IGT
customers? If a customer, for example, wants to keep playing the same slot when they leave, on the way home, when they get home… All under that casino’s banner, so it’s all tracked, recorded, loyalty points issued. DR: You need to make sure you tailor the
experience to the medium. My background is in videogames, at Electronic Arts, and also President of LucasArts before coming to IGT. Something we have learned is you can make a game for a console but if you try to directly port it to a handheld, or a Wii, or another platform, it won’t have the same impact or experience. A good example is the iPhone, and the iPad. Trying to port an experience to the iPad, you need to think about the bigger screen, you need to be able to go landscape, improve functionality, work on the controls – you have to consider all of this. That’s extremely important to consider and it’s something we always think about when we design games. We’re working toward the multi-channel customer offering that you mentioned, as are a number of our competitors. We own all the channels at this point, have a really robust back-end system, and have so far been able to connect our online, mobile and social channels relatively seamlessly with the new development platform we are working on. We’re close to the point of true convergence, where we can create an asset once, and deploy and monetize it across all of our channels as we see appropriate.
CI: Customer retention seems to be the magic
bullet and the key to many casinos going online. DR: A virtual wallet is part of that structure I think,
where a customer can play at the EGM, then use it online, mobile or social – this may require jurisdictional acceptance.
CI: If a casino used JCM’s mobile wallet
technology, for example, it’s not like the customer has to have another card, password et cetera remembered – and the trust issue is also swept aside as they are using their own phone for currency switching. Do you see that on the casino floor of the near future? DR: I think it’s a very sexy idea and it’s something IGT is investigating as well. You have to be continuously innovating and we have a history of that throughout the decades. We’re famous for this sort of innovation.
CI: You’ve got a history as a company for strong
evergreen – and also more current – licensed games; many companies are looking to the past for titles and ideas now, as it’s less of a financial risk, or they are looking inward for proprietary themes. What’s the future for IGT? DR: Our strategy is really driven by deep
quantitative market research to ensure our products have the broadest appeal, and global appeal. For example, Judge Judy is THE most-watched show on daytime TV. It’s the popularity that entices people
JULY/AUGUST 2013 33
and it’s the math model that keeps them playing. As for picking the right titles, we have a phenomenal track record historically, right up to the present day, from Wheel of Fortune up to Sex and the City, and Family Guy. There’s a lot of movies out there that are not
necessarily hits, could that be a factor of being too market-driven? It has the car chase, the kiss, it checks all the boxes but just falls flat; you have to be very careful when you’re buying a game license, especially a speculative one. While we are very market-research- centric, there needs to be a fine balance between art and science. We have the best game designers in the industry to be able to balance it out and make sure we’re finding that balance. It’s my job to make sure the creative voice is heard, and that there is passion behind the titles; the people that developed Sex and the City were passionate about that game. Market research showed it wasn’t going to be the big, big hit, but it was and the developers pulled out the overall experience, wrote phenomenal math for it and it’s been a superb performer for over three years now. It’s about that passion as well as the market research.
CI: You’ve been with IGT for more than two
years now; the changes at management level have been largely positive on the systems and slots sides… DR: I must say, we are standing on the shoulders of
giants. There are phenomenal people that have tremendous history in this industry and we must recognise and learn from that on a daily basis. I have designers who have worked at IGT for 20-25 years – you must respect that legacy while also innovating, growing, and challenging the status quo a little bit.
make sure the creative voice is heard, and that there is passion behind the titles… It’s about that passion as well as the market research
It’s my job to
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