How the Sequel game character bot platform will drive believable conversations with players

When Facebook unveiled its chat bot platform for Messenger in April, Omar Siddiqui felt like a new industry was born. His company, Kiwi, adapted a platform called Sequel to create conversation game character bots to interact with game characters.

The San Francisco company made its platform available to other developers, and thousands are now playing around with how to make characters come alive and appear more immersive to players. This is just the latest character-and-story focus for Kiwi, which has had five titles in the top-25 grossing mobile games in the last five years. Before cofounding Kiwi in 2011, Siddiqui was the vice president of product at Playdom.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X! Join now to enjoy our free and premium perks. 

Join now →

Sign in to your account.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.