Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming May 2014 52 terms of casino slots in Asia, and Aristocrat controls around 60% of its floors. It’s also a market that is growing in numbers as it reaches deeper into China and growing with that in terms of the scale and diversity of its consumer preferences. “Aristocrat recognizes that we need to evolve and that there is an increasing amount of mass-market, average players that maybe have never walked into a casino before,” says Mr Aubrey. “I think when you’re looking at the mass market, and you’re looking at someone coming to the machine for the first time, it’s about creating an accessible experience.” With Sky Rider and Storm Queens, he says, “It’s very simple for the player to understand what they’re chasing. We’re incredibly excited about the E*Series of product. We feel it brings something entirely different to our portfolio.” Not that the company is conceding anything of its popularity with the serious gambler. New ideas continue to flow into its Legends strategy for bringing enhanced graphics and play mechanics to the brands and math models that elevated it to dominance in Macau. Legends was born three years ago with a beefed-up version of the Reel Power classic 5 Dragons. It offered higher win multiples and an exciting free games feature that lets players choose their volatility from among different game sets and multipliers. The reception was enthusiastic, and 5 Koi Legends joined the series in 2012, and Legends versions of 50 Dragons and Fortune King followed in 2013. This year will see the launch of 5 Dragons GOLD, which brings to the series an even livelier graphical interface and a potent mix of multipliers up to 40 times in the base game, a unique Reel Power layout where increased bets activate stacked wilds in reels 2, 3 and 4, and a top- box feature where full credits extend the middle reels up one to take the player from 243 ways to win to 576. “It has that nostalgia of the Dragon Head, of what 5 Dragons looks like as a game, but it’s very clear that you’re playing something very different,” notes Mr Aubrey. “It’s an exciting proposition.” It doesn’t end there. The show also will see the unveiling of 5 Frogs, a 40-credit Reel Power offering that expands on 5 Dragons’ math with a similar choice of games and multipliers in the feature but with the excitement of an optional 10-credit ante bet that triggers a Super Feature bonus that randomly adds as many as 15 games to your choice. There’s an extra kicker, too: the Super Feature might also burn off the two lowest multipliers in your selection for “a whole bunch of volatility,” as Mr Aubrey puts it. So say you’ve opted for the biggest gamble—10 free games and a multiplier up to 40 times— you could end up with 25 free games, all times 40. This commitment to product depth is reflected in Super Feature with a second title and yet another proposition for the gambling- minded player. This is Sunset King, and it’s the latest attempt by Aristocrat to successfully cross the International Date Line with the 5 Dragons GOLD brings to the Legends series an even livelier graphical interface and a potent mix of multipliers up to 40 times in the base game, a unique Reel Power layout where increased bets activate stacked wilds in reels 2, 3 and 4, and a top-box feature where full credits extend the middle reels up one to take the player from 243 ways to win to 576. Sky Rider in Aristocrat’s new E*Series takes the popular Max Stacks technology—stacked symbols added to the reels on each spin, with both the symbol and stack generated randomly—and spices it up for the gambler with some of that vaunted 5 Dragons math in the form of selectable free games. “We’ve added a bit of Aristocrat DNA into it,” says Mr Aubrey. Feature