CEEGC 2016 Budapest Speaker profile – Alexandre Tomic – Virtual Reality in the Online Gambling environment

Monday, 18 July 2016, Budapest – The organizers are proud to announce that Alexandre Tomic will be among the speakers of the “Hot Topics of the Online Gambling Industry in Europe” panel at the CEEGC 2016 which will take place in Budapest on the 20th of September 2016.

CEEGC 2016 Budapest Speaker profile – Alexandre Tomic – Virtual Reality in the Online Gambling environmentThe conference is specially designed to bring the most recent legal news and discuss the current hot topics which is relevant for online gambling operators, investors, online gambling software developers, gaming press reporters and regulators.

Alexandre Tomic has over ten years’ experience in the industry after working his way up from affiliate network owner to casino operator. He and Charles Gross, his partner and ALEA co-founder, are well known in the industry, and their passion for what they do drives them to create innovative products to provide the very best for their users.

Product owned and operated by Alexandre and his team are: Alea.com and SlotsMillion.com

In some recent interviews, among which one conducted by EEGaming.org, Alex has as been showased the latest results of ALEA’s drive for cutting edge technology at SlotsMillion: the first real money, multiplayer, virtual reality casino and discussed the challenges and opportunities of the next big thing in the online gambling industry, Virtual Reality(VR)

EEGaming(Zoltan Tundik): Since VR is a trend that is growing within the iGaming industry, with more and more software suppliers looking to tap into the market, in your expert opinion, how mainstream is this technology really going to be?

Alexandre: VR has huge potential to revolutionise every industry, which means it has the potential to become extremely mainstream. Platforms like desktop, internet and mobile, all of which revolutionised technology as they developed, were virtual reality’s predecessors and each one has been accepted into wide usage at a faster pace than the last. Facebook, as Mark Zuckerberg described, is becoming increasingly immersive over time, with the popularity of text posts being overtaken by photos, videos and now 360° panoramic videos too. Virtual reality may take five or ten years to enter widespread use, especially since the goggles are still quite expensive and a high-spec gaming PC is necessary for them to work properly, which pushes the costs up – but it does seem to be the next logical step. From what we have seen, VR is always well received, and though people’s acceptance of it will depend also on the rate at which the technology develops, it seems to us that the main thing stopping VR from entering mainstream use right now is the cost.

EEGaming(Zoltan Tundik): I have seen the SlotsMillion VR Casino and after taking the goggles off, it felt like coming out of the Avatar movie. Will VR really be about more than games or do you see it enter more niches?

Alexandre Tomic: Virtual reality definitely has enormous potential in gaming, but it also has huge benefits in other areas. Medicine is one example, where it can be used to help surgeons train and patients overcome fears, and create opportunities for disabled people, among other things. It could also be useful in education, for example to provide an immersive environment free of distractions, and to enable students to virtually attend school from distant locations.

VR also has uses in tourism; in the military for training programs; when building cars to visualise prototypes; and by architects to create virtual models or view the user’s surroundings from a different perspective. Astronauts can also use it to help prepare for their trips into space or to control robots in space from Earth. Even in industries less based around technology, VR could still be a game-changer; HR managers could hold virtual meetings to interview prospective new employees, or could use VR in the training of new employees. Reducing business travel is another benefit of VR, as is offering retail customers a better experience by letting them really examine the product in question properly before agreeing to buy it. The possibilities are endless!

EEGaming(Zoltan Tundik): Can our bodies and minds really cope with VR?

Alexandre Tomic: VR offers players a level of engagement they have never experienced before, so it is natural that people are going to be concerned about its physical and emotional effects. Firstly, there is still an issue with motion sickness at the moment, as the brain perceives movement where there is none. However as the technology improves, this will hopefully become less of a problem.

Being as immersive as VR is, anything that happens while the user is playing feels so much more realistic than it does in all the other games that are out there at the moment. The player feels everything that happens in-game as though it were real, and this, though obviously heightening the player’s engagement and thus enjoyment of the game, amplifies all the negative sensations as well. This, however, is the beauty of VR – it is immersive, it is engaging, and it is ultimately as close to real life as we can get while still being able to live experiences that real life does not afford us the opportunity to enjoy. That’s what VR can offer us – a real experience.

EEGaming(Zoltan Tundik): As usual, Google is stepping up the pace commercially – so are other brands such as HTC, and recent rumours claim that Sony is working on the technology for PlayStation. Has the wild wild west era started for VR?

Alexandre Tomic: To a certain extent, yes. Everybody wants to be the company that people will look to when VR starts entering mainstream use, which means offering the best product. VR is not an unknown concept – the idea has been around since at least the eighties, and therefore it will not need as much introduction or explanation as other platforms of similar scale that have been released over the past few years, such as internet or mobile. However as previously mentioned, it is still going to be a while before VR becomes truly widely used.

Be sure to save the date and secure your ticket to the CEEGC 2016 Budapest, which will be held on the 20th of September 2016 at the Hilton Westend City Budapest Hotel in order to hear the fresh and recent information Alexandre Tomis is going to discuss about Virtual Reality in the online gambling industry. The “Hot Topics of the Online Gambling Industry in Europe” panel is going to start at 14:45(Hungary local time) and brings together top names of the industry, such as Mark McGuinnessTal Itzhak RonTom LightIvan Kondilenko and will be moderated by Paul Davis.

The conference provides an efficient way of meeting new and prospect clients in the special networking session and sit down lunch.

Special reports and exclusive updates will be given by the top 20 speakers of the industry and the event is limited to 150 delegates to maximize the engagement among the peers.

The tickets can be purchased at an Early Bird rate of €200 by the end of July on the following link: https://ceegc.eu/2016/tickets/

Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us on +40 735 559 234 or by mail on [email protected].

For more details please visit the official website: www.ceegc.eu or book your tickets online www.ceegc.eu/2016/tickets/

WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU IN BUDAPEST!