Inside Asian Gaming

January 2015 inside asian gaming 9 player who’s opted for the biggest gamble—10 free games and a multiplier up to 40 times—could end up with 25 free games, all times 40. Standalone progressives provide an important third element to the mix. Aristocrat believes strongly in their wider regional appeal and has dedicated a lot of innovative thinking to them with series like Jackpot Streak, Gold Pays and Quick Fire. The company is particularly strong for Quick Fire and is supporting it with four medium-volatility titles: Golden Peach, Panda Paradise, Electric Boogaloo and Pharaoh’s Ransom. In Golden Peach, any three, four or five scatter symbols trigger the free games feature, during which In Focus stacks of symbols appear on reels 2, 3 and 4, and each game starts with the symbols on one of the reels randomly transformed into wilds. “Mini” and “Minor” jackpots can be won in the feature as well, and multiple jackpots can be won on a single spin. Panda Paradise and Electric Boogaloo offer similarly integrated jackpots in the base game for frequent awards, and players also enjoy a chance to play for jackpots in the feature with the “sticky wild” generating more five-of- a-kind pays. The 4 x 5 matrix in both incorporates heavy stacking of symbols and a jackpot qualifier on reel 5. “At G2E our theme for the show was ‘The Next Level,’ and, of course, it’s always about that,” says Mr Kelly. “It’s always about taking it up to the next level, not resting on our laurels and saying, ‘Well, we’re as good as we’re going to be,’ because that cannot possibly be true. But you have to work hard at keeping that going. We invest considerably in doing that to make sure, for ourselves and for our customers, that we’re bringing new things to the market that will excite players and entertain them.” It’s been a new experience for the UK native, and like most newcomers to the industry—he joined Aristocrat only last January after more than a quarter-century in executive roles in hospitality, pubs and beverage sales in Britain, Hong Kong and Australia—he finds it fascinating. “It has more dimensions to it because we’ve got the massive investment that we make in our product through our creativity, through our technology,” he says. “I saw the size of our R&D spend compared to what I’ve been used to—it’s mind-blowing. But that’s something we have to do to make sure our product stays fresh, relevant and embraces all the creativity and technology that we see, and you’ve just seen, in the Helix™. And it makes it an exciting place to be.” As a former general manager for Carlsberg HK, he’s no newcomer to the Pearl River Delta, and his years in Australia, most of them spent with Lion Nathan, the continent’s leading brewer (think XXXX, Boags, Tooheys), now part of Japan’s multinational Kirin group, frequently took him back to the Fragrant Harbour and occasionally Helix made its Asia debut at November’s Macao Gaming Show. “We’ve got this great collection of creative geniuses who produce this great content for us. And we’ve been able to accommodate their creativity and their genius within the confines of a corporation, which is not always easy to do. This is like having your own in- house advertising agency.”