Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming May 2014 64 W eike Gaming Technology has Macau’s booming mass market firmly in its sights with a new Chinese-themed linked progressive and a simulated live dealer e-table that is growing in popularity across the region. Victory, the new four-level link, aims to build on the company’s success in the slot clubs of its native Singapore with a progressive called Wei Dragon Fortunes that has an engaging and immersive play experience fashioned around some colorful iconography that is sure to resonate with Macau players. Ma Dao Cheng Gong is the pinyin for Victory’s more elaborate Chinese title. It’s splashed in blazing characters across an eye-catching and fittingly martial top display of fiery reds, golds and blues. The horse is its central image, an animal revered for its associations with success and accomplishment. Horse paintings are a fixture in Chinese homes everywhere in the world, especially so in this 2014 “Year of the Horse,” and “ma dao cheng gong” is one of those four-character idioms, chengyu, as they’re called, of which the Chinese are so fond. They translate literally as something like “success upon horse’s arrival” and are meant to convey “instant” or “immediate success,” the rapid achievement of one’s goal, and they can be understood also to mean “beginner’s luck”. It’s a well-known saying among the Chinese and has evolved over the centuries into a popular New Year’s greeting. “The symbolism of game themes is a very important element,” says Peter Kup-Ferroth, a 16-year industry veteran who joined Weike in February as vice president of Product Marketing. “We look at what people relate to both in the past and today and apply that to design and development. It supplies a certain meaning behind our games that players can really relate to in Asia.” This plays out in Victory in the representation of the four jackpot levels by a different-colored steed, each of which figures prominently as the narrative of pursuit integral to the appeal of the linked progressive unfolds. It’s a creative and graphically rich variation on a theme that exemplifies that studied approach to design Mr Kup-Ferroth mentions. It’s evident aswell in the volatile free gamesmultipliers and stack symbols maths built into Victory’s introductory five-reel, 50-line base games, Fortune Meow and Legendary Archer, playability factors that speak to an intimate knowledge of the region’s machine gamblers, knowledge Weike has honed in the high-repeat locals markets of Singapore, Malaysia and Indochina, where it has been a dominant supplier for years. The word is spreading across the Philippines and in Macau, too, where the company is making inroads with Justice Bao, Wu Ze Tian and Qin Shi Huang, standalones that have proven similarly adept Victory and its Rewards Regional expansion is the prize for Weike Gaming Technology, and they’ve got games and systems aplenty to win it “We employ people from the market, people who understand these cultures and know what games and styles of games they want to play, because that’s where they’ve grown up.” Peter Kup-Ferroth , vice president Product Marketing, Weike Gaming Technology G2E ASIA 2014 at marrying Chinese history and lore to a compelling gamble in the form of a multiplier that progressively increases during the feature. Visitors to G2E Asia will find an array of titles that build on these successes, and the goal in the year ahead is growing floor share in these two key markets. Thus, the mix embraces more generalized themes as well as the culturally specific. Thus the mix embraces both Chinese-specific themes and more generalized ones tailored for a Philippine audience. Highlights in the latter group include Island Ventura and Cats of the Wild. The 4x5 Island Ventura lets you play 100 lines with only 25 credits (Justice Bao does the same with 50) and is configurable for a