Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | July 2012 22 IGT gaming, for IGT. And for us it’s all about Latin America, it’s about Asia. But also for us it’s about understanding our players in North America as well. I mean, we have an intuition, we have a really good gut feel for what those players want. But it’s like a movie. If you’re producing a Hollywood movie today, you don’t know if it’s going to be really successful or not. What we are going to try to do is bring the science and the data to that kind of gut feel and the art, to make sure that we have a higher hit rate than we’ve ever had before. So we are going systematically, country by country by country, again starting about 18 months ago, and looking forward to the next five years, profiling every single country, to ensure that we are instilling that sense of science as well as the art into all of those countries to produce better games for our customers. It’s still early days for the Asian-themed and the Chinese-themed products that you are rolling out, but what’s been the overall reaction so far? It’s been phenomenal, I have to say. I think the research that we’ve conducted, we’ve been told by all the operators we’ve spoken to in Macau, is by far and away the most penetrative research that has ever been done in the Asian market place. And consequently, the feedback on the games that we’re producing here has been very favorable indeed. Some of the operators are saying that these games are competing at the very, very top level, with some of our competition, which is really great news for us because it means that we really have moved the needle over the past 12 months since the last G2E Asia. And I think in the next 12 months again, we will move that needle yet again. Can you tell us a bit more about what that penetrative research process has involved? In Macau, specifically, it was about interviewing about a thousand patrons. Those patrons were taken through market research that lasted about 45 minutes per interview. So a really deep, consultative interviewing processes. It was anonymous research so they didn’t know it was IGT. It was in casinos, working hand in glove with our operators. And one of the most insightful things that we have found during this process was that for Asian gamers it’s not all about the big wins, it’s not all about the high-volatility play, which is kind of the misconception and the big myth about Asian gaming. What we’ve found is that about 25% of the players really want time on device, an entertainment experience as well. So, for us, it means that we now have a very deep recipe for success for each of those different segments that we’ve identified, what is an ideal slot experience for those different segments, and we can work hand in glove with our operators to say, well, if we model your floor and we have a good understanding of the patrons that you are attracting to your floor, what kind of games do you have on your floor that fit those segments, and maybe you’re under-penetrated in some areas or maybe you’re over-penetrated in others, and how can we help you and work together to really optimize your floor for the best results for you. So in terms of the math and volatility of games, are you trying to find a niche for yourself? No, it’s not about finding a niche. In fact, it’s the reverse, it’s the opposite. It’s about understanding, in Macau, for example, there are five segments of players that we’ve identified that make up the slot playing base and it’s ensuring that we have games that matter to each one of those different segments. And the math quirks and the math nuances that really play into each of those different segments. And of course, it’s all about doing the right kind of marketing, in the same way you’ve seen Megabucks hit Macau in a big way. It’s about working with the operators to do the right kind of marketing to ensure those players know what games to play that are going to suit them most of all. So although it might be amisconception to assume they all like volatile games, would you still say the largest segment do like volatile games? Yes, I think that is the overriding factor, volatility, whether it’s in the base game itself or whether it’s in the bonus game, that is an overriding factor for the slot players in Macau. But 25% is not an insignificant number that don’t want that. So we’ve got to cater to those players as well. Can you take us through some of the highlight products at this year’s show for you? About half of the games on the floor at the show this year have been specifically Asia-attuned and have been built from the ground up to suit this marketplace, as we believe. We have a number of different games built on really popular themes in the Asian world, popular stories. We have a studio in Beijing and we’ve been kind of experimenting with that studio to see what they can do, compared to our Las Vegas and our Reno studios, and see how they can compare, and see what kind of games they can bring to market. So you’ll see some of those games on the floor. This [pointing to Big Dragon Lounge] is a great example. This is a high volatility game that we’re introducing to the floor, Golden Goddess is among the graphically rich, Multi-Layer Display technology games on the AVP platform