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Just For The Win has done a lot of great things throughout its decade of existence. Co-founded by two industry experts, the studio is all about balancing spotless mathematics with intuitive design. For them, core concepts must become games with an identity worth playing.
Johan Persson is the studio’s CEO and one of its co-founders. His experiences and accomplishments, coupled with his emphasis on the creative side of game design, come to light in this exclusive interview.
You started at LeoVegas on the operator side, building what players actually see. Now you run the studio that builds what operators choose to offer. After almost ten years at Just For The Win, which side of the glass do you think about more — the operator's or the end users?
The player experience, every time. When we're building a game, the question is always "does this feel good to play?" Not "does this tick a box on a feature sheet." But having worked on the operator side, it gives me a useful filter. I know which metrics they watch and what makes them put a game on the homepage rather than bury it. That lens is always there in the background, but the player experience drives the decisions. After almost ten years of this, I've come to believe that if you get the player experience right, the operator side tends to follow. The reverse doesn't always work.
When ten different game concepts land on the table, what actually kills most of them?
Honestly? A lack of identity. We'll look at a concept and ask, "why does this game need to exist?" If the answer is just "because it's our version of what someone else already did," it's probably not going to survive the conversation.
The other killer is complexity without payoff. A mechanic can be clever on paper, but if it takes too long to explain, the idea may be too complicated. The best features feel intuitive. You see it once, you get it. We also dispatch of ideas that don't have a clear emotional hook. A game needs a moment. Something that makes you lean forward. If we can't identify what that moment is during the concept phase, we move on.
Rikard Ojala, your co-founder, leads math and business intelligence. When the math says one thing, and the creative team wants something else, how does that conversation usually go?
Anyone who's met Rikard and me in the same room knows we don't exactly think alike. He's our CPO and a mathematician at heart. Everything is models, probabilities, expected values. I'm more "does this feel right when you press spin?" But the truth is, Rikard has a great sense of feel too, which is what makes us complement each other so well. As long as I stay away from the spreadsheets, we're fine.
The typical scenario is the creative team wants a feature to activate more often or pay higher, and Rikard's spreadsheet says no. So, we negotiate. There's almost always a creative solution in there somewhere. The key is that he's involved from day one, not brought in after the fact to validate something. When math and design grow up together, they tend to get along. Most of the time.
Dark Waters Power Combo™ started as a single game. Now it's a trilogy, a Game of the Year winner and one of the studio's signature franchises. At what point did you realise this wasn't just a sequel - it was becoming a brand within the brand?
Probably when the title started being referred to simply as 'Dark Waters' rather than by its full name. That's when you know something has crossed from being a game to being a brand. Operators were planning around it, and the interest in what came next was genuine.
The Game of the Year recognition helped validate what we were already feeling internally. But the real indicator was the data: each instalment performed stronger than the last. That's rare in this industry. When a series keeps growing, you know you've built something with real staying power.
We were careful not to rush it, though. Each game had to earn its place. If Dark Waters II Power Combo™ had underperformed, there wouldn't have been a third title just for the sake of it.
In a sequel like Dark Waters III Power Combo The Cursed Voyage™, how do you decide what's untouchable and what needs to be rebuilt?
The core identity is untouchable: the theme, the Power Combo™ progression, the Cash Collect mechanic, and that feeling of building toward something. Those are the elements that define the Dark Waters experience, so changing them would be like rewriting the recipe.
Everything else is fair game. For Dark Waters III Power Combo The Cursed Voyage™, we completely reworked the base game, introducing a new treasure map progression and restructuring how the Power Combo™ features interact. The biggest feedback from Dark Waters II Power Combo™ was that the base game needed more going on between bonus rounds. That's what we focused on.
The rule of thumb is: if someone familiar with the series would be confused or disappointed, don't touch it. If they'd be pleasantly surprised, go for it.
How does Just For The Win approach game design within the Games Global ecosystem, including features such as Power Combo™, Link&Win™ and Mega Moolah™?
Being part of Games Global gives us access to mechanics that have been proven at scale. Power Combo™, Link&Win™, and Mega Moolah™ are frameworks that are widely recognised and trusted, which gives any game built on them a strong foundation.
Our approach is to take those frameworks and make them distinctly ours. We don't just bolt on a mechanic - we build the entire game around it. With Ultra Link&Win™, for example, we've designed a layered system in which each feature variation adds more power. It's the Link&Win™ DNA, but with a progression that feels uniquely Just For The Win.
The ecosystem also lets us focus on what we do best - game design and player experience - while benefiting from distribution and infrastructure that would take years to build alone. That said, we're also working on introducing our own proprietary mechanic later this year. Watch this space.
Your latest release is Midas Dynasty Coins Ultra Link&Win™, can you tell us more about this title and the key features or design elements it introduces?
Midas Dynasty Coins Ultra Link&Win™ is built around the legend of King Midas, and the theme runs deeper than just the visuals. Everything ties back to turning things to gold.
In the base game, gold coins land carrying instant prizes and jackpots up to a 2,000x. When they land on adjacent reels from the left, their values combine and pay out. Simple, visual, and frequent enough that the base game stays consistently active. We also built in Hot Mode™, which randomly kicks in and boosts your chances of landing coin wins for a few spins.
The centrepiece is Ultra Link&Win™, which expands the grid and comes in five escalating variations. Each one layers on more power, building toward the Hand of Midas — the most rewarding variation in the game, where the 10,000x max win potential lives.
It's a dynamic game with plenty happening across both the base game and the feature. That balance between frequent wins and exciting feature outcomes is what we were going for.
This is just the latest release in a long line of Ultra Link&Win™ titles from Just for the Win. What makes this mechanic such a strong fit for the studio's portfolio?
A: Link&Win™ is built around engagement. You see the coins land, you watch them accumulate, and then the feature either fires or it doesn't. That captivating build-up is exactly the kind of moment we try to create in every game, so it's a natural fit.
What makes it work for us specifically is the design space. Five variations of the same core feature means there's always something new to discover. The Hand of Midas variation is the most powerful of the five, and its rarity is what makes it feel meaningful when it arrives.
It also fits our philosophy of "simple to understand, deep to experience." You don't need to know every variation to enjoy the game, but discovering them makes it better. That's the kind of design we want to be known for.
When a market determines to prohibit certain features such as bonus buys, or caps bet sizes, does the studio redesign games or build separate versions from the start?
A: We build with regulation in mind from day one, so it's less about redesigning and more about designing flexibly. Every game we make has multiple configurations. Midas Dynasty Coins Ultra Link&Win™, for example, ships in several RTP variants, and features like bonus buys (where available) are modular. They can be turned on or off per jurisdiction without affecting the core game.
The regulatory environment in online gambling is constantly evolving, irrespective of specific jurisdictions. We design systems, not individual builds. The core experience stays the same; what changes is which levers are available to the player.
That said, regulation does influence design decisions early on. When we know a certain feature won't be permitted in a market, we make sure the game is equally compelling without it.
When different inputs - such as data insights, operator feedback and broader industry perspectives - point in slightly different directions, how do you decide what actually matters for the next game?
You have to weigh them differently. Data tells you what happened, not what to build next. Operator feedback is useful for timing and positioning, but it doesn't design the game for you.
Industry perspectives are the trickiest input because they can lead teams to follow trends rather than set direction.
When they conflict, we default to our own conviction about the player experience. The games that have worked best for us are the ones where we had a strong internal belief about what would be fun. Dark Waters™ was not an obvious concept on paper. Neither was our first Link&Win™ title. They worked because we believed in them.
You've been building this studio for almost ten years. What keeps your energy up after a decade of doing this?
Curiosity, mostly. I've never been the type to do one thing forever without exploring new ideas and different ways of thinking. Staying curious keeps you connected to industries and perspectives you'd never encounter otherwise, and that feeds back into the work.
Outside of the studio, I have twin daughters who keep me busy and grounded. I like to cook, build things, and I'm into cars and engines in general. Having a life outside of work matters — it keeps your perspective fresh and honestly makes you better at the day job, too.
But what actually gets me to the office every morning is the people. Almost ten years in, and the team we have is the real reason I still love doing this. That's not something you take for granted.
How do you see the studio evolving over the next year in terms of its approach to game development?
We're going to keep doing what works. Strong mechanics, strong themes, games that feel good to play. But we're pushing ourselves to be bolder in how we combine them. Midas Dynasty Coins Ultra Link&Win™ is a good example of that ambition, and it's just the start.
As I mentioned, we're also working on our own proprietary mechanic, which is something the team is really looking forward to. And when I say team, I want to emphasise that. It's not just Rikard and me. We have a group of really talented people that we genuinely love working with, and that matters more than most people realise. Good games come from good teams.
We have a strong roadmap for the next twelve months. I think people who enjoy what Just For The Win does will be very happy. We're not done surprising people.
This interview was authored by Andrei Vlaicu, with special thanks to Johan Persson for his invaluable contribution to the creation of this piece.
