EXCLUSIVE: Madden Gaming Veteran Leads Play-To-Earn Horse Racing Game Photo Finish Into New Growth Phase: 'More People Racing All Day, Every Day'

Leading play-to-earn virtual horse racing game Photo Finish LIVE offers sports fans and Web3 enthusiasts opportunities to play and earn through racing, breeding and staking.

Benzinga talked to the founder of Third Time Entertainment, parent company to Photo Finish LIVE to hear more about how the company started and what's next.

Launching Photo Finish: After launching several successful horse racing mobile games, gaming veteran Ian Cummings had the idea to launch a Web3-based horse racing game.

Cummings said the success of NBA Top Shot and Axie Infinity were NFTs that helped push the thought process into making a horse racing game for the Web3 audience. Third Time Entertainment talked to several blockchains before settling on Solana SOL/USD, the blockchain that launched the initial Photo Finish PFPs.

Third Time’s goal was to bring its current mobile user base over to Web3.

"We'll teach them about blockchain," Cummings told Benzinga.

Cummings said the shock was that none of them cared and many didn't have the ability to trade NFTs on a PC.

Instead, it was a massive viral rush of fans from within crypto that helped Photo Finish gain interest.  

"It didn't end up how I expected. We found a brand new audience."

Cummings credited his past experience working at companies like Electronic Arts EA, Zynga and FanDuel for helping to give him the tools and knowledge to launch a successful game.

Cummings started as a tester at EA for the well-known Madden NFL game. Cummings spent the majority of his 20s working his way up to become the person in charge and run Madden. While working on Madden he worked on items like animation, gameplay, franchise mode, owner mode, playbooks and was the creator of the "Hit Stick," a popular Madden game feature.

After being burned out as being in charge of Madden — a job that came with lots of meetings and presentations — Cummings shifted to Zynga where he learned firsthand the big shift for the gaming sector to digital and mobile games, including free-to-play.

"Zynga taught me a lot about monetization."

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Horse Racing Market: While many in North America focus on following the main four sports of baseball, basketball, football and hockey, Cummings said horse racing is the forgotten sport by the media.

The success of the Kentucky Derby, which gets more popular every year, shows the interest in horse racing, Cumming added. The unfortunate item is that many smaller tracks are falling off and having to subsidize with casinos being built, Cummings added.

While it has a smaller in size in North America, Cummings said horse racing is hugely popular in Australia, Ireland, the U.K. and Japan. The sport has hundreds of millions of people globally who are passionate about it.

"We could go serve this niche," Cumming said of building a horse racing game.

Playing Photo Finish: The Photo Finish game offers all things horse racing including racing, claiming, breeding and a marketplace that sees users buy and sell horses directly from each other, with Third Time taking a cut via fees.

The game also has the CROWN token, which Cummings said came as a thought from the early days and is something they approached differently than what others were doing.

Cummings said the magic of a cryptocurrency token, if integrated correctly into a game, is it can be used for user acquisition instead of paying Facebook to get users.

Players can buy CROWN and also earn CROWN for races. CROWN can also be staked to become a part owner of a horse track and earn a portion of the season's earnings. For Photo Finish a season is four weeks long.

Cummings told Benzinga that most video games are successful if they sell a lot of copies or in-app purchases to the users. For Photo Finish, the platform is about users and the game makes money from fees to use the platform and complete items like breeding and selling horses.

The key measure of success for Cummings is seeing "more people racing all day, every day."

Cummings said the game offered lots of ways to play and it's important like poker to study and research the angle you want to take. This can include building large stables and racing every day for lovers of daily fantasy, breeding for long-term focused players, buying horses in claimers and flipping for profit for those with a keen eye.

Users can sign up and get a free training horse with just an email address.

What's Next: Third Time Entertainment has a partnership with Churchill Downs, Inc. CHDN, the owner of the Kentucky Derby.

A season of the Photo Finish includes a Virtual Kentucky Derby, something Cummings said helps give players a goal of winning the key race.

For this year's 150^th running of the Kentucky Derby, Photo Finish will launch several key marketing items that will be announced in the future ahead of the race on May 4.

Photo Finish and Churchill have been feeling each other out as part of the multi-year partnership, Cummings added. This includes co-marketing efforts in the past and future initiatives.

Cummings also told Benzinga the goal is for the mobile app to launch this year, which could unlock new territories for players.

Another key for Cummings is getting an official gambling license in more countries. Operated as a skill-based game in the U.S., Photo Finish allows wagering on races in some markets.

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Photo: PhotoFinish