Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JAN 2022年1月 亞博匯 52 BB: Has COVID given Sega Sammy Creation pause to reimagine your products’ development and how players interact with them on the casino floor? SW: Not so much for the slot machine. I know the systems guys are providing cashless and wallets to minimize tickets going around but that doesn’t play into our business model. But once you’re sitting at a machine, the anticipatory hooks you need to put in and beautiful graphics and all of that, I think that’s still applicable today regardless of the corona situation. BB: What sets Sega Sammy Creation games apart from the rest? SW: One thing our team has a long track record of is fantastic graphics. Their experience with pachinko and pachislot as well as the Sega world – everyone is universally complimentary of the good look of the product. As far as the games go, some of the games we came out with early on … the team was trying to bring something new to the market and some of those concepts didn’t work, so for the last year or two we’ve been trying to iterate on what’s proven and trying to establish ourselves. We’ve got some Hold and Respin features and the tree with the perceived persistence – that’s been good, the players seem to like it. We are using those and then trying to take it a little bit further to differentiate ourselves. But until we can establish a core following, I think we have to follow those industry trends that all manufacturers are releasing. The other thing worth acknowledging though is that we’ve had absolutely no field problems. It’s amazing to me. I know our guys have built millions of boxes over the years and the engineering team is BB:展望2022年的亞洲市場，新一年有 哪些戰略？ SW: 我們有一些產品打算在去年推出， 所以今年我們將繼續這方面的工作。或 者最令人振奮的是我們最大的單一產品 《Lucky Fruits》，內有兩款遊戲。這是 一款具有感知持久性、以樹為元素的遊 戲，當玩家取得「百搭」符號時，一個 硬幣或水果將自動扔進樹中，有時樹會 晃動並掉落獎金，藉此這產品能引起玩 家的興趣。這產品去年已準備好推出， 但我們推遲了計劃。這產品推出時將會 成為我們的主打。我們對此遊戲已有一 定承諾，我們預計此遊戲將在今年年初 推出。 BB:新冠疫情有否曾讓世嘉颯美創意停下 來重新構想相關發展，以及如何與玩家 在娛樂場內互動？ SW: 就角子機而言，並沒有很多。我知 道系統人員正提供無現金方式和電子錢 包，以最大限度減少票據，但這沒有影 響我們的商業模式。一旦你坐在一台機 器前，機器需要設有一定能勾起期待的 東西和漂亮的圖案等等，不管有沒有新 冠疫情，我認為這想法都是適用的。 BB：甚麼讓世嘉颯美創意的遊戲與眾不 同？ SW： 有一點是我們的團隊長期都能夠設 計出色的圖案。對彈珠機、彈珠角子機 以及世嘉世界的體驗，每人都對產品的外 觀美術大加讚賞。 就遊戲而言，我們很早就推出了一些 遊戲……我們的團隊試圖為市場帶來一些 新穎的東西，但其中一些概念沒有奏效， 所以在過去一兩年的時間，我們一直嘗試 重覆已獲證有效的內容，並嘗試建立自身 形象。 我們有一些「按住」及「重新旋轉」 功能，以及具有感知持久性的樹元素—— 這些有很好的效果，玩家似乎亦很喜歡。 我們正在使用這些元素，然後嘗試再更進 一步，以區分我們自身的特色。但在我們 成功培養一群核心追隨者之前，我認為我 們必須遵循所有製造商緊貼的行業趨勢。 TECH TALK