Inside Asian Gaming: What does your new job with Aristocrat involve?
Ben Paterson: After five and a half years with IGT Australia managing both the local and New Zealand product markets, it seemed like a natural progression to pursue this fantastic opportunity with Aristocrat.
In my role as Marketing Manager, Asia Pacific I am committed to maintaining Aristocrat’s market-leading position in Asia. It’s an increasingly competitive market and this involves developing the right products for our customers.
We have been very deliberate in working closely with local operators to ensure our games appeal to local tastes and are tailored to suit this market through strong Asian theming, branding and memorable gaming experiences for players.
This proven formula is why products such as Choy Sun Doa™, 5 Dragons™, 50 Dragons™ and Fortune King™ as well as our FA FA FA™ link are so popular with our Asian players.
My role also involves networking, building and reinforcing relationships and being a major part of the growing Asian gaming market.
How do you make sure the good relationship Aristocrat has with players in Asia Pacific is going to go forward?
A clear example is recently we held a VIP operators “Insights Session” aimed at getting more detailed information from frontline operators that will help us plan our games development investments and ensure we are building closer and more supportive customer relationships in Macau.
These are the sorts of things we are doing more of in order to build sustainable growth and momentum in this important market.
I believe the “Insights Sessions” are something the market will see a lot more of from Aristocrat, because it’s very important not to lose touch with, and to listen to your customer base. You can’t take anything for granted, especially in a market that is not yet fully mature, and where there will certainly be some strong growth in the years ahead.
Are there any new product releases for Asia Pacific that you can share with us?
We currently have some great standalone and link products in development. They include Yellow Dragon™, which is our latest HYPERLINK offering due to be released in Macau in September. Following on from the success of FA FA FA™ , Yellow Dragon™ should be an extremely strong performer on gaming floors. We are also in the early phase of developing our first community gaming title, which is scheduled for release in the first half of 2011.
FA FA FA™ has been fantastically popular in Macau as a link and platform for a range of games. Will Yellow Dragon™ be similar in configuration?
Yellow Dragon™ will be primarily based on FA FA FA™ and its player entertainment experience. FA FA FA™ has proven itself to be a very strong link product for Aristocrat across many denominations. Sticking with Aristocrat’s proven FA FA FA™ model, Yellow Dragons™ theming will be Asian based, readily identifiable, and will provide the gaming experience that our players are currently used to. Conceptually Yellow Dragon™ is based on the story of the Yellow Dragon of the Four Seasons, which should also be easily identifiable to our players in Macau and the rest of Asia.
Yellow Dragon™ is a HYPERLINK product, where our players select prizes by touching screen to reveal a symbol, as you would currently with our existing FA FA FA™ product. Yellow Dragon will be available in the Viridian Gen7 cabinet, and will be initially launched with three games, 5 Dragons™, 50 Dragons™ and 100 Dragons™.
Can you tell us more about the community gaming product?
Aristocrat showed a concept bank at G2E Asia called Beijing Bonanza™. The community gaming and tournament concept was put into development after a very positive response, particularly from our customer focus groups. Beijing Bonanza™ will be available in quarter two 2011.
You recently launched Jaws at City of Dreams. What games do you have on JAWS™?
JAWS™ is Aristocrat’s first movie brand gaming product and has been fully translated into Chinese. Specifically themed signage, coupled with customised red buoy toppers, the JAWS™ link has really translated the movie genre into a player experience. Since our initial JAWS™ game installation, we have also released JAWS™ Night Hunter, and we have plans for a third product to be released in early 2011. The performance of the JAWS™ product has been solid since its release.
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