Inside Asian Gaming

July 2012 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 23 it’s called the Big Dragon Lounge. We have the West Journey Treasure Hunt, which is all about the Monkey King, you know popular Chinese themes. A number of really good games. And also our systems products as well, which have been, again, slightly localized and slightly attuned for themarket to deal with tables on mass, as well as the slot machines, and how to handle those. In the past, IGT has been accused of perhaps not adapting to local needs quickly enough. Do you feel now there’s a great deal of extra effort taking place to make up for the past? Yes, I can say emphatically that at no time in IGT’s history have we ever been more focused on localizing and attuning products for the needs of local marketplaces, both in our game and in our systems products as well. I am confident to say that the research we’re doing—and we’ve heard this from the operators—is so very different from what has been done in the past, not only by IGT, but also other brands in the marketplace, and really does allow us to put distance between ourselves and the competition as we bring games to market. Also on display is your server-based offering, which has been a bit slow to take off in Asia. But do you think that is set to change? Yes, if I look across my territory, which includes Latin America and Europe and Africa, as well as Asia Pacific, we’ve had some great successes with server-based technology in the European market and also the Latin American market. I think it’s probably a combination of the fact that there are perhaps smaller operators at play in those markets and they’re very keen to extract every ounce of operational efficiency out of their operations, and they need as much help as they can get. So they’ve embraced server-based technology to a greater degree than the Asian marketplace, and perhaps the U.S. marketplace. We’ve recently debuted, at the ICE show in London, a new technology, which is our cloud-based technology. We’re debuting that in the international markets ahead of the U.S. market, in order that we can stress test it for the U.S. market and in order that I can get first-mover advantage, of course. And what we’re doing with that is we’re really rolling in the server-based technology, whether it’s for downloading and configuration of games, or theme changes of games on the fly. And it’s all housed on the cloud, which is fantastic for the operators because they don’t have to deal with any backend hardware infrastructure. And it’s taking off in pilot phase in Latin America and in Europe, and we’re hoping to bring it in to perhaps the smaller markets around Asia, as well as Australia at some time in the near future. Over time that cloud technology will evolve to include full casino management technologies, at which point I think it becomes a very viable proposition to introduce it to perhaps our largest customers, over a period of time, of course. Sum up for us, if you could, IGT’s aims in Asia and Macau in particular. It’s quite simple. I think that IGT’s aims are really two-fold. It’s to ensure that we deliver as much value as possible to our operators. So they can earn an honest living from this game, so we can enjoy greater market share and produce better games for the patrons. Stated specifically, my personal aim is to double the business in a period of 18 months here. So we are building up the infrastructure, we’ve got a great sales team here, we’ve recently introduced a brand new sales director for the territory, we’ve imported a lot of great talent from Australia that know the Australian marketplace, that know a lot of the operators here, and we’re building an infrastructure for success based around value, based around humbleness in the marketplace, and based around delivering the greatest value proposition bar none. One of the hurdles to achieving a doubling in revenue in Macau in particular is the lull in new property openings, with no major openings scheduled for the next three years at least. Is that going to be a challenge, because, really, what you’re then counting on is the replacement cycle? We are relying heavily on the replacement cycle, but one thing that I’ve learned about the gaming industry is it’s all down to game performance, and if you find that magic formula for a game, the market can turn overnight. It’s all about win per day, win per unit, and if you can get the successful game in place, you will turn the tide. And I’m very confident with the design work that we’re doing, with the research we’re doing, we’re going to hit that magic formula very soon. IGT Four Great Chinese Beauties, featured on the bluechip Neo cabinet West Journey Treasure Hunt