The Future Is Now: Matthew Pierce of Versus Systems On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Whenever possible, work with a diverse group of curious, empathetic, and community-oriented people — and go out of your way to avoid working with people who aren’t.
As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Matthew Pierce.
Matthew Pierce is the founder and CEO of Versus Systems (Nasdaq: VS), creating solutions to make TV, streams, games, and live events more engaging with in-game achievements, rewards, and second screen content. Versus partners include dozens of major live events as well as over 150 professional teams across the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, FIFA, NCAA, and others.
Prior to Versus, Pierce spent his career in media and technology. He helped to found multiple companies including Rosum Corporation (acquired by TruePosition), O-Labs, and RobotDinosaurGames. He’s authored multiple patents in the fields of interactive media, gaming, and location-based services. Pierce is an investor and advisor to early-stage technology companies and is a graduate of Stanford University where he was an All-American and NCAA Champion swimmer. He earned his MBA at UCLA Anderson where he is now a Lecturer.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I’ve been very fortunate in my career. I get to work in a field that I enjoy with people that I like and respect. I get to think about all the different ways that technology can impact media and entertainment. I get to work on projects where contextual elements like time, location, content type, and an individual’s preferences can inform, change, and improve the content itself. I love working with curious, diverse groups of people on problems like “how can we make live events more fun? Or how can we make TV more interactive, personal, and rewarding?” I get to work with some of the world’s best software developers, video game producers, Emmy award winners, and human behavior experts. Also, the producers of the Olympics, people that run in-stadium fan experiences for Super Bowl champions and Stanley Cup winners, key people at Twitter, Amazon, and Cirque du Soleil, and on and on and on. I am ludicrously lucky.
The reality is that I can only work at Versus doing these things that I love because I have incredible support. (I think this is likely true for many people that get to do cool things.) My wife Maggie is the reason that I can take chances and start wild projects. She’s excellent at her job, a great mom, and she believes in me and what we’re doing at Versus. She’s also the best operations expert that I know — which really helps when you have “what do you think about this issue” conversations at home after work. Having a great support system — having people in your corner — is the best possible advantage when you’re working on anything, really, but it’s especially true when you’re trying to bring something new into the world.
Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?
Versus uses cutting-edge technology to make things more fun. We work with content creators, game developers, sports teams, and broadcasters to make their content more interactive, personal, and rewarding. The Versus platform integrates multiplayer games, AR, polling, trivia, and real-world prizing directly into TV, streams, games, apps, and live events. As a result, fans and audiences can win real-world rewards inside their favorite video games or while watching their favorite team, show, or streamer.
Our technology and patent portfolio are built around choice, interactivity, and earned-rewards. Audiences can opt-in to interactive content that works alongside Versus-enabled games, apps, shows, and live events. Players choose what they want to play for and what games they want to play; whether it’s a predictive game about who is going to have more rebounds or rushing yards, or a set of trivia questions about your favorite superheroes, or a live poll about who should win the reality show this week. Versus gives audiences new ways to connect with their favorite content and earn real rewards while they’re doing it.
We have some of the best fan-engagement experts in the world at Versus — people who have been such a huge part of the home-field advantage for their teams that they’ve earned championship rings when their teams win. They’ve produced everything from NFL games, NBA games, the Olympics, soccer games, cricket matches, concerts, rodeos, and hundreds of other events. Our technology takes that fan engagement expertise and makes it available for teams, broadcasters, and Twitch streamers.
People love being a part of the action. They love interacting with creators. They love games and especially love winning. Thinking about the user experience in this way — asking the question “how can we make this more fun” isn’t just good for the user, the audience, or the player — it’s also better for our brand and content partners. People play longer. They watch longer and more intently. They remember the rewards they earned. They have better affinity for those brands. Everyone benefits.
The reason Versus works is because the things that we’re building are true at a very fundamental level. Choice is better than force. Engagement and interactivity are better than one-way broadcasts. Context matters, and earning rewards is better than watching commercials. People love winning, and we make winning possible. We make your favorite things even more fun.
How do you think this might change the world?
Versus is a part of a larger movement in entertainment and media for more personal, interactive, responsive, customer-focused, and contextually relevant content. We can choose what we want to watch and play, what devices we want to watch it on, and how we want to interact. Versus takes it farther by bringing interactivity, contests, social elements, and rewards to entertainment that didn’t previously have it — and it does it in a way that is accessible to every kind of audience and every kind of content creator. We started by building tools and experiences for video games, as well as for NFL teams and giant stadiums full of raucous fans — and now we can bring that interactivity and fan engagement to TV shows, streams, apps, and video games.
Over 90% of people are also on a second screen when they’re watching TV. That’s already changed the entertainment world. Furthermore, only 3% of people regularly watch ads all the way through, which has changed the $600+ billion advertising industry. Technology exists to make all the content that we consume more engaging, contextually relevant, and fun than ever before. And if done well, it can be accomplished in a way that respects people’s privacy and their choices — and that could change the world for the better.
Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
Unfortunately, I think all of us have already seen some of the “black mirror” impacts of personalization and targeting when we look at how some existing companies have addressed content curation and advertising. Who would have thought that algorithms designed to give you more of the news you respond to would help lead to unprecedented levels of misinformation and polarization? While millions of us gave companies access to private data about our history, purchases, and preferences to get better product recommendations, we also became the product for those companies who sold our personal information to all kinds of bidders.
Versus was created, in part, as a response to that audience-as-product “black mirror” issue. We don’t sell user data, and we don’t sell player data. Our business model isn’t based on people sharing things that make them angry or creating self-sustaining echo chambers. Instead, Versus enhances the content that you love. We lean heavily on player choice and opt-in-only models for our advertising and rewards elements. For example, when we need a player’s location information or age, both of which are frequently required for regulatory compliance in prizing, rewards, and sweepstakes, we ask the players directly. These consent steps can take longer, adding time to registration or prize confirmation, which can lower the overall participation rate, but we think the tradeoff is an important one. People who earn rewards in Versus-enabled content are more engaged. They’re more likely to remember a reward that they’ve won than they would a banner ad. They’re also much more likely to redeem a reward in-store or online than they would be if they were just given a coupon. Choice works. Earned-rewards work. Sometimes it takes more steps to do things the right way, but we are happy to take those steps.
What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?
Versus’ acquisition of Xcite Interactive in June of this year is set to bring interactivity, choice, and earned-rewards to millions of fans over the next 12 to 18 months. We’ve already signed dozens of college and professional teams who will be using our “XEO” platform for interactive fan experiences in their events and their team and league apps starting in mid-August. In addition, Versus is actively integrating our proprietary rewards platform into XEO, and we will be able to bring engagement and rewards to our partners with casual games, trivia, predictive gaming, augmented reality, and social elements. Over 95% of audiences say playing for real-world rewards makes games more fun. And as we add new functionality this fall to allow streamers and broadcasters to easily include XEO inside TV, OTT, and streams, we expect audiences to fall in love with how easy it is to play and earn rewards.
Beyond getting into live events, games, and first-screen broadcasts over the next 6 to 12 months, we’re also building out our prizing system and making it easier for brands, e-commerce shops, and agencies to create reward campaigns inside Versus-enabled content. For example, we’ve recently launched a beta Versus app on the Shopify app store. We’re encouraging Shopify shops to join the beta to help us make it easier to reach the engaged viewers of live events and streams. The idea is that any entrepreneur should be able to reach their ideal customers with rewards inside apps, games, and shows. We want to arm all kinds of entrepreneurs and e-commerce companies with the best ads on earth.
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?
John Green asked this question at a University valediction once, and I remind myself of it often. I think it’s a good exercise for anyone. Close your eyes and think about all the people that have brought you to this moment — any moment that matters — and be grateful for them. Think of the people who believed in you or drove you to swim practice or read to you or helped you in office hours or mentored you when you started your career, anyone who ever baked you some brownies or bought you a beer after a bad day — close your eyes and take a full minute to think about them. For most of us, there aren’t many celebrities, politicians, or billionaires that appear in that minute. I think that minute can help prioritize things. That minute reminds us where we should be spending our time — not just because we want to spend more minutes with the ones who appear when we close our eyes, provided those people are still around, but because we want to be the kind of person that other people see when they close their eyes.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.
I think any good top five list has more than five. There are a couple of key pieces that are critical and then a cloud of others that might sneak into that upper echelon depending on the day. So here are some of mine today:
Be kind.
Be informed about current events and vote in every election for which you are eligible.
Read new stories — especially stories where the hero doesn’t look like you. Ideally, recognize that there are real-life heroes that do not look like you, but start with the stories. Read NK Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, G. Willow Wilson, Jessica Townsend, Sophie Anderson, Kelly Thompson, Salvador Plascencia, Analee Newitz, Jose Saramago, and Cory Doctorow.
Strive to know any one thing as well as Aaron Franklin knows about the smoke generated by central Texas post oak.
Celebrate the dead who have loved you and whom you have loved regularly.
If you’re an entrepreneur, get as excited about making good things as Tobi Lutke (@tobi) does.
Whenever possible, work with a diverse group of curious, empathetic, and community-oriented people — and go out of your way to avoid working with people who aren’t.
Periodically think about whether you would walk away from Omelas.
And always be kind.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
I’m not a huge social media participant, but I’m @matthewdpierce on Twitter if you’re looking.
A better move would be to follow @VersusSystems for all the latest updates.
The Future Is Now: Matthew Pierce of Versus Systems On How Their Technological Innovation Will… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
