Inside Asian Gaming

IAG MAY 2020年5月 亞博匯 58 FEATURES ideas and think we’re having fun. ” We need to think about the player. We’re trying to bring them a good experience, so what do they want? Until we satisfy that, it’s hard to bring something new to the table. I do think Sega Sammy has the ability to bring some skill game concepts to the casino world and some new novel ideas, but we also have to be able to address the core player. In the US, the 40 to 60-year-old woman is probably the primary target, people that are regulars. It’s about trying to get the players’ needs into the mind of our developers a bit more, because sometimes they have something really cool but then miss the mark with a jackpot level that isn’t going to meet the needs of a local player. BB: You mention the core US player – do you see the US as your primary focus or is Asia still a big part of that? SW: Our charter isboth. Asiaprobablyhasa littlebitmore growth opportunity as new projects are in the works. Vietnam is coming up. We’re talking with Cambodia but haven’t placed product there; we’re talking to Malaysia. As a company we’re still quite new to Asia. We’ve put some machines in the Korean testing lab to at least be considered for the next round of bidding. So Asia from a market growth potential is pretty good, but the US market is obviously 10 times bigger on a total unit install basis. What we’re doing now is running around doing regulatory license applications. We got the Nevada license two years ago, we’ve got several tribes in California, Arizona, Florida - we’re just moving around to the markets that are sizeable and accessible. BB: What is the biggest challenge for Sega Sammy Creation in Asia? SW: We did a pivot with Asia in regards to that multi- player station game we didn’t quite get right, so we came back with a standalone version. Our “Baccarat Maximum Fortune ” has over 100 units installed in Macau now, which was on trial, and all of those have now converted to sale. Those are doing quite well. We’ve placed them in the Philippines right at the end of the calendar year, and we’ve even started placing them in Las Vegas because some of the casinos have an Asian corner with baccarat and sic bo, so the game addresses that need. One thing we introduced was an option that allows the player to create their own history card, because they can be quite superstitious in Asia, 我依然喜歡那個構思的，只是在內容風格上遇到些困難。我 不知道你對日本的動畫及漫畫文化有多熟悉。雖然在日本非常受 歡迎，但這個風格與別的還是非常不同，而且在日本以外的地方 可能會讓人覺得有點太過了。 但資源其實還有很多，所以我們都在檢視它們，並找一些可 以速地向在美國的中年女性或在澳門頗進取的投注玩家提供的 東西。 那我們將會做甚麼呢？我依然希望用上我們的專長，以及在 非賭場博彩環境中的經驗，但我認為我們為這些人帶來最重要的 一樣事情，就是告訴其他同事說：「我們不能繼續把玩著自己的構 思，然後認為我們日子過得很好。」我們需要想一下我們的玩家。 我們要嘗試為他們帶來良好的經驗，想一下他們到底要甚麼。直 至我們認為已經難以把一些新的事情放到枱面之上。 我真的認為世嘉颯美可以把一些技巧遊戲的概念用到娛樂 場世界之內以及一些新構思之上，但我們亦需要可以服務到核心 玩家們。在美國，那些40到60歲的婦女可能就是主要目標。她們都 是常客，需要嘗試的是，讓我們的設計師可以思考更多玩家的需 要，因為有時他們有一些很不錯的想法，但最後卻無法滿足 當地玩家的需求。 BB：你剛才提到美國的核心玩家，那麼你的焦點將會投放在 美國，還是依然把亞洲當成主軸？ SW： 我們的想法是把這兩個都當成主軸。亞洲可能會有多 一點的增長機會，因為有一些新的企劃正在進行。越南正在 迎頭趕上，我們正與柬埔寨恰談，但未有投放任何產品在那 裏。我們亦正在與馬來西亞討論。作為一間公司，我們其實在 亞洲中還算是新手。我們已經送了些機器去韓國的測試實驗 室，從而至少可以在下一輪的競投中被置於考慮之列。 因此，從市場增長的潛力而言，亞洲是一個挺好的地方， 但美國市場在機組安裝的基準上卻是比前者大上十倍。我們 現在所做的事，就是四處申請牌照。我們在兩年前得到內華 達州的牌照，並且在加州、亞利桑那州及佛羅里達州都有一 些部落賭場，我們正前往那些具規模及能夠讓我們打進的市 場。