IAG caught up with Aristocrat’s Jessica Morse at the recent Australasian Gaming Expo in Sydney to find out more about her new role as Director of Product Strategy for ANZ and the company’s efforts to tailor products to the Australian market.
They say the more things change, the more they stay the same, and never has the popular catchphrase rung more true than in Aristocrat’s home base of Australia.
It’s now almost 10 years since the company’s Lightning Link game family revolutionized the slots world with its innovative Hold & Spin mechanic, and while there have been many iterations since, the popularity of Hold & Spin has shown no signs of slowing down.
“Hold & Spin is still the biggest thing and has been the biggest thing for the last 10 years,” explained Jessica Morse, Aristocrat’s Director, Product Strategy – ANZ during a run-through of the company’s portfolio at the recent Australasian Gaming Expo in Sydney.
“I think the success we’ve seen through our recent game releases shows that Hold & Spin isn’t going away, which is why on our stand [at AGE] around 75% of the stand is Hold & Spin, and within that there are around 10 different iterations of the mechanic as well.”
It is the unique nature of the Australian gaming market that has seen Morse parachuted into a lead role within Aristocrat’s ANZ product team, having spent the past decade learning the ropes in Europe and the US working everything from Design & Development to product management, gaming operations and sales. Back in her home country of Oz since January, she is now tasked with setting the direction of the company’s product rollout in what remains one of the largest and most dynamic gaming markets in the world.
“There are different things that you have to think about in this role, because Australia is so diverse – even from the needs of a metropolitan hotel versus a bowling club in Tamworth (in country NSW),” Morse says. “You do have to think about that, and it comes down to really understanding how those venues work and operate and the players that go to them as well.”
Demonstrating the need to adapt to the intricacies of the Aussie market, Morse highlights the growing popularity of large jackpots – a trend that has traditionally been associated with Asia.
“We recently released Dragon Link on our MarsX cabinet, and the biggest jackpots we had previously were for AU$50,000, but we now have a AU$60,000 jackpot, a AU$75,000 jackpot and a AU$90,000 jackpot, and that is all driven by the players because of how successful that AU$50,000 has been,” she says.
“We’re obviously seeing our competition coming along now doing something similar, but we really think we’ve been the market leaders in that, leading those bigger jackpots. And honestly, that’s what customers want as well.”
Volatility acceptance is another feature of the ANZ market, Morse explains, reflecting a significant point of difference to the American market from which she recently returned.
“The US is quite different to Australia,” she observes. “There will be times when games overlap in between, but generally speaking, a game with extremely high volatility that might work really well here might not resonate with an American audience.
“That’s why it’s important to recognize the small nuances. Take the success of Dragon Link – that’s an example of us developing a really great game but then playing with the configurations, the jackpots, in order to deliver it all around the world. Not every game can do that, but Dragon Link is a 50-line game in Australia and an 88-line game in Asia. In pushing the success of that product, just going in and tweaking those things has had a massive impact.”
Also driving Aristocrat’s ANZ strategy is its studios. The company currently has seven different studios developing content for the Australian market of which six are making content specifically customized for Australia.
“That means we’re not picking up a game from the US or Asia and changing the specs, we’re actually developing it from the ground up for this market,” Morse says proudly. “It costs a lot of money but shows our investment with 11 out of the 12 game families we’ve got specifically designed for Australia. Historically speaking it’s been about three studios so it’s a doubling to the six studios doing so today.”
And it is this localization that stands at the heart of Morse’s new ANZ role – one she looks to be revelling in after so many years on the road.
“I feel like I’ve got a pretty well-rounded understanding of most regions because I’ve been in almost every major market in gaming across Europe, Australia, North America and Asia,” she says.
“I think that helps you kind of understand global trends, how to localize something. My role really is to make sure that we get the right product at the right time with the right specs and the right configurations.
“I need to make sure our customers understand what our product pipeline is, what our strategy is, and then make sure that what’s out on the floor is working as well.
“But in Australia, we’re really lucky right now because we’ve got a really big portfolio but also a great data analytics team which help us really understand which type of jackpot is going to work in which region and in which type of venue.
“That allows us, when we come to a show like AGE, to prep the sales team and to say, ‘You should be recommending this configuration, this type of machine, this setup,’ because you can’t necessarily pick up an eight-machine link and put it in a hotel.
“When I think of our customers locally, I want them to understand our commitment to the Australian market so that when they buy a MarsX cabinet, they can feel confident that the content is coming through.
“We know that we have significant share on their floors but with that comes great responsibility, so we’re connecting with them on our vision and reassuring them that we’ve got the product coming and that we’re bringing innovation. We’re staying on trend, we’re building the products that the players like and we’re going to continue to invest.
“At the end of the day, our product is meant to solve a problem for our customers, so if we’re not doing that, we’re not doing our job.”
