In early November, AGA announced it is exhibiting the largest and most diverse portfolio of products in the company’s history at this year’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas Nevada from 17th to 19th November.

“The theme of our stand this year is ‘A New Day’. We’re really positioning the company as a new and upcoming significant competitor on the global scene,” says Kent Young, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Aruze Gaming America Inc.

To ensure success for the new look operation, every aspect of Aruze Gaming’s business operation has been examined to see where operational efficiencies can be made and excellence further engendered. That process included hiring a new team to assist in sales management and the establishment of a global manufacturing operation in the Philippines, with quality control and technical supervision from Japan.

“We are really communicating that message through the diverse range of products that we’re showing and the innovative technology that we’re exhibiting,” states Kent Young. That involves the idea of the brand within the brand, he suggests.

“We are using the concept of multiple brands within our product portfolio. We have what we call the True Blue brand, the traditional Aruze brand, and our ‘G’ category products.”

Content is key

To achieve this distinct branding, AGA sources its game content from development centres in Australia and Japan. It refers to this as its ‘content streams’.

These are two creative studios that develop new game content, comprising the themes, the maths, the art, the sounds and the animations of games. The Australian content comes from a company called True Blue, which was acquired by AGA earlier this year. The other content stream comes from Tokyo.

“The benefit of using these two content streams is it allows us to establish separate brands for the products. That means different looks and feels in terms of content,” explains Mr Young.

“You’ll see that the product that comes out of True Blue looks very different from the product that comes out of Tokyo.

“It’s all badged as Aruze, but True Blue product is more repeat play style of product, whereas out of Tokyo currently we’re doing more of an entertainment, bonusing style of product. We really see the benefit of having multiple content flows. We’ll have a portfolio that really provides content to all types of venues, whether it’s a gamblers’ venue or an entertainment venue,” asserts Kent Young.

“We’ve restructured the business where we’re investing significantly in research and development and you’ll really see that at the show this year. There are also going to be a lot of new faces at the show representing the company—particularly in management at sales level. We are a very different company in many aspects this year compared to where we were this time last year,” he adds. 

Categories

“We’ve created several categories of products. We have a premium range of products, called the G-DELUXE™ that are highly interactive, with top box bonusing, then we have the G-LINK™ range of group gaming products, such as LINK CRAPS™.

“We’ve also got some new mystery bonus product such as Dragon’s Fortune™, and we’ve got another product within that category called Jackpot Battle Royal™, which we’re showing for the first time as a low denomination video product.