The ever stretching hand of the games industry is continuing to reach for something that no one seems to yet be able to agree what it is or how we get there: the metaverse.

Speaking at PG Connects London, Genvid director of developer relations Chris Hamilton discussed how massive interactive live events (MILEs) are a bridge into the metaverse.

Genvid offers native cloud streaming through which viewers can interact with using any connected, screen equipped device (so unfortunately fridges aren’t compatible).

Hamilton explained that one of the objectives of MILEs is to transform passive viewers into active participants through a combination of "lean forward gaming" and "lean back TV" experiences.

With MILEs, viewers can decide their own levels of involvement or influence in the experience, through either watching or giving input, with Hamilton giving the analogy of playing God.

One example Hamilton gave was Genvid’s Pac-Man Community that was recently launched via Facebook Gaming. Pac-Man Community offers different ways for viewers to interact, such as a watch mode that allows users to interact with an AI Pac-Man, or a create mode that lets users make mazes.

Hamilton explained that there is an interplay between watch mode and create mode; the more users that watch boosts the powers of the creators, and vice versa. As one of the key components of a metaverse is interaction between users this builds the foundation for the so-called bridge.

Genvid has found that Pac-Man Community is extremely popular in emerging markets due to its ability to run on low end devices. Accessibility has been pinpointed as being one of the most important features that companies need to achieve a metaverse, with this access to huge audiences in emerging markets, such as India or Brazil, being crucial.

The benefits of MILEs is that, if ran successfully, are both accessbile and interactable, thus providing a strong entry point to the metaverse.