A LOOK BACK


Blue Guru Games Kristian Hassall, Commercial Manager


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n 2022 we released our fi rst games, but it was really a year to set up the teams, processes and really get in the groove. Each game has been an improvement on the last and I think we’re in a great spot for the future. The biggest buzz for us comes from people liking the themes and stories around our games, the fact that it’s being picked up on when we diverge from that storytelling path is great too - it keeps us on our toes. Spring-Heeled Jack was well received in that regard, and we have a cracker in December- Napoleon Vs Rabbits


of options for players these days and it’s increasingly important that a provider offers something different.


telling the true story of Napoleon’s generals retreating from an army of tame bunnies. In terms of new content directions, we’ve seen surprisingly little. That’s starting to change now though and game providers, us included, are realising that you need to stand out in such a crowded market. It’s not like there’s a shortage


I’m most surprised about the lack of knowledge or intent to build around web3, both the tech and the communities. It’s still early though and we’ve seen a few exploratory forays into use of NFTs. Some purely cosmetic but some tied into real NFT projects and communities such as Caleta Gaming’s’ Paradise Trippies collabs. I think we’ll see a lot more of these.


Gamingtec Andrei Beu, Commercial Director T


he pandemic has brought about considerable changes in all


aspects of life. When we talk about ‘the new


normality’, we perhaps believe that everything will eventually return to normal, little by little. But some of those changes are now well-established, and some of our newly acquired habits and customs will stay forever. Among them is the way we do business, the formalization of remote processes, video conferences. Any group of people in any place who speak the same language are easily connected. So, our activity has become more globalized.


Online reputation has become even more important to companies. We believe that we have taken advantage of this ‘back to work’ period to strengthen some aspects of our brand and our product so that personal relationships with clients can be as close as possible, whatever the channel


we use for the sale. Communication on social networks, new product demos and, of course, new features and agreements have made us a much more competitive brand.


The biggest challenge was the uncertainty of not knowing how the client would react on the B2C side. The end-consumer is a direct measure of the viability of our business since the needs of our clients depend on their engagement levels. Luckily, I think that people were hungry for ‘normality’ and to return to everyday things that they previously didn’t realise the value of. But as I mentioned before, consumers have become more digitally minded and familiar with mobile devices, and we work daily to build a platform that is adaptable as possible to these needs. Once again, increased face-to-face interaction and networking has helped us grow as a brand and laid the foundations for the future.


A key trend has undoubtedly been marked by Qatar 2022 -- which has created a massive change to the paradigm of what a calendar year in


Silverback Gaming Raphael Di Guisto, Founder


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t’s been really nice to see industry events and business operations getting back to normal. Although restrictions didn’t really come off until the second half of the year, we started seeing more people come back to the offi ce for some face time and for social events, but we also had to adapt as many people chose to remain in a hybrid working mode.


As we were acquired at the end of 2021, for us the biggest challenge was to integrate with GAN,


12 DECEMBER 2022 GIO


iGaming would mean -- as well as the establishment of new payment methods and the explosion of esports.


Without a doubt, this specialization or digitization of the end-user has meant an immediate need for our clients to offer an adaptable, speedy solution that contains all the necessary content to continue to entertain. The challenge has been to live up to this, not to stagnate with the product that we had before the pandemic, and to work on the development and improvement of our turnkey solutions. Our focus has been on a strong rebranding that would help the brand take off in new markets and on a good strategy for acquiring new partners that would support our platform in these new markets. And we also focused on building a solution that would enable operators to go live in just six weeks and would be fully adaptable to their needs. One that would offer full support from Gamingtec, while ensuring security in technical and legal aspects throughout the launch process.


our parent company. We’ve merged our teams and tripled our headcount since the acquisition. This required setting up a lot of new processes and to get people to work in a different way. We took this challenge very seriously and we are now prepared to grow even further!


The appetite for volatility in slots seems to have decreased and we are now seeing medium volatility games performing really well. It’s also been interesting to see the whole Twitch debacle unfold as well as the development of many multiplayer platforms with a race to be the fi rst platform out and to sign both operators and suppliers.


Our main goal for 2022 was to triple our headcount and to produce seven games. We now have 33 people in Silverback and we have actually produced nine games this year! So we actually came out ahead. For us every game release has to beat the previous one in terms of performance. This continuous improvement in the performance of our games is a key metric by which we can happily say that the team is getting better and better at making amazing games. We also had a fantastic team building event in Bulgaria in May where the whole team got together for the fi rst time which was a lot of fun!


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