where, after playing, the achievements you earn can be taken out of the game. We are witnessing a convergence between what was the traditional gaming community as we know it, “the gaming community”, and the traditional video game community.

“Like in the metaverse, we’re going to see people get closer and closer in the coming years, where the two worlds could be almost indistinguishable, through merging. With the advent of the metaverse, we’ll see a much larger gaming community become part of the picture.”

Games that promote mass blockchain adoption

There is a community of 60 million players who play trivia games every day. Instead of trying to take players to a different world, what Quizando is doing is taking it to them.

These players are already sitting and consuming their time online and your job is to give them something new that they can experience within their game. Whereas before they had a token in the game itself, try to offer them something new that they can take out and sell. Giving them a token as a reward means you’re putting these new players in a different space, opening up this new world for them to explore. This changes the whole education of things, Ellul explains.

Wesley explains it in simpler terms: “In the same way that we give children money as a reward that they later use to buy toys in a store, this technique can be adapted to games and technology. The game people already understand the concept of the toy store and with the new reward system we take them where they can spend it. I think the game has been and will be the big boost.”

For more fun discussions regarding all things gaming, check out SiGMA’s full podcast .

Sign up for SiGMA Americas in Toronto:

Toronto is the perfect hub for SiGMA’s growth in North America, becoming a nexus for networking and developing businesses in the region related to land-based gaming, iGaming, sports betting, and more. Toronto, which is home to a huge e-gaming industry, will host the SiGMA Group’s initiative to bring together the continent’s industry pioneers for 3 days of networking, workshops and prizes. For more information on sponsorship and speaking opportunities or to request information about attending the event, please contact Sophie at [email protected].