Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING APRIL 2018 44 “What’s interesting about eSports is that anybody can be an eSports athlete. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, it doesn’t matter your race, it doesn’t matter if you’re tall, short, fat, thin ... it doesn’t matter. You can find a game that you can be good at.” wouldn’t even recognize a telephone today but if you look at the slot machine, it hasn’t changed. Even though it now has a screen and it’s electronic, it’s still the same. OG: Can you see a “change in the game?” HN: Gambling will stay, but operators and game developers need to innovate. Games have become so specialized in the language that they use, the attitude that the dealers have, the operators have. It’s become prohibitive for somebody who is new, who doesn’t understand the game to play. I think the industry in some cases is killing itself by doing that – and that’s from the operators’ perspective. From the INDUSTRY PROFILE regulators’ perspective, they are not working fast enough. By the time they approve something, it’s already old tech. It’s not moving fast. I think regulations have to catch up with technology. It’s not like millennials don’t like to gamble, they just don’t like the games being offered to them. A lot of the attitude has to change. It’s not so much luck any more, it is skill. Customers want skill games, they want social games, they want games where they can share their experiences with their friends. It’s not so important to win money, it’s more important to win respect, it’s more important to win achievements and accolades. OG: Where do you see yourself in five years? HN: I don’t know. I’m always looking for challenges. Deep down I’ll always be a technologist. What makes me wake up in the morning is having a problem to solve. I like to solve problems. I have crazy travel schedules but the silver lining in me travelling the world is that I see problems, which is a challenge and I enjoy it. What I love the most is for people to bring me their problems and say, “Hello, solve this, what can you do?” That’s the great thing. What I think is even more valuable is finding a problem that is worth solving. I hope I can do that for a long time. Hai helped design an interface for Goldman Sachs Hai is recognized as an expert on eSports and eSports betting