Attention-grabbing packaging and interactivity are the immediately apparent distinguishing features of Aruze’s games. Just as important to the games’ sustained success in Asia, however, are strong math models
Steve Walther, Aruze Gaming America’s vice president of marketing, says his company’s electronic gaming machines seek to engage players on “new fun levels.” On the face of it, the eye-catching packages and interactive elements—such as the Bash Button on Lucky Sic Bo and Shoot to Win Craps, or the Reel Feel rod controller on Paradise Fishing—are what set Aruze’s products apart from those of its competitors, but the underlying math model of the games is equally important to their success, especially in Asian markets with a penchant for volatility.
Inside Asian Gaming Publisher Kareem Jalal caught up with Mr Walther for a video interview, excerpts of which can be viewed online at the IAG Web site, www.asgam.com. The full transcript of the interview follows.
Kareem Jalal: How is Asia going for you?
Steve Walther: Asia is a fantastic market for Aruze. Over the last few months we’ve really started to come on strong with some of the new property openings—Sands Cotai Central, last year with Galaxy Macau. We’ve happened to move ourselves to some very good floor share with the performance of our product. So we’ve been very thrilled with how it’s going here in Macau and the expansion of gaming throughout the rest of Southeast Asia, as well as the Philippines. We’re very happy with how our product is performing, it’s resonating well with the market, and we’re happy to see it grow.
You mentioned the Philippines, which is expected to be one of the big growth markets in coming years. Aruze in particular is well-positioned to benefit from that expansion.
Yes. We have great products with very strong themes that resonate well with the people of the Philippines as well as other areas in Asia and around the world. We are starting to do very well in the United States—equally as well as we have done in Asia. We’re also doing well in Australia and South Africa.
The bottom line in the Philippines is we’ve built product that we know will work with those types of gamblers in their environment and we’re really excited to see not only our product performing in the existing venues that are there, but as gaming expands with some of the integrated resorts that are opening up down there, then we can see our product getting even further out there.
Behind the performance of your products is the tremendous amount of resources you’ve devoted to research and development. Can you tell us a bit about that effort?
We have development centers in Tokyo, Japan, we have development centers in Manila, we have a development center in Sydney, Australia, as well as in North America. So we’ve built development teams around the world to capture the essences of players that are global in nature. So what we do is we spend a lot of time developing the products, looking at the market, listening to players, and we build our products with the players in mind.
We’ve designed our products to engage players. We want players to feel the game. With our Paradise Fishing you saw that with the ‘Reel Feel’ rod controller. You saw that with our first Innovator Steppers with Radiant Reel technology. Even with some of the new games you can touch the machine to get a little bit of excitement. We’re truly engaging the players on new levels and new fun levels. As we build and design all around the world for games that are fun, players are responding and we are seeing that now with the placements that we have.
Asia has traditionally been known as a hardcore gambling destination, where it’s all about the math and volatility, but people are certainly responding to these fun games.
Absolutely. And it’s a balance. You’ve got people that want very strong volatile games. A number of our games have the fun elements built into them but also have that volatility, also have that excitement and that engagement in them in the math model, equal to the engagement in the play mechanic. So there are various different games. Our King of Dragons stepper has a very strong volatility to it and it’s really grabbing the players with the entertainment. We’ll be seeing games like The Gold and Crystal that have equally strong volatility but also a nice presentation package. So we attract the players with the package, but really we’ve followed it up with some fantastic math to keep them engaged.
One of the selling points to casinos of your products is that they attract probably a new breed of player to slots—players who otherwise aren’t so interested in slots. Your games draw them in by being so eye-catching.
Yes, but it’s not only that. We have our games which are mechanical in nature, so they are traditionally steppers. We don’t call them steppers, we call them Innovators because they 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.
What are some of the standout games you’ve released recently?
There’s The Gold and Crystal. People in the Asia market will recognize our G-Deluxe product in such games as Beauty and the Beast, Oiran, Top of Japanese Geisha, Chinese Queen, and now Franken Mama, which is our latest G-Deluxe innovation, which is a fun little twist on the classical monsters of old where Mama Frankenstein wants to have dinner and is busy collecting all the different characters. It’s a really interactive experience, like our typical G-Deluxe games, where you rub, you touch, you pick and you go from there. And that you can see on casino floors in Macau now as well.
Which of your products have been doing particularly well for you over the past year?
Some of the products that have been doing quite fantastic have been in our multi-station platform—our Shoot to Win Craps, our Lucky Sic Bo platform, and now our latest game is the Lucky Big Wheel, and you are seeing those here throughout the casinos in Macau. They’ve got very strong performance and the demand for those products is great.
Our stepper products, with King of Dragons and Bamboo Panda and 4 Chinese Beasts, have really started to gather notice here in the Asian region.
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And overall our video products with Artic Sun, with the new Fortune Festival link, are also really starting to get some attention.
We’ve built a product base that’s very diverse in nature and we’re pleased that the majority of our products that we’re releasing are coming back with significant performance. It just makes it that much easier for us to sell them.
What do you have in the pipeline?
In the pipeline coming now we have some concept games. We have a game called The Rich Life, which will be the first competitive versus 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.
It’s a bit of an experimental concept. The amount of time that people are spending in the bonus and in the game is a significant amount of time. There are over 40 games, different mini-games that are built within it, and we think that’s going to really grip the player because they want to experience all the games, they want to have the good play top to bottom and as your character grows through The Rich Life, they age, so when you reach your destination of retirement you can spin the wheel to become a “millionaire,” so to speak; in credit value, not in real dollar value—yet. That’s fun.
Aruze is a real innovator in this space. Are you being imitated?
Imitation is the best form of flattery. I’ve seen some products that come close with the imitation in some of the areas. I think we all have a limited set of concepts that prove well. So it’s how we take those concepts and add that additional layer, that additional flair. People have had spinning wheels, people have had multiplying wilds, people have had reels that become more wilds. It’s how you present it, how you grip the players and how you engage them. So if somebody goes out and duplicates some of our concepts, good, fine. We‘ve got some of the original concepts to it but our math behind it is proven and good and that may just be a copy that might last for only a short time. And if they do a good job, then good for them, we’ll just beat them in another concept.
