Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | August 2013 24 FEATURES L ots of people in the industry talk about the convergence of online and land-based. No one’s come as close to achieving it as High 5 Games, whose pioneering work in cultivating social gamers on Facebook finds the New York-based slot developer in the enviable position now where manufacturers are grabbing up its titles ahead of their release. Bally Technologies even took the unprecedented step last year of introducing a game in partnership with High 5 on the latter’s free-play High 5 Casino (the popular 4x5-reel Shadow Diamond) before taking it terrestrial. The two companies have gone further and made their growing symbiosis official in the form of a multi-year agreement for bringing an exclusive series of Bally- branded H5G games to land-based, online and mobile markets worldwide. It’s a strong move for Bally. High 5 Casino is a go-to site for some 1.3 million active players on Facebook, of whom about 500,000 are engaging daily, the company says. In percentage terms, this rate of engagement, the “sticky factor,” as it’s called, has High 5 Casino right up there with such heavyweights in the space as Farmville 2, Candy Crush Saga and Angry Birds Friends. It’s actually edged higher in recent weeks. When you think about the font of player information this represents it’s no surprise that what High 5 has learned about marrying a good gamble to a good story is catalyzing other manufacturers as well, notably IGT, which has made tremendous progress over the last year or so in reconnecting with players in Macau via the rich theming and solid maths of Golden Goddess, Big Dragon Lounge, Four Great Chinese Beauties and West Journey Treasure Hunt—all High 5 concepts. Its latest entry for Bally, Zhi Nu, a tiered progressive slated for release in Macau later this year, had the show floor buzzing when it was tipped to the market at G2E Asia in May. And if you think about the wider High 5 Games art director Nick Chin with Bally’s Zhi Nu tiered progressive The Sweet Spot High 5 Games has succeeded in bringing the slot floor to cyberspace. Next up is delivering cyberspace to the slot floor. And the innovative games developer is just about there. implications, which is what Bally and IGT are thinking about, you come away with something that is nothing short of monumental—a way to revolutionize how manufacturers and operators manage the costs and risks inherent in breaking new games. The 30-plus games currently running on High 5 Casino get sifted through a 6,500-strong player panel—the full database numbers more than 2 million— which is continually refined for what it can yield strategically in the terrestrial space. Titles are ranked by total spins, spins per session and of course monetization. Apps are evaluated for effectiveness. User geography and language are analyzed. Wide-ranging surveys query players on everything from themes and features to graphics and even music. “Connecting the dots, right?”says Patrick Brennan, the company’s vice president of Integrated Marketing. Asheexplainsit,“Thecasinosthemselves,