20
B 2 B
Essential Guide to ... Category C Market Analysis
MANUFACTURERS
‘Category C sector represents industry’s single best opportunity’
A targeted focus on boosting average stake levels on Project’s ever-popular Category C products continues to drive operators’ cashbox takings, explains managing director Tony Boulton.
We are in a continual process of researching, developing and testing Category C games, but I have to say that - in common with the rest of the machine manufacturers - the recipe for consistent success has been elusive. How- ever, one game that is performing extremely well is Find The Lady 2 Card Gamble. Project has invested a lot of resource and
“
development time establishing strategies to increase the average stake to a target of 75p. The attraction of moving from a 50p stake to £1 lies in the enhanced activity, and of course the ability to play for a repeat £70 feature. As a consequence, the average stake
on Find The Lady 2 Card Gamble is 82p, which results in greatly enhanced income figures some 40 per cent higher than the game’s 50p predecessor. This very positive feedback is coming from key sectors including arcades, adult gaming centres and motorway service stations. Whilst the stake and prize increase was
extremely welcome, the optimistic outlook was offset by the change in technical stan- dards which, overall, has meant that the £70 jackpot machines cannot compete with legacy games. Project has continued to invest in the Category C sector and we are finding that by radically repositioning the way games play we have succeeded in
*** NOW AVAILABLE *** B3 Amatic Multi Game
Coinslot MAY 20 - MAY 26, 2011
making some improvements to perform- ance in what remains a very flat market. Category C still represents the industry’s single best opportunity, and it’s essential that we continue to invest in creativity and developing features that encourage the player to make the transition to £70. It’s clear that there remains a robust
market for reel-based machines. In the US, the market swung heavily in favour of video only to see player demand create a resur- gence in the more traditional reel-based gaming products. The question we have to ask ourselves is: ‘Are we talking about two types of player or is it one player looking for different things at different times?’ You can’t buck the market, and the cashbox will always be the arbiter of what’s good and what’s not. Our position has always been to give players choice and variety rather than stick to a dogma. Whilst I appreciate that new games are a
capital expenditure and that in many cases new purchases do not take a huge amount more than existing games, without invest- ment, arcades and adult gaming centres will look the same in five years as they do now, with the result that players will just drift away. We operate in a highly competitive retail
environment in which a proportion of busi- ness investment is to grow income and a percentage is about retaining customers. Every business has to invest in customer retention and keeping the machine estate fresh and new is an important way of achieving that key objective.”
DISTRIBUTORS Quality focus
MDM Leisure continues to supply leading Category C product to operators across the UK.
Formed in 1978, specialist amusement product distributor MDM Leisure is
active across the UK and continues to work with numerous leading manufac- turers, including Barcrest Group, Project, Reflex Gaming, Astra Games, Electro- coin, Fair Games and JPM. Although managing director Mark Lewis expressed a slight disappoint- ment with the current £1/£70 stake-to- prize ratio, he noted that there are several quality Category C products cur- rently being sold to the UK market. “Astra Games has released some excellent multiplayers, including the video-based Party Mix,” he said. “The company’s community gaming platform allows operators to add machines as they see fit - they can start off with a three- player and can end up with a 20-player. Spinwall is doing very well, as is Barcrest Group’s three-player Rainbow Riches. “At this moment in time there are some very good Category C products on the market, all of which are doing well in numerous types of venues, including AGCs, bingo halls and even the adult gaming areas in seaside resorts.” Discussing the current stake and prize limits and the potential of the Cat C sector, Lewis said: “I don’t think £70 is anything to get too excited about, but I don’t think it’s so much about the jack- pot. Designers have been hampered as to how they can make a game play with the new laws and legislation, which pro- vides for a maximum of one jackpot with two repeats. There was nothing wrong with the way a Cat C machine played before. Games designers and software writers are now limited to how they can make the game play.” Despite the current limitations cur-
rently faced by the Category C sector, Lewis said the market will benefit from the latest generation of quality product, noting that there will always be a place in the out-of-home leisure industry for low- tech formats. “I think there will always be a market for analogue reel-based products,” he said. “You can play a video-based prod- uct online - as you can in an AGC. You can’t, however, play an analogue reel- based product online.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40