Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | September 2008 26 iFaFa The Philippines-based online gaming services provider iFaFa is an important go-between for Asian and Western software companies seeking a credible presence in Asia’s live video streaming market for casino games. The company holds an online gaming licence issued by the Philippines Government and offers a range of online content and support services including turnkey live video streaming from secure studios and secure servers located onshore. Live video streaming using live dealers is especially popular in the Asian online gaming market because many Asian players are suspicious of random number generation programs as being vulnerable to fraud. It is also common practice in many live streaming studios in Asia to have a satellite TV news channel playing in the background to prove that the studio dealers really are ‘live’ and not recorded. The company says it also provides services for Europe-focused casino software providers interested in taking advantage of the low labour costs in the Philippines in order to stream live dealer games from Asia into Europe. The founder of iFaFa, Hwa-Min Hsu MBE, a former legal counsel on Taiwan affairs for the United Kingdom government, is also an expert on Asia’s betting agent system. As we explain elsewhere in this issue of Inside Asian Gaming , the agent system is informal but highly organised and virtually impossible for foreign companies to understand or negotiate without the help of experts who understand the local culture. As the Asian online gaming market grows, we expect the expertise of Mr Hsu and his company to be more and more in demand. Weike Gaming Technology Under the command of CEO David Kinsman, this small and nimble Singapore-based gaming machine manufacturer plans to give the giants of the industry a run for their money. Macau is now the most hotly contested gaming machine market in Asia, and while Aristocrat has taken an early strong lead in the city,Mr Kinsman believesWeike’s strengths couldwin it significant sales. Potential customers are waking up to those benefits, with Weike’s stand by far one of the busiest at this year’s G2E Asia at Venetian Macao. Themost immediately apparent ofWeike’s strengths is theexceptional graphics of its games, enabled by the company’s decision to use a standard off-the-shelf Pentium motherboard for its system,whereas larger manufacturers opt for proprietary motherboards in what Mr Kinsman regards as a misguided attempt to protect their intellectual property. Mr Kinsman also explains that Weike’s Windows XP embedded platform “makes it enormously quick for things like game development, product development, etc. And it’s not just a matter of speed. It’s also a capacity issue, where game development can be literally unlimited. Whatever you can do graphically on a PC, you can do on our machine.” Meanwhile, the proprietary software used by other manufacturers “makes their product more complicated.They do this to protect their IP,but our security is just the same as everybody else’s. It’s certified and tested accordingly.” Weike’s platform “also makes our product server-based ready at any time,”adds Mr Kinsman. Our next generation, which is a year away, is going to be very much a server-based product, because we see the industry moving to server-based gaming.” Mr Kinsman officially joinedWeike in April this year (though he had been giving the company direction for several months prior to that). Since then, he has complemented Weike’s enthusiastic and highly- skilled local workforce with several new key hires of executives with previous experience at leading international game manufacturers. He has also spurred product development, improving cabinet design and game content to achieve greater international appeal, and coming up with what is considered by serious poker players as the best electronic poker table on the market, the Pal X. Eight to Watch