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So how was the full show until now?
It’s pretty nice, it’s nice to actually see people at the show this year, a lot more turned out since there are more crash games. There are a lot of meetings, I haven’t looked around so much, so yeah, I’m excited to see a lot of things going on right now.
I think you’re having fun, right?
Yeah, of course, every year, always.
What’s the most popular slot that you designed in 2022?
For 2022, Armadillo. The best slot that we’ve designed, let’s say, Mythological Mayhem, in terms of everything, in terms of graphics, the game does well as well, good mechanic, it’s got its sort of own innovation on it, it looks great, also biased towards greek mythology, so yeah.
Big plans for 2023 in order to go bigger?
Our next release coming out is “Hot Hot Honey”. It’s gonna be a great one. It’s bees, but they’re actually really attractive female bees that are sticking to the reels with honey, coming up, increasing the multiplier. We have our own little trail bonus that we’re going to do, and this is fun to play. The proof is in the pudding.
Your most played slot in history?
For me of all time, Divine Fortune. When is a NetEnt, it would probably be the one that it’s in any casino, you can see it, so I guess in terms of best one, that’s the most proud of.
Live games or slots?
Both. I mean, I think I’m more tilted towards slots, I occasionally play lightning roulette, because I was feeling it was more like in-between, between sports betting on a football game or something, it’s like quick bets and you can kind of watch in enjoyment. But if I had to pick one, I’d go with slots, for sure.
Which one was the first slot that you’ve created?
It was a mechanical reel game, because it was like 14 years ago. It had mechanical stepper reels, obviously wanted to be creative, even back then. I don’t know if the market was ready for something like that, but it had things that connected the reels on the bottom to the top box, so when you would hit them, you would actually blow up the coffers by having certain spots on there. Seeing stuff like Cashman Bingo that actually has something very similar now is interesting because I know that we had like a pattern for it a while ago. So yeah, first one was a mechanical slot game, so it’s simple, 5 lines, but it’s added its own layer of creativity to it.
Are you targeting a specific type of customer? Which type?
Yeah, I mean obviously we want to attract, you can see from the themes that we use, they appeal to wide audiences. But to pick one I would guess from profiling players and everything probably like a thrill-seeker in the sense that we kind of want them to have like a good ride, so it’s not like completely lose all your money, so there’s some entertainment, but it’s all about the really really big wins that you can get, and having a really good experience for that. That way, when you’re playing the game, you get really excited that you’re gonna have that, so we definitely make more high volatility games, but also a nice entertainment ride.
How do you come up with ideas for slots? There must be a creative process behind this.
Yes, it’s really important to have discussions with other people, kind of think about what would be cool to you, another person. And even at these shows of ICE, of course, so you go around, see all kinds of different things, even if it’s not related, I mean, it’s a Pachinko, and this and that and you kind of think about how that comes together. So you have the data-driven part, where you know which games are doing well, and then you have the intuition about things that would be fun and cool, so you combine that with, and you just say like “Ok, so this big win experience is how we can combine things”, so it’s intuition.
What’s your recipe for success in a slot?
I think what’s really fun, it’s always fun to surprise people with a game that it looks like it won’t perform but it does perform. I mean I guess Buffalo would be a classic example, where it looks like it’s from 1800 or something in terms of all the things that you see on it. But I think the most important is that when you’re playing the game, you’re playing the game to win money, you’re not actually watching a movie, those things help so that you get the player on the machine, you get that they’re sort of enjoying with curiosity. So yeah the most important thing is to make it crystal clear about how you can win, with some sort of, you know, put some sort of element of fun, that’s the innovation part of it. But while you’re playing, you always have to understand where the big wins are, and why you win it. A great example of making a game that wouldn’t work is that you win a lot of money and you don’t even realise that you win a lot of money. So the opposite of that would be a successful slot.
Did the recession affect the industry? Do people play less?
There’s an inversed relationship I would say, not directly inversed, but it’s kind of immune to recession, it’s one of those entertainment things that players like to do whether or not they’re lowering their budget for where they’re going, but I think this goes more for problem gambling and making sure that the players that are betting honor games, that they have the right budget allocated, so that stuff is very important for the recession, actually. Gambling tends to be recession-proof as players tend to always want to play.
I want to know your personal favourite slot.
My unbiased personal favourite slot of all time, mainly from my own sort of nostalgia or what not, is actually, when I went from the land-based side to the online/iGaming side, Jack and the Beanstalk. What I really liked about that game… A little wild, it travels over there… It was kind of cool to have the experience where you know raw from making the Kitty Glitter version of it which is the land-based side where you have these diamonds on the fifth reel, accumulating to give you more wilds, and you sort of see on the iGaming side how they took that, and they put a fun element, the walking wild with it, they sort of take that and make the iGaming version of it, with a different theme and everything. So it was kind of cool to see the two worlds fuse like that from the land-based to the iGaming side, so for those reasons I will go with that one as my favourite.