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BettingBusinessInteractive • FEBRUARY 2012 Essential Guide to ... ICE 2012 MICROGAMING
Dark Knight Returns to Microgaming
Microgaming has lined up one of the hottest film licences of the year by securing the rights to the latest Batman film.
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nline gaming software provider Microgaming started the first day of ICE with a major an- nouncement - that it has signed
another licensing agreement with DC En- tertainment to create a series of state-of- the-art graphic rich video slots based on the world-renowned Batman series. The agreement gives Microgaming per- mission to develop online video slot games using animation material, themes and char- acters from the motion pictures The Dark Knight and this summer’s must-see block- buster The Dark Knight Rises. The first of these games will be released summer 2012 and The Dark Knight Rises online slot game will be launched in 2013.
The Dark Knight is based on the DC Comics character Batman which was first seen in the Detective Comic back in 1939, and since then has become a globally recognised icon that is related to by fans across the globe. Today, Batman is featured in 15 monthly comic books from DC
Comics, versions of which are translated in 30 different languages and distributed in over 60 countries to millions of fans. The Dark Knight film was released in 2008, be- coming the third highest grossing film of all time in the US with over $500m in domestic box office takings, and over $1bn world- wide. The film of The Dark Knight Rises, meanwhile, appears in cinemas from July 20th this year, starring Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Microgaming CEO Roger Raatgever said: “The Batman films are one of the most famous film series in the world, with Bat- man’s logo internationally recognised. To play our part in supplying online gaming software based on such a major and popu- lar franchise is a great success for Mi- crogaming, and our market-leading tech- nology will ensure that the online slot games we produce for The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises are reflective of the iconic nature of this brand.”
The company has also named Dominic CONTINENT 8
Data centre of the year looks forward to serving more jurisdictions
Harrison as the new chairman for the Net- work Management Board (NMB), the col- lective of operators and Microgaming rep- resentatives that shape the development roadmap and operational rules for the Mi- crogaming Poker Network (MPN). Harrison, formerly CEO at Gala Coral and BISL, commented: “When I was first ap- proached by Microgaming about being the independent, non-executive chairman for their Network Management Board, I knew it was a project that I had to be involved in. I strongly believe that the NMB is exactly what this industry needs, and I am very much looking forward to being an integral part of its success.”
Headquartered on the Isle of Man and with data centres in France, Canada, the UK, Malta, Singapore and now Gibraltar, Continent 8 also offers technical support all over the globe. Head of marketing Richard Ebbutt commented on the company’s expansion plans for 2012.
GLOBAL DRAW More important than G2E
While the major US show G2E is still the biggest gaming industry get together, ICE is proving more important for some. The Global Draw provide an example.
G
lobal Draw’s stand at the ICE show has long been an essen- tial stop for bookmakers, but since the firm became part of Scientific Games’ Gaming division each year has seen the range of products on show increase substantially. This year, along with products from sister company Games Media, the recent acquisition of Barcrest Games saw a further extension to the portfolio and more reason to visit the stand. Ian Timmis, CEO of Scientific Games’ Gaming division, sug- gested the collective approach paid off. “The show has been ex- tremely good,” he said. “It has allowed us to renew acquaintanc- es with our customer base and show what we can do to a wider audience. Internationally, we’ve had visitors from Asia and North Africa and it’s got to the point where ICE is more impor- tant to the firm than G2E.” Timmis said that this helped the company in key areas for
expansion and added that there is still focus on European mar- kets with good discussions carried out with Italian and Greek operators.
In the UK, the Scientific Games’ Gaming division currently in- corporates Global Draw, Games Media and now Barcrest Games, which developed the incredibly popular Rainbow Rich- es slot game. Timmis explained that the company has just pulled Barcrest out of manufacturing new analogue gaming machines for the retail pub market because of the massive drop in demand in the sector. By refocusing on digital games on the group’s exist- ing server based platform, Timmis argues that players get more choice and the ability to play the games they want, which should prove to be a boost for business. Timmis added that the supply of gaming machines to book- makers was going well, with continual uplift in machine rev- enues in LBOs. The firm has rolled out its gaming machines across the full Ladbrokes estate - ‘the improvement has been staggering’ says Timmis - and the company is now focussed on Ladbrokes and Coral going forward. Combined with a dedicated team for independent customers, Timmis said that co-operation was the way forward. “What we have found when we have worked together with our bookmaker customers on the opera- tion and promotion of the gaming machines is that figures are boosted upwards.” Timmis also said that the mobile platform was very much part of the company’s strategy going forward.
It’s a key product for us to be selling. We’re also selling our other secure network prod- ucts which we sell to other clients who aren’t already in our infrastructure. Malicious fraud is becoming more of a problem in the industry. We’re seeing bigger and bigger fraud attacks, but we’re not standing still. We’re moving for- ward and our Gibraltar launch is key for the time being. “We currently host four of the five biggest poker networks and eight of the top ten poker sites as listed on
pokerscout.com. Commer- cially, we’re seeing increasing numbers of poker sites and sports betting sites coming on board so it’s vitally important that we offer them a secure, reliable facility from which to host their online operations. We’d simply lose customers otherwise. “We’re the world leaders in delivering prod- ucts such as managed services and secure net- works to the igaming sector and have been in the business for 15 years now. All our products are designed to meet the client’s require- ments. Everything is flexible and our cus- tomers benefit from our multi-jurisdictional cover.
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“The ICE show provides an efficient plat- form for meetings and to market ourselves as our offering is not easy to sell in without see- ing people face-to-face. Shows such as ICE al- ways give us a significant uplift in orders, with a lot of business completed immediately after- wards. What happens at ICE will shape the next 12 months for us. We also attend EiG and some regional shows - we have a good spread of event activity throughout the year. “We’re actively looking at the US, Canada and around Europe to bring in more business. To this end, we’re putting an infrastructure into Italy for another data centre which will allow us to expand our private network. While the i-gaming industry is under pressure be- cause people are more wary about spending their money, there is still natural expansion to a wider audience as more countries and juris- dictions open up for us. We certainly haven’t reached satu- ration point yet as there are plenty more players out there.”
RICHARD EBBUTT: ‘THE ICE SHOW PROVIDES AN EFFICIENT PLATFORM’
The show’s been very good so far - we’ve just launched our data centre in Gibraltar.
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