Casino Review spoke to Greg Collela, vice president of product marketing at Scientific Games, about the benefits of localised development and the company’s goals for 2017.
What markets are the company currently doing well in?
We are doing well in North America, Asia and Australia. Our product is really growing and we are fortunate to have some very localised development. While the bulk of our development is here in North America, we have several studios in Australia that make content for that market and also a couple of development teams in Asia which allows us to tailor product to the markets there. Having a product tailored to a market is a key strength…I take advantage of a lot of that here in North America; when I see successes in Australia or Asia, we can then bring those games to North America and introduce them to customers and players here.
How has this development style helped the company?
When we were smaller, independent companies, back in the Bally or WMS days, we didn’t have some of this global development, we would see Asian-style games really doing well, and we would be talking to folks in Las Vegas or Chicago and saying, “Hey, can you make me a really good Asian-style game so I can be competitive with some of the things I see going on.”
The advantage I have today is that I can reach out and contact folks who are Asia-based and ask what works there, so you don’t have to have an American interpret what a good Asian-style game or a good Australian-style game is. We’re fortunate to have folks that know and understand regions, who have lived and grown up in those cultures and I think that’s a better opportunity.
Where do you see your strengths going forward?
We are always innovating. We are trying to build experiences for players so that there is always a new reason to come to a casino, and products that customers really have to come into a venue to consume. The scope and the scale has to be that much larger, it has to be something unique.
We offer a full-service casino style product but we do also have the ability to scale it down into a much smaller configuration, especially when you start to think of some properties internationally where the scope isn’t quite as large as those in North America. We have a lot of flexibility in doing that.
Does the company have any plans for the Latin American market?
In Latin America we’ve got two lottery games that we are introducing for the first time. It really takes some of our ideas that we’ve seen success with in other international markets and apply them into Latin American markets.
Have you noticed any trends in the Latin American market?
One thing we’ve noted in Latin America is that generally some of the Australian-developed games have been enormously successful there. So we’ve taken some products that we have seen being successful in Australia and put a Latin American feel to them to tap into that market.
If you go down into Argentina, Peru, Colombia, you see that type of games, so there is a good foundation of players that understand that style. So it is logical to assume that if you can tailor something that is relevant to the market in terms of feel and culture and pair it with the maths that is already understood in the region you can see some real success in the product.
What are your goals for 2017?
We are always looking to grow our market share, making sure customers understand that we have the diversity of products that we truly do have. We are about two years into the integration and it is about showing customers that we can create a unique experience With a Bally type game, whilst still having a very different experience from a WMS product, and it is all under one roof. Because one Bally developer doesn’t make the style of game that WMS does, and vice versa, the advantage is that we have both.
