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SLOTS FOCUS - INNOVATION SILVERBACK GAMING
high level of anticipation and excitement. Our team has done an amazing job with it and we’re very proud of the final result.
Are there certain genres and stereotypes you need to have in your portfolio in order to ensure a certain level of success?
Like anything else, diversity is the key to ensuring success at a portfolio level. While we can’t guarantee that any one game will be a hit, we can make sure that we maximise the chance of a game being successful by making it unique and as memorable as possible for the player.
We try to stay away from stereotypes but we’re also not trying to reinvent the wheel. If we know a concept or a theme is popular with players, then we’re happy to integrate it into one of our games while making sure that the game differentiates itself from the competition by combining it with unique mechanics and features.
In December 2021, GAN acquired Silverback Gaming and secured exclusive rights to distribute the company's games portfolio. Why decide to sell so early in the company's journey?
When we started Silverback, we strategically raised enough capital from friends and family to cover the first three games. We always intended to raise another round at a better valuation once we had built some momentum behind the studio.
What we found was that we had a number of investors who weren't interested at all in buying part of the company but wanted to buy us outright. Tis was mostly due to the fact that all the middle-sized players in the industry had recently been acquired.
In the end, we had several offers on the table and a few of them came with distribution opportunities as well. Given its extensive reach in the US and with the current state of the US market suddenly opening, we realised that GAN was the perfect opportunity for us. It would have taken us years to mature naturally into this market without such a boost from them.
Incidentally, our first studio, Cayetano Gaming, was also sold to Paddy Power within two years of launching so for us, this was a very natural move.
A month later, Relax partnered with GAN to distribute Silverback content. How has this impacted the studio's distribution scope?
Te Relax partnership with GAN was actually the continuation of the existing partnership Silverback already had with Relax. Tis ensured the continuity of our game distribution via
P142 WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS
While we can’t guarantee that any one game will be a hit, we can make sure that we maximise the chance of a game being
successful by making it unique and as memorable as possible for the player. We try to stay away from stereotypes but we’re also
not trying to reinvent the wheel. If we know a concept or a theme is popular with players, then we’re happy to integrate it into one of our games while making sure
that the game differentiates itself from the competition by combining it with unique mechanics and features.
Relax’s Silver Bullet platform as well as adding a new distribution channel for GAN. It was very much a win-win for all involved.
Prior to GAN's acquisition, Silverback had only released two games; Mystery Stacks and Aztec Luck. What were the greatest challenges you faced producing these two games?
As with any start-up, the main challenge we had was to do things with a new team for the first time and in an extremely lean way. We all had to get our hands dirty while wearing multiple hats and take charge of things which would normally require a large team for a mature studio.
Te other difficulty we had was that we launched the company a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, so we very quickly had
At Silverback we’ve always been about quality over quantity. We are accelerating our production
rate slowly, but we are not about to skip steps or rush things in
order to get games out the door. If a game is not polished to our
satisfaction, we’re not afraid to go back to the drawing board and re- examine all aspects of the
production. We work on our product and our processes independently, but the product always comes first.
to adapt from the team working in the office to everyone working from home. Who would have thought starting a business during a pandemic would be a good idea?
Mystery Stacks and Aztec Luck must have performed well to put Silverback on GAN's radar at such an early stage in the company's development. How commercially successful were these debut titles? Did they surpass expectations?
Our first games were a commercial success. We managed to launch both titles with more than 100 operators within the space of a few months and they have continued to perform well ever since.
However, we very much hope to improve their performance, keeping in mind that these games were made on a shoestring budget. Now that we have the financial backing of GAN behind us, we’ve managed to grow the team and our product is a lot more refined. Tis is why we expect our launch performances to keep improving as we release better and better titles.
Silverback plans on doubling its headcount by 2023 and aims to produce 50 new online slot games over the next three years. 50 slot games over three years equates to more than one slot a month. Having produced your first few slots over several months, how will Silverback speed up the creation process?
Te increase in headcount and the output from our production line go hand in hand. We know how to organise a big team in order to produce a lot of games but in a lean way. We’ve been experimenting with how to optimise our game pipeline and so far, we’ve seen amazing results from the team.
How do you ensure Silverback gives the same time and energy to each game launch once games are flying out of the door? How does Silverback ensure there is the healthy combination of a quality product and that operators have the best possible tools to market them?
At Silverback we’ve always been about quality over quantity. We are accelerating our production rate slowly, but we are not about to skip steps or rush things in order to get games out the door. If a game is not polished to our satisfaction, we’re not afraid to go back to the drawing board and re-examine all aspects of the production.
We work on our product and our processes independently, but the product always comes first. We work closely with operators and listen to their requirements in terms of marketing tools. We’re also working with affiliates to make sure that our games get the maximum exposure.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t help anyone to just flood the market with a mediocre product and weak marketing. It is effectiveness and ease in every detail of our work that makes our games remarkable.
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