Nimrod Harel
Founder & CEO
Mentalist, Host, Entrepreneur
Tel Aviv, Israel
Listen to Nimrod’s Podcast!
Nimrod Harel serves as the Founder and CEO at GameChanger – a revolutionary virtual production company. He is also a software engineer and a master mentalist. Nimrod is the creator and host of several worldwide mentalism TV shows (Inconceivable, Psycho, Invisible) and prime time game shows (The Big Picture, Beat the Grid, Family Piggy Bank). Today Nimrod Harel combines his expertise in tech and illusions to lead GameChanger in a new era of entertainment and as a disruptor in television production who is bringing its groundbreaking virtual studio technology to broadcasters, studios and gaming companies across the globe.
The Backstory
I know what you’re thinking; “Who is this guy?” – My name is Nimrod Harel.
I met Yaron while developing the game show The Big Picture (distributed by Talpa), where I wanted to create the illusion of a live broadcast while allowing viewers to interact with a pre-recorded show, participate in it, and even take the grand prize from the contestant in the studio.
To achieve this, I needed a technological solution that combined several different fields: real-time video insertion into the program, handling a massive number of concurrent users, connecting databases to the broadcast room in real-time, and many other headaches I won’t bore you with.
I was recommended to meet Yaron Yashinski, who was considered one of the world’s leading visual effects experts. Within five minutes of conversation, we both realized that our connection was going to create something much bigger than just this show. The chemistry between us was instant. That very day, we started talking, and the conversation went on into the night—and it hasn’t stopped since. My wife calls him my “second relationship.” From our very first meeting, we immediately understood that we complemented each other perfectly.
My expertise lies in creating psychological and visual illusions, while Yaron’s expertise is in bringing even the most complex illusions to the television screen. Because at the end of the day, what are we doing? We’re creating an illusion. There isn’t really a bingo machine the size of a building. There aren’t actually four giant motorized pods cruising around the studio for the contestants to ride in. It’s all just the viewer’s experience at home. And for us, that experience is the only thing that matters.
Like a good magic trick, the audience is amazed because they have no idea what’s happening behind the curtain. And if the illusion is truly great, they don’t even think about what’s behind the curtain—they are fully immersed in it. I remember the first time I showed my parents the pilot for Bingo Blitz, and my father asked how we had built such a massive bingo machine. For me, that was the ultimate proof that the illusion had worked—if he didn’t even consider the possibility that everything was just pixels, crafted by a masterful hand.
The problem with new technologies is that television producers are late adopters. They are wary of innovation. They fear complications on shoot days, they worry about high costs, and they are concerned about becoming dependent on external professionals.
Even when you assure them that there will be zero technical issues on set—since our technology is only implemented in post-production—or when you guarantee that there won’t be any additional professionals on set and that not only will they significantly reduce production costs, but at the same time increase production value, there is still hesitation.
And this is where I have to give credit to GSN.
This company showed courage and out-of-the-box thinking when they approached us. Despite being a traditionally conservative network—after all, game shows have changed very little over the years—they decided to take a leap of faith and integrate cutting-edge technology into their programming.
They came to us with the classic format of Tic-Tac-Dough—a show that has been remade countless times—and asked how they could inject fresh energy into it. They wanted to create a spectacle that viewers wouldn’t be able to take their eyes off.
Before they had even finished describing their vision, we already knew what it would look like: We created a massive robotic screen, with squares that could rotate in every direction.
This is a perfect example—building a real robotic screen like this would require an insane investment and constant maintenance on set, and even then, it wouldn’t operate with the speed and smoothness required for an American-style game show. But for us, these limitations don’t exist.
When they saw the new Tic-Tac-Dough studio, they asked us, “What else can you do?” From there, the path to Bingo Blitz was a short one.
I see 2025 as the year our company makes its biggest leap yet. If 2024 was the year our technology advanced a level, then 2025 will be the year our production capabilities take a giant leap forward.
The goals we’ve set for this year are ambitious but definitely within reach. First, we want to expand our client roster in the U.S. GSN has practically become our home network, with two shows poweref by our technology scheduled to air in April, and we’re already exploring with them additional projects for this year. We’ve set our sights on entering even more American broadcast outlets—from major networks to streaming platforms—whether it’s by taking existing formats, giving them a facelift and scaling them up (while reducing production costs, as we did with Tik Tak Dough), or by developing entirely new formats from scratch.
Another amazing advantage of our technology is how easily localization can be done. That is, if Fox produces a show powered by our technology, they can effortlessly convert it into another language—with the entire studio and every on-screen element instantly transformed into Spanish or any other language at the click of a button. This will make it easier for networks to sell their content to other territories and for streaming services to tailor their offerings to different audiences.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. A streaming service like Netflix can produce a massive game show in the U.S., then create a season of that show for each of its key markets—with a local host and contestants—while the version produced in Germany or Greece will look completely identical to the American one. And when I say identical, I mean down to the pixel level, because once we’ve created the show’s virtual environment, its replica is always exactly the same. Moreover, production costs will be drastically reduced—as always a small, empty studio will suffice. Just to put it in perspective: producing a one-hour episode of Bingo Blitz in Portugal costs $10K—less than one-tenth of its cost in the U.S.—and yet it will look exactly like the American production with its enormous studio and a bingo machine the size of a five-story building.
Another area we will dive into this year is the adaptation of successful mobile games into TV game shows that create a synergy between the brand and the format—in other words, the perfect advertisement. Gaming companies are desperate for new and innovative advertising channels, especially ones that expand their brand universe, and our collaboration with Playtica on Bingo Blitz is just the first step. We’re already in discussions with several major brands in the casual gaming space, and we believe that by the end of the year we’ll see more successful casual games making the jump to television thanks to our technology.
But we never forget our original passion and the core of our company: creativity. We are constantly developing new formats, and our development team—led by me—has already created three game shows that have become successful seasons around the world. Recently, we finished developing two new game shows: The Diamond and Face It!.
The Diamond is a game show featuring a massive diamond at the center of the studio, serving as a hive for dozens of contestants whom the main player competes against—a sort of 1 vs. 100, but with the production complexity of 1 vs. 3. And the best way to describe Face It! is The Masked Singer meets a visual trivia game show. These new formats take our technology even one step further, and I believe we’ll find them home this year.
To us, creation isn’t just about developing our own formats; it’s also about connecting with creators wherever they are. We’re looking for the visionary who has dreamed up a brilliant TV show, only to be told it’s too expensive or technically impossible to produce. With our technology, nothing is too costly and nothing is impossible—after all, The laws of physics don’t apply to us. We’re in the spectacles business because that’s what our technology truly enables: for TV creators to dream big and turn those dreams into reality.
And we’re already earmarking 2026 as the year we expand into additional genres. While game shows are our forte, our technology is suitable for any studio-based program—and we’d love to see a talent show or a dating show powered by Gamechanger technology on screen. We’ve already started exploring suitable formats, and we believe it’s only a matter of time before our technology reaches every corner of television. We’re here for the long game; we have patience, we constantly challenge ourselves, and we never stop dreaming. We’ve discovered that this is the winning formula.
Nimrod Harel is also featured on our premiere Features Page, and you can read the Podcast Interview Transcript.
