Inside Asian Gaming

March 2008 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 25 Building Asian Appeal Playtech deploys cutting-edge technology to offer its licensees a unique package of games catering to Asian tastes P laytech is the world’s leading supplier of online gaming soft- ware, and looks set to extend its lead over its competitors with its ever-expanding presence in Asia. Playtech was one of the main exhibitors at last month’s Asian i- Gaming (AiG) Congress & Expo at Venetian Macao. Inside Asian Gam- ing visited the Playtech booth, and discovered the depth of the com- pany’s commitment to Asia.A large part of that commitment involves the development of games specifically catered to Asian tastes. Playtech has a dedicated Asian Gaming Director, Idan Losica, in addition to development centres and partnerships in the region. Mr Losica was on hand at AiG to demonstrate the company’s innova- tive and colourful new Asian peer-to-peer (P2P) games, which have tremendous potential. Mr Losica points out it is harder to develop games for Asia than other regions, because there is considerable variation in game for- mat, rules and playing styles among countries and even provinces. In the ancient Chinese tile game of Mahjong , for example, there are about as many rules as there are Chinese dialects, almost one for each locality, including rules for Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. That is why Playtech’s package of Asian games feature“exceptionally com- prehensive customization options,” stresses Mr Losica. Playtech’s P2P games include Big2, Chinese Poker and Dou Di Zhu (“Fight the Landlord”), offering a wide range of major regional game variations, cash tables and enhanced tournament structures. The other major impediment to bringing traditional Asian P2P games online is the risk of collusion. The traditional Asian P2P games generally involve four players, and if two of those players are working together, they have a significant advantage over other players at the table. Playtech has developed an anti-collusion detection mechanism based on cutting-edge technology that ensures the integrity of its new Asian P2P games.“Our powerful collusion prevention and detec- tion tools enable operators to analyze every move of every player at every table and to issue immediate alerts,” says Mr Losica. Although the Mahjong package currently only has a Solo ver- sion of Mahjong , Playtech has been developing a full P2P version of the game, which could gain a massive following.The February 2007 issue of Inside Asian Gaming featured a discussion of whether Mah- jong could become the next P2P gaming giant.“With over 350 mil- lion mahjong players worldwide—several times more than poker players—there certainly is potential for Mahjong to surpass poker New Games