Inside Asian Gaming

November 2011 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 41 GSA Serial Bus) peripherals for PCs. But that‘s only possible, he says, because the personal computing industry embraced open technical standards. “It has taken a lot longer to achieve this in casino gaming than in some other industries—in some ways a ridiculously long time,” says Mr DeRaedt. The good news is that the process is now firmly underway. At the end of 2009, the GSA formally ended its support for SAS [Slot Accounting System]—a protocol that was initially developed as a proprietary technology by one vendor and then shared on a commercial basis within the industry—in favour of the GSA’s more open and universally-adaptable G2S [Game to System] protocol, allowing gaming machines to communicate with back office management systems. “Standards are now clearly defined, they have been embraced, and the industry is moving towards convergence using these stable GSA standards,” says Peter DeRaedt. “That’s a good sign because the operator should now feel comfortable that the goal of standardisation is not a moving target. Operators will be able to order GSA-certified products direct from the suppliers, with the functionality they need to run their business already built in,” he adds. Inside Asian Gaming spoke to Mr DeRaedt in Macau and asked for his take on where the industry is going in technology terms and how the GSA can help. IAG : What are the main points you have been making to the industry over the last year? Peter DeRaedt : Technical standards for gaming have been maturing. We [as an industry] have made some very clear decisions as to functionality. We’ve scaled down the multiple releases of protocols brought out in the past. In 2012, GSA will continue to focus on certification. At a board meeting in late August, GSA made a major decision to certify standards against industry-managed test scripts. That sounds simple, but it’s a complex undertaking. It means that the industry will collaborate in developing common test scripts. These scripts will be managed as an open source project; the result being that the quality of products will significantly increase. Please explain a little more about open standards. When a manufacturer of say slot ticket printers says that their product is ‘hot swappable’, doesn’t that mean the industry is already using ‘plugandplay’ technology like sayUSB devices with personal computers? In the consumer product market that’s how it works. But in the gaming market plug and play can be achieved at one end point. That’s at the point of the gaming device on the floor. If you have a GSA- certified system, which the end point communicates to, and you have a GSA-certified gaming device end point, you would be able to exchange that gaming device with another GSA-certified gaming device without any problems. This is a major advantage for an operator as it allows him to swap GSA-certified games on the floor. On the systems side,‘plug and play’ is not truly achievable as the scenario is a lot more complex. When GSA says it’s no longer going to support the SAS [Slot Accounting System] protocol, is that like a car manufacturer saying ‘We’re no longer going to make this car, and we’ll be running down the stock of spare parts’? Or is that too simplistic? It means there’s not going to be any further functionality added. The 6.2 version [of SAS] was the last one released that is supported by the industry. That means any extensions [of functionality] of a product using SAS 6.2 will be done by the owner of that product. The industry has agreed that it [SAS] is a dead-end, so-to-speak. They unanimously decided to support GSA’s open standards to grow their business. In theory, you can add some functionality to SAS, but it will not drive the innovation that the industry needs. If I’m an operator and I have a lot of SAS-based equipment on my floor, where’s the incentive to speed up the move toward open standards? It’s simply the freedom of choice. I think every operator today is married to its suppliers. And until operators come to understand the restrictions and financial constraints or contractual obligations that can go with not having open standards, that situation isn’t going to change. The open standards technology has been developed to allow operators freedom of choice. There’s a presentation I make as part of a dialogue with operators. It only uses five or six slides. That’s because I’ve been asked the following questions many times over the 14 years I’ve been promoting open standards, and they [the operators] all seem to be puzzled about it. The questions are: ‘What’s the value of GSA standards?’ and ‘Why should I adopt them?’ “I believe there is significantly more business growth available—in mature as well as emerging markets—if an operator has the ability to innovate and complement the product offerings available today— rather than one vendor offering vertical solutions to the operator. Its all about having unlimited access to your data.” I start the dialogue very simply. Say I’m a CMO [chief marketing officer]—I’m the marketing guy of a property and trying to drive the business. I say to my CIO [chief information officer] or CTO [chief technical officer] ‘I want such-and-such functionality, because that’s what’s going to generate money for me. The CIO is then GSA President Peter DeRaedt