Pulse
LIVE CASINO: GAME SHOWS EVOLUTION
Despite this, it’s a Baccarat game first and foremost. Who is the Baccarat player? Traditional, so female-only dealers. Even though it's a Lightning Baccarat game, we are going to turn it way down and offer a chilled experience with calming music. It's got to be respectful. For the UI, I wanted a traditional Baccarat display road with a classic user interface. It needs to feel like classic Baccarat, but with something a little bit different.
I hear people talk about math being critically important and it is, but sometimes I think it is said simply to sound mysterious, in slots particularly. If you talk to a great songwriter and asked what the most important part is in their craft, they will say everything. Te singer, the song, the drums, the guitar, the chorus, the melody. You know where you want to get to with a song and it's the same with game creation. Te initial concept permeates everything.
What influences and shapes the concept?
Te player is our guiding light. It sounds obvious and simple but there is a lot of noise out there. You have operators in both ears telling you they need a specific type of game designed to target certain markets. You feel like there is stuff coming from all sides and you have to step back and ask yourself - what do I want? As a player, what do I want to play?
For example, take the transition from MONOPOLY Live to Crazy Time. I like MONOPOLY Live - it's a great game. What does the player want now? More bonus rounds and excitement. But you can't just have more. Each of the bonus rounds has to have their own unique personality. A Coin Flip has to be different from a Pachinko. Each has to have their own purpose to satisfy all audiences.
A game has to serve a purpose. You don't just want to create MONOPOLY Live 2. Obviously, operators are critically important to the process as there are no players without them, but ultimately what they want is players who love to play their games.
How important is a game’s name?
You want to have a congruency of a game feeling as it's named. You can call your restaurant Le Cirque, but if you serve hamburgers, you're going to head-fake people. Tere is a dishonesty that comes with that. I'd rather players didn't play the game than trick them into it. It's better to call the restaurant Bob's Burgers. You meet customers’ expectations when they come in and then serve them a delicious burger that was a little better than they were expecting.
With Crazy Time we got lucky as you can run into numerous intellectual property challenges. I had gone away on a game making bonanza
P84 WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS
where I effectively go into a hotel for two weeks with a big stack of paper to scribble game ideas continuously. On the original document, I actually wrote Crazy Time at the top.
When I returned to the team, I described it as Crazy Time. Tis game was going to be in your face with as much carnival craziness as possible without overdoing it. Crazy Time was the original ethos for the game, but I never expected it to be the actual title. It was a working way of describing the game's concept that stuck.
Are games being played by the same type of player, or has the player evolved?
Players want a good old fashioned honest gamble. Games have got to be fair, easy to understand, fun and entertaining - whether it’s on the phone, super exotic cabinets and everything in-between. However, a lot of companies get distracted and burn money trying to let technology rule the day. Take VR as
You constantly have to innovate. We need to create the look and feel as a mix between YouTube, Facebook, Netflix and apps that people play because these are how players are
defining fun and entertainment. Some games are familiar with a little twist and others can be paradigm changes that might
fail. But that's okay too. If it finds an audience, however small, then we are in good shape.
a case in point. Why does VR make the gambling experience more fun? People will still bet on Coin Flips, Blackjack and Roulette.
You have to adapt to where players are. Tey were on desktop, then moved onto the phone. Tey demanded landscape, then wanted to play one-handed so games were converted to portrait.
You constantly have to innovate. We need to create the look and feel as a mix between YouTube, Facebook, Netflix and apps that people play because these are how players are defining fun and entertainment. Some games are familiar with a little twist and others can be paradigm changes that might fail. But that's okay too. If it finds an audience, however small, then we are in good shape. What many don't realise is that if 15 per cent of players liked a new game it would be the most successful game we have ever launched. Not everyone has to like a new game - it can be very polarising and for a specific audience.
Lots of companies say they are mobile-first and I feel that is so ancient. Sorry - you're an everything-first company. When you launch a game, it has to work on apps, the top 75 phones
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