An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Since the industry is new and technology is disruptive, it is crucial to surround yourself with people who share the same passion for the field. Whether you are an entrepreneur or work for a company or startup, there are constant obstacles that you have to overcome. Hence it is crucial to have a clear goal and unshakable vision to keep building daily.

The Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality & Mixed Reality Industries are so exciting. What is coming around the corner? How will these improve our lives? What are the concerns we should keep an eye out for? Aside from entertainment, how can VR or AR help work or other parts of life? To address this, we had the pleasure of interviewing Omar Gull.

Omar Gull is a blockchain entrepreneur and award-winning marketing professional. Omar is the founder and CEO of Metaverse game Race Kingdom (https://racekingdom.io). He is an engineer and entrepreneur specializing in blockchain, cryptocurrency, real estate and marketing.

• Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

I was born and raised in Jammu & Kashmir, India. My father is an Engineer and that inspired me to pursue an education and career in that field. My engineering degree has helped me in developing strong analytical ability and, at the same time, a deeper understanding of other business verticals. However, working miles away from civilization and people was not for me. So I pursued a Masters in Communication, launched my career as a marketing professional and entered consulting followed by real estate. Post an exciting real estate stint in India, I moved to Dubai and led the sales for Emaar and Damac properties — the largest developers in the Middle East. I had the opportunity to lead sales & marketing for a USD 10 billion international business vertical spread across 8 countries. I have always been an advocate of the use of technology and spearheaded many transformational initiatives that led to millions in sales. I recently started my journey as a blockchain entrepreneur in the GameFi space.

• Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I have taken a film-making course where I learnt to detach from the movies and books emotionally. So I don’t spend much time watching movies or reading books. However, I do enjoy reading biographies. Recent favourite is Shoe Dog by Phil Knight.

• Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

Everyone building and scaling a million-dollar company in the metaverse is inspiring. That is the appeal and advantage of startups in general, they are scalable as they are technology-based. I am also fascinated by the merger of the virtual and real worlds. Whether in fashion, gaming, real estate, education or even medicine.

• Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

If you have ever played any Web3 game, you know how complicated it is to start playing it as you have to go through several platforms, get NFTs separately in a marketplace, connect wallets, etc. On the one hand, most Web3 games have complex concepts, even the simplest ones. On the other hand, there is a vast camel racing market which is untapped. So the idea of Race Kingdom came to me — a metaverse camel racing game with a simplified concept and onboarding process. Our team is working on building the Netflix of Web3 gaming.

We have already launched our token $ATOZ which is performing strongly despite the bear market. Our latest development is camel NFTs. As we are the first camel racing game in the metaverse, you check them for yourself: https://racekingdom.io/nfts/. We also won the Best Utility NFT 2022 Award by Gulf News.

• Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Not sure if it is the funniest, but the biggest lesson I learnt was to understand the game mechanics. Gaming devices have the data loaded on the disk, so you cannot create heavy graphics. Technology is behind the vision. Hence, we must match current devices’ capabilities while developing metaverse-based games.

• None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

It is Jeetu Kataria, the co-founder and CEO of DIFX — Digital Financial Exchange. DIFX is our strategic partner supporting us tremendously and sharing its resources generously. We wouldn’t be where we are without DIFX’s support. Recent events show that an exchange must be safe and not lend the customers’ money to third parties. That’s why I trust DIFX, a fully insured cross-asset platform that uses FireBlocks as a custodian. Sharing values, ethics and business approach helps build sustainable Web3 projects.

• Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We are working on the mental health supporting metaverse game. There are 14 negative emotions, and the game helps to cope with them in a seamless and fun way. Of course, it is not a substitute for medical treatment but definitely a tool to prevent people from going into the rabbit hole of negative emotions.

• Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The VR, AR and MR industries seem so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? Can you explain or give an example?

1. Metaverse-based games coming on Apple store and Google play. That will increase the customer reach exponentially and ensure mass adoption.
2. Metaverse use for education. This technology can make learning a next-level, immersive experience.
3. Conventional game developers like Esports and PSP going into the metaverse. That would make the industry grow faster. It could even escalate the development of soft and hardware for the metaverse.

• What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

I would highlight one, but the most important one, in my opinion. The gaming engine is not advanced. Hence, most games are boring unless they are in arcades. People have beautiful game concepts that cannot be executed, which causes trust damage. The lack of experienced resources makes scaling up very difficult and expensive.

• I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

Technology has yet to be as advanced to help us at work. Good use of VR could be providing an immersive environment for remote work, collaboration, training, as well as efficient product development. Also, testing or building new products can be done in various physical scenarios without wasting actual physical resources. For example, one of the pillars of the Dubai Metaverse Strategy unveiled recently by Sheikh Hamdan aims to create digital twins, a virtual representation of an object or system. It is applicable in real estate; you can design and model in the metaverse before bringing the vision into reality.

• Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?

Definitely healthcare and education. Once technology is advanced, it will cause a revolution. Some benefits of telemedicine include better access to care and lower travel expenses, especially in rural areas.

• What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?

I would dispel the most crucial “myth” of P2E being unsustainable.

Sustainability depends on how tokenomics and gameplay are designed. For us [Race Kingdom] it was the primary goal to build a feasible business model. Moreover, the DAO system will allow active players and community members to initiate, discuss and vote on different segments of game development. Compared to some competitors, our tokenomics is independent of the vicious cycle of continuously enticing new players. Our game is self-sustaining through community members earning and spending through in-game revenue channels.

Also, when online games first emerged, people were sceptical too. Then it was the same with free-to-play, which drew scepticism. People thought it was not sustainable. People also thought mobile games were low-grade. But look where mobile gaming is now.

That’s the trajectory we see with metaverse games. At the beginning of any innovation, people always complain and don’t understand the benefits, but slowly with more success and better games proving the concept, there’s an inevitable transition.