Exclusive Interview with Andy Harris, UK CEO of DWG

DWG’s background is in land-based and social gaming, but you are now going to launch RMG in the UK. How will you utilise your experience to become successful in this new vertical?

For a number of years now, we have produced a considerable array of successful land-based titles for the likes of IGT, Novomatic, Aristocrat and Konami. That success, and the significant growth we’ve seen in our social casinos, gives us the confidence to take what we’ve learned from those verticals and apply it to RMG.

As with any entry to a new vertical, having excellent content is vital. We can use the data and performance insight that we have from our land-based and social games, to ensure that we turn only our most successful titles into RMG games. Knowing that we can offer titles that already have validated success in strongly related channels is a massive benefit that operators can’t get from many other suppliers.

The UK is a very crowded marketplace with lots of active operators and suppliers. Whilst the former is attractive is the latter not a bit disconcerting? How will you look to differentiate your offering?

Having plenty of competition is never a bad thing, as it means you must consistently produce top-quality content and can’t afford to rest on your laurels. As our offering has the benefit of being tested in a number of different verticals before hitting the RMG channel we can identify what works with different demographics.

Similarly, we have a comprehensive suite of promotional tools which enhances our offering. Gamification is becoming increasingly important, and our set of gamification features is something we are very proud of.

Finally, our offering is different from the majority of the market by virtue of just what it is. With a history of developing content for land-based and social casinos, our games differ from many of the games that are commonplace in Europe today. With an intense focus on innovative math models and easy-to-understand features and bonuses, our titles have more of a classic Las Vegas feel to them.

You have developed your retention and engagement tools based on your experience from social gaming, what makes them different from other tools?

We feel that our years of experience in social gaming has given us an advantage in designing and developing extremely engaging promotional tools. Our tools deliver customisable and flexible incentives and rewards, with a much wider appeal across the market.

These tools include quests, tournaments, leader boards, promotional wheels, daily gifts, mini games, and scratchcards. A major differentiator of our tools is that the toolkit will be available as a separate offering, one that can be used in a ‘plug and play’ fashion across an operator’s entire offering. They also won’t be limited to just one vertical, but are available from bingo to sportsbook, and everything in between.

Last year you produced more than 110 titles, that’s an amazing amount of games, what’s the benefit of having this volume of content?

Whilst we produce a lot of games, not all of these games will become part of our RMG portfolio. Being able to create a large amount of titles is testament to our proprietary technology, processes and the incredible work of our development team and creates a lot of exciting opportunities.

An example of this is that we can offer exclusive content to operators that don’t traditionally get those opportunities from other suppliers. Also, our productivity allows us to try out new ideas and concepts, knowing that it’s not the end of the world if they don’t all work out.

Many of your slots have an American land-based look and feel to them, which is quite different to the slots that dominate the market in Europe. Will European players, starting with the UK, take to them?

Only time will tell. We have had a lot of success with our games in a diverse range of markets and ultimately slot players enjoy games for several reasons, including the theme, gameplay and the maths models used. Whilst the slots may be presented in a slightly different style to games that are more typically found in the European market, they are developed in great detail, by our product experts, to give the best possible experience to players, regardless of the market.

Our portfolio has been validated by millions of players across a number of different territories, demographics and verticals. We are driven by the data we collate and through this we can identify trends and themes that players like and can tweak that for the UK and European RMG markets.

There is always an element of uncertainty when entering a new territory, but we are eager to see how DWG’s slots are received in the UK. We are confident they will appeal to operators and players alike!