Aruze Gaming America strives to offer players a more “fun” slot experience, establishing a clear brand proposition. But also critical to the company’s mission to become one of the world’s leading gaming machine manufacturers is tireless innovation and pragmatism—especially in terms of flexibility with math models
Aruze Gaming America’s marketing campaign proclaims its products are “Designed to Engage Players, All in the Name of Fun.” And the fun is ever-present, with exceptional graphics, bright, flashing lights and bells and whistles, coupled with unique interactive elements often based on touch—such as the Reel Feel™ Gaming Technology rod controller used in Paradise Fishing and Amazon Fishing, and the “magic lamp” players rub during the bonus event in Aladdin & the Lamp.
In Asia, however, players are often drawn more to the underlying math of games than their fun value, and so Aruze has accordingly tweaked the math packages of its games to broaden their appeal in the region while maintaining and enhancing the fun elements that underlie the company’s brand proposition and draw attention to its games on crowded slot floors.
At every step of the game development process, Aruze seeks to imbue its products with fun, says the company’s vice president of marketing, Steve Walther. “You cannot go and see the Dancing Reels [a unique concept where the game reels appear to ‘dance’ by moving back and forth in synchronization with the background music] on the Catch the Money game without smiling. You cannot see Sancho Panza [on Knight of La Mancha] fall off the reel, spinning the reel while he’s falling, while still holding on to his meat on his bone that he’s been eating while he’s riding his horse behind Don Quixote, without smiling. So there’s all types of entertainment. The 40 thieves in Alibaba, they’re in a cartoonish way, and they all stack up and jump together out of the top box and land on the reels below, and the reels spin. It’s highly interactive—lots of entertainment, lots of fun.”
Just one of Aruze’s many unique product categories is its Innovator steppers, which, according to Mr Walther, “are an innovative match or a fusion of technology from mechanical steppers to video presentation. So we are getting a crossover effect with people that normally play traditional video and people that normally play traditional slots but now are having a good combined experience between the two platforms.” The Innovators beckon to players with their Radiant Reels—large reels dynamically illuminated by multi-colored LED lights and variable spin speeds designed to build anticipation for winning combinations.
Building on Innovation
Seeking to parlay and augment the success of the Innovators, Aruze recently introduced the Innovator Deluxe, which not only features an attention-grabbing top box (akin to the company’s G-Deluxe series of games), but also includes unique interactive elements. In addition to the “lamp” used to beckon the genie in bonus rounds of Aladdin & the Lamp, actions that occur in the top box impact the spins of the Radiant Reels below. The four titles the company expects to roll out on the Innovator Deluxe platform near the beginning of this year are Gold, Crystal, Aladdin and Alibaba.
At G2E in October, Aruze launched around 20 new video titles, including Knight of La Mancha, Franken Mama and Shen Long Fever on the G-Deluxe platform, which features distinctive oversized top boxes. Mr Walther believes the Knight of La Mancha theme in particular, based on the adventures of Don Quixote, could have mass appeal: “Don Quixote is the second most published book in the world, behind the Bible. So it’s a very good, universal theme for people to play. And we’ve put a lot of animation, a lot of excitement, a lot of different bonuses. A gigantic wheel spins like a windmill. Click, click, click, an old style windmill. So it’s a lot of fun.”
Aruze has also been trying out experimental game concepts, such as Rich Life, which Mr Walther describes as “the first competitive [Versus Event] game, where the decisions that you make affect the outcome of the player next to you. So you can either both win, both lose, one win, one lose, or each win different amounts. So it’s a very exciting new link product, lots of interaction, less on the spinning wheel, more on a game style of play. It’s a great package with the 60- inch LCD on top, where you and the player next to you have a bit of a competition as to who’s going to get the bigger prize.”
In all, Aruze brought out over 240 games to its G2E exhibition in October, which according to Mr Walther “really solidifies our spot as being one of the top providers of gaming entertainment globally.”
Diversifying Game Development
Whereas Aruze’s game development was initially centered very much on its Tokyo studio, the company has been busy developing other studios in Manila, Sydney and in Nevada. The G2E just past was the first show where Aruze exhibited games from all four of its studios. Mr Walther states: “We’ve got Flight of the Ravens and Enchantress of the Deep from Okada West [in Nevada]. We’ve got Atlantis Legacy from our Philippines office, we’ve got games from our True Blue studio [in Sydney] like Cat and Canary and Eagle Warrior, and then from our studio out of Japan games like Dragon Rush and D’Artagnan and the Musketeers. The Tokyo studio is still our most prolific studio, but at least we’ve got a nice variety of games from our other development studios.”
Inside Asian Gaming spoke further with Steve Walther at G2E to get up to speed with what Aruze Gaming America has been up to since G2E Asia in Macau last May.
IAG: Since we last spoke, what products have you seen doing well on the floors of Macau and Asia?
Mr Walther: It has to be the Innovator. Paradise Fishing was great when we were speaking last time, but the Innovators have just kicked up a notch on the performance. The presentation of the stepper reels, along with the lights, movements, going forward and back, the variable speeds, has really generated a new perception of what a stepper gaming product can do, both in Macau and in America as well. Even in Australia, which is traditionally a non-stepper market, the steppers that we’ve placed there on trial have had some fantastic results. So we’re really looking at that category.
Any changes in the maths packages?
Mr Walther: That’s a good question, because we had gone for a long period of time where we were focusing on high payout specifically. Now we’ve found out that it’s not just about high payout, but it’s the entire gaming experience, so we’ve flattened out a bit of our payments, and spread it around a little bit, and now we can offer a full range of payouts to our customers, so they can reward and provide their own loyalty schemes on top of the payouts to help drive their own business. So we offer payouts as low as 87% alll the way up to as high as 98% on the majority of our gaming products now.
So whereas you previously sometimes specified operators had to offer minimum payouts on max bets, that’s no longer the case?
Mr Walther: Correct. So you get a more wide range of payout and options. And interestingly enough, the players themselves have responded to the more wide range of payout options because the games just play better. The math works a lot better even at a lower deal sometimes, just because of the way we’ve balanced it. The players have a much more engaging and exciting experience. And that’s really what it’s all about.
