Inside AGE 2022

58 | I NSIDE AGE | #1 AUG 2022 | asgam.com dedicated to that player. So we’ll have a section on the floor at AGE dedicated to hotel products and we’ve hired some significant talent in both the commercial business and also the studio business to focus on hotels. We see that as a real upside for IGT to allow us to grow our market share in Australia. IAGE: Australia, like most of Asia, is now reopen following the trauma of the previous two years. What has the customer response been since venues began reopening? DO: Really good, gaming has bounced back strongly. It is hugely resilient and I think most people are doing well on the gaming side of the business. People still want to see some stability so there is investment and I th i nk the i ndus t ry i s buoyant but customers also want to see a length of time without lockdown to really get that cashflow back where it needs to be so they can further reinvest. Overall I would call it very enthusiastic, although there are challenges on the food and beverage side, and with staffing, which is making life a little bit difficult but for the most part we are on a good trajectory. We are seeing games across all manufacturers performing well and that gives us confidence moving forward IAGE: Finally, what does the roadmap look like for IGT in this region over the next 12 months? What will be the key focus? DO: We’ve really focused on the types of games we want to build and it’s across multiple segments and ensuring we get it right. We want to make sure we are innovating, because we think we do that better than anybody else out there, but that doesn’t mean creating games that don’t meet market needs. We will focus on bringing back some of our best intellectual property and evolving those rather than always reinventing the wheel. There has been a lot of success around that in the marketplace, so brands that have been very successful for us like “Jetsetter”, “Blue Moon” and Shogun” – bringing them back in a modern, contemporary fashion for today’s player. And of course b r i ng i ng ba ck game s wi t h proven mechanics that players respond to. Then, like I said earlier, some dedicated content for the hotel space. It’s really about quality over quantity.