Inside Asian Gaming

MAY 2018 INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 65 INSIGHTS there is so much opportunity yet to be properly explored,” explains TGG co-founder and CEO Raymond Chan. “Our focus is always how we can meet the new customers in the market. Casinos are already very busy with people playing baccarat and slot machines but how about visitors – whether they be middle class or even VIP – that don’t want to play baccarat? There aren’t many alternative products in the market right now. “That’s why we’ve been looking at action games and shooting games in the mobile game market and converting them into casino games. This is exactly what Asian customers are looking for. “The middle class and the tourists that go to Las Vegas or Europe or Singapore or the Philippines, they want something familiar and something that is easy to understand. “Chinese players and Asian players all grew up with those kinds of games – action games and shooting games – so there is no learning curve at all. And when a game is familiar and easy to understand, that’s when you get them to part with the money in their wallet.” For Chan, the future of electronic casino games is far removed from the traditional slot machine, as evidenced by the enormous success around the world of social games such as “Angry Birds”, “Candy Crush” and even “Tetris” in recent years. Applying this concept to Asia, TGG recently released its take on classic shooting game “Fish Hunter”, which first swept through Asia’s video game arcades more than a decade ago and continues to be hugely popular to this day. “Pretty much all Chinese people know about this game, which has had more than 500 million downloads in mainland China,” Chan explains. “It’s a very simple concept – you press the shooting button to hit the fish – but there are more possibilities on this game than on a slot machine because you have control over the patterns and how you want to shoot. “The most important thing about games like ‘Fish Hunter’ is that it’s not just for the Asian casino market but also for the American, Australian and European casinos. “There are so many Asian tourists going to these places each year TGG has been actively exploring the concept of using popular Asian casual and social games to attract new customer segments, specifically Chinese players, to casino floors in Asia and beyond. TGG co-founder and CEO Raymond Chan and there is a very good chance they will end up in a casino. But they are more willing to open their wallet when they see something they are familiar and comfortable with.” Having gained approval from gaming laboratory GLI for the math model it developed for “Fish Hunter”, TGG – which attracted plenty of interest from operators at ICE Totally Gaming in London in February – will deliver the product into both Macau and Europe this summer. But don’t be surprised to see Japan on the radar next, with the company now looking into a possible re-imagination of the famous Japanese parlor game pachinko. “Pachinko is definitely an amusement kind of product playedmore