Ken Jolly on his latest role in the Asian gaming market
The Australian gaming executive Ken Jolly has more than 30 years of experience in the business—16 of them in international markets. He started an exciting new chapter in his career when he took up a new role with Aruze Gaming America shortly after G2E 2009 in November. Previously, Mr Jolly played a key role in establishing Aristocrat Technologies as the biggest supplier in the Macau and Asian slots markets. He was Aristocrat’s General Manager Asia Pacific from 2003 to July 2009. Now, as Executive Vice President & General Manager for Aruze, Mr Jolly’s beat covers half the world—Asia, Australia, South Africa & Europe. Inside Asian Gaming asked him what his vision is for Aruze in Asia.
Inside Asian Gaming: You cover a huge area. What’s your role?
Ken Jolly: My role is very much between the countries and head office. It’s about helping the company to globalize and expand sales organisation and volumes. It’s about focus on sales growth. That’s happening already.
What are your plans for Asia?
We have already got what we call our G-ENEX™ ‘mega top box’ games out in Macau. Such games as Rock You Queen, Vampire Beauty, San Guo Zhi, Story of Cinderella and Bow Wow Bucks.
I think what Mr Okada [Kazuo Okada, Aruze’s founder] has done with the R&D and putting the wider top box on some of these highly feature-rich games means that when you put it on a gaming floor, you can see the machine from across the other side of the casino. So it’s an attractor of people to the game first, and then once they start playing the game, if they’re getting a good run on pays and features they feel comfortable with it, then they’re sticking with it—hence we’re getting results. I feel using the bigger top
box is definitely getting the initial capture of the player.
How are the games performing in Macau?
They are doing extremely well based on the first month’s numbers. We are very excited about the player acceptance on these games. They’re high feature frequency with very rich graphics, and are proving very strong in the low denominations— particularly the 10 cents.
We have some now in The Venetian [Macao], The Plaza [Four Seasons], Sands [Macao] and City of Dreams. There’s interest all over town for the games.
In Macau, there are a relatively small number of high performing slot and multiplayer games and then a longish ‘tail’ of other games. What are the main points you need to make to operators to persuade them to give a new product a trial?
Aruze is a company currently with a modest market share in Macau. But if you can get the interest of the director of slots or the person in charge of the slots, and get the product on the floor, at the end of the day it’s all about what the players want. If the performance is there, the customer will take up the product. Secondly, because Macau is such a compact market, the word gets around as to what’s working. It seems that a lot of the directors of slots are speaking to each other. Then when you look at companies that have additional casino properties in other markets, the word spreads that way as well.
Not only are we getting the results of these games here [in Macau], but we’re also getting the results in Australia and America. We’re also getting contact from Europe with people saying ‘We hear good stories about your new product and that the games are going really well’. It seems there’s a real buzz in the market—starting in about the middle of last year—about some of the new products that are coming through from Aruze. The company is a great story.
It’s one thing to get a trial on a casino floor; it’s another to get a good spot on the floor. Isn’t a good position important for success in a trial?
Your relationship with the director of slots or the person you’re dealing with in the property is important. Obviously, all manufacturers are bidding for the best spot on the floor. Typically, most times you don’t get that. It [a trial] usually means the operator pulling product out of poor performing areas [to put your product in].
You negotiate and try your hardest. Often you can get into another spot [other than your ideal spot]. If your product does work well [in the less prominent position], then it really shows you have a successful product.
Once you’re on the floor, what are the key indicators of a product’s success, besides daily win?
You’re obviously monitoring the appeal the game has for the player. For example, is it able to pull people to the area? Does it help other games in that area? We had a multi station sic bo [machine] recently put in a particular area in a casino here in Macau. It was recorded that the slot product around that area actually picked up, because the sic bo is good enough to attract people to that part of the floor.
Do you get daily performance figures from the operators?
We would love to get the figures on a daily basis, but obviously they’re confidential to each of the casinos. In a market like Macau, the concessionaires are very competitive, so getting figures on how your product actually works on a whole floor among other competitors’ products is very difficult. You’ll get [figures
for] your own machines, but only once or twice a month at best.
If you get through the first month and your product performance numbers are really good, and well above the average or even in the top 10%, you’re pretty sure to get through the following 60 days. The really good games in the marketplace are the games that are still performing well 12 to 18-months down the line.
It costs a lot to develop a game. Are you able to field test games before you get them on the floor in particular Asian markets?
When you’re taking games around the globe [to different markets], it’s not typically the same piece of software in the game in every market. The cost is really quite significant when you’re developing global games.
You’ve got the global product, then you’ve got the regional variation [in terms of regulation]—an X-series protocol for New South Wales in Australia and SAS for here [Macau] and other protocols and adaptations elsewhere.
Part of the whole spend in research and development is about analysing what you’ve got in the marketplace, what is working, what’s not, how features and bonuses are benefiting [the product’s popularity] and the types of games that suit different markets. That’s whether it be high denomination, low denomination, high volatility, or low volatility, etc. Sure enough, a lot of money’s spent on developing the games, but you also spend money on making sure you have people out in the field, and getting as much data back into the R&D and the mathematical people so that you can continue to develop the good games. Obviously, if there’s a great performing game and it’s got particular concepts in the game, you look to develop those concepts into further games and continue to enhance your success.
How do you maximise the feedback from operators regarding performance?
Typically, you get to understand what your own product is doing. You might, from Lucky Sic Bo™ conversations, get some other information, but there’s obviously the point that you honour information as confidential because it’s in your commercial interests. These are your customers and you need to respect them, otherwise you’re going to lose that customer.
What products are you introducing to other Asian markets?
Some of our newer products will be going into the casinos in Singapore. Rock You Queen is going into Singapore. That’s also some of the top box product we’ve also got now at The Venetian [Macao] and at City of Dreams. It’s a fabulous concept with Freddie Mercury and the band Queen. When you get the free game features up and you select any of the free games, you get one of the Queen songs and the top box LCD goes to full concert. It really attracts the people and attention on the casino floor. We are looking to take our range of games to all markets.
What about Asia outside Macau and Singapore?
In Asia, we’re starting to focus on some of the markets we haven’t been in. A year ago we operated under a distributor style model in Asia. Now we’re doing more of a direct sales model. We flipped the model early last year and now we’re concentrating and penetrating places we haven’t previously had direct sales.
In Australia, we’ve had distributors in the market in New South Wales. We’re changing that to a direct sales model as well. We’ve put on a number of sales people there and some new management and we’re starting to see success also in that market. Already from the recent trade show [in Sydney], we’ve seen an outstanding response to our products.
Was switching to direct sales your decision?
The company was already going down that track before I joined. Already, in the small time I’ve been with the company, we’re seeing the results of that. The decision regarding Asia, for instance, was made early last year. In Australia, it was only made in mid-2009. Initial results show it’s the right way to go for us.
