Wazdan’s Chief Technology Officer, Maciej Chyra, sits down with iGaming Expert to chat about how the slot developer approaches the technical challenges of creating some of the industry’s hottest titles.
Chyra outlines how his team has created a sound technical infrastructure, how technology plays a core aspect in Wazdan’s regulatory compliance, and, of course, how AI is driving industry innovation much further.
iGaming Expert: Wazdan has been steadily expanding its portfolio of 250+ HTML5 games across numerous markets. What are the key technological challenges the company faces today in driving this growth further?
Maciej Chyra: The challenges, which consist of an aggregated number of issues and obstacles of a lesser degree of totality, might be divided into three categories. The first one puts forward a question about how to maintain energy consumption on a par with ever-growing demands for balancing high-performance tech with more sustainability.
The second revolves around the buzzword of the decade – AI – and its conscious and conscientious implementation into our organisation. Last but not least, the topic of employee wellness.
Essentially, how to keep the ball rolling, creation and innovation-wise, while facing various hurdles in the likes of smooth anti-burnout policy implementation. We try to focus on the above and keep them on convergent paths, with our ‘Online gaining™’ philosophy as incessant guidance preventing us from going astray.
iGX: Over the past five years, Wazdan has undergone rapid development both in its product line and infrastructure. What have been the most significant technological changes during this period?
MC: So many of them, yet so little time! Technology-wise, “significant changes” may have many faces; they may also be caused by external or internal factors. Most often, they are closely related to challenges.
Following this line of thought, I suppose one of the most striking changes was the introduction and the subsequent abandonment of game bundling requirements for iOS. Apple really stirred up a lot of bad blood with it. More recent times have brought us Microsoft’s ”marvellous” idea of Skype shutdown. The ensuing disgruntlement of the entire industry still echoed in the rooms, workspaces and channels of all communication platforms many weeks after.
On the other hand, a good example of an internal, significant change would be the optimization of loading times on a vast array of hand-held devices in motion – it was also a toughie! Nevertheless, we overcame all difficulties and gained the upper hand with the acquired experience of how to navigate more swiftly around such obstacles.
iGX: With a presence in more than 30 regulated markets, certification remains a complex problem. From a technical perspective, what do you see as the biggest challenge in this area?
MC: The idea of regulations and certification from a technical perspective is challenging but quite simple to follow, with feasible engineering of the processes. The biggest challenge I see is the overregulation, which complicates the processes and brings no benefits to the players.
At Wazdan, we pay close attention to both sides of the equation – pardon the unintended rhyme – by meeting all deadlines and sustaining an ample communication flow between all interested parties.
iGX: Wazdan is known for its innovative features, but at the same time must ensure stability and compliance. How does the company strike the right balance between pushing innovation and maintaining regulatory standards?
MC: The collective decades of experience of our design and development teams, working very closely with technical compliance, allow us to fine-tune ideas and make them compliant with all regulations before they even get to the certification process. And, what’s more important, our somewhat anticipatory method doesn’t curb innovation in the slightest. Why? Because we don’t swim against the current, but explore attainable space and seek possibilities that matter. Allow me to give an example from a different area of expertise.
Retaining innovation resembles something of constrained writing: we operate solely within a finite set of rules which we neither intend to overthrow nor bypass. They set up dimensions within which there’s always plenty of room to innovate. Going back to the river metaphor again, one might always dive deeper or swim to the surface to look around. All it takes to understand it is to see it correctly. And I think it’s the only right way to do so.
iGX: Wazdan introduced its Game Manager to the market. What key features of the Game Manager set it apart from other solutions in the industry?
MC: Designing Game Manager, we kept the biggest picture possible in front of us at all times. “Universal versatility” was a key expression which welded the vision together with the execution. Thus, Game Manager is a self-sustaining platform, merging ideas of one-stop self-service and automation, centred on fulfilling customers’ needs, all the while tailoring to the requirements of numerous teams working on bringing Wazdan games to the players.
Its AI-driven mechanism delivers just the right amount of curated content just in time, simultaneously maintaining the highest level of privacy and security standards. Wazdan aims to engineer it to play a pivotal role as an AI companion, facilitating an even stronger bond between our customers and Wazdan employees, procuring mutual gains. Again and again.
