Chris Cataldi is COO of Genvid Technologies, which brings interactivity to game live streams as well as enabling interactive live broadcasts for sports and reality television. Its technology supports major game engines and is compatible with leading streaming platforms, and can support proprietary platforms. We spoke with him to find out more about how the company aims to innovate for the future of interactive entertainment.
In this always-online world, games have transitioned from packaged goods to a service and with that move comes many opportunities. Genvid’s modest mission is to innovate in the three areas of technology, business model and content design. Part of that mission is considering the cloud and streaming to think about what that holistically means.
People are increasingly busy and often lack the time to invest in acquiring the skills to be successful in a typical game, so one of the questions that Genvid hopes to answer is how people can interact with a game if they’re not playing it. As Cataldi puts it (appropriately enough for this site) they are working on, “Bringing fun to non-skill based game interactions – literally beyond games”.
Genvid has already seen success with Rival Peak on Facebook; “This is a new kind of entertainment that is as inclusive as possible”
Metaverbs for MILES
Looking ahead to the metaverse, Cataldi describes it as, “A bridging of digital and physical worlds.” But he goes on to caution that, “We are closer to digitally contextualising the physical world via AR, MR than we are to what people think of the metaverse, which is taking over senses such that we’re ‘in’ the digital world.”
But he’s clearly excited about the proposition, which is why Genvid has been hard at work answering the question, “How can we get everyone in the world to interface with a digital world without it being segmented into specific games or titles?”
Their answer comes in the form of what they call Massive Interactive Live Events (MILES), accessible to anyone with a screen such as a smartphone or a TV. Cataldi contends that they will be, “The first step for most people to the metaverse and it can create enough of a buzz that it stops the metaverse from just being a buzzword”.
“The first step for most people to the metaverse and it can create enough of a buzz that it stops the metaverse from just being a buzzword”
Chris Cataldi, Genvid
Are you experienced?
He’s mindful that consumers need to experience the metaverse for themselves – albeit in some modest way – to understand its potential. To that end, the company is looking at what it can prove earlier than later. As Cataldi says, “How can we get as many people as possible to have some sort of Twitch-based Pokemon experience – or whatever it is – that they feel they have the flavour of what it’s going to be once the technology catches up for full sensory immersion”.
While VR may have an impact on the future of games and culture, Cataldi is more excited about an, “Interconnected web of truly cross-platform”. He anticipates a world with different depths of interaction uniting players with viewers. “It’s such an important thing to be pushing the boundaries of what games can do for industries beyond games. We’re in an industry with so many best practices that are applicable everywhere”.
See the video above for the full interview.
Steve is an award-winning editor and copywriter with more than 20 years’ experience specialising in consumer technology and video games. With a career spanning from the first PlayStation to the latest in VR, he's proud to be a lifelong gamer.
