Exclusive Q&A w/ Dan Phillips CEO at Playnetic

ICE Barcelona is next week. What does Playnetic have planned for the show?

We’re super excited to welcome the new era of ICE in Barcelona with what will be our largest presence at a conference to date. The show marks our first anniversary, following a successful business and brand launch at the same expo 12 months ago. To mark the occasion, we’ll be launching more than ten new slot games from our three in-house studios with titles based on a range of themes and featuring thrilling bonuses like free spins and progressive jackpots. But it’s not just the quality of our games that we’re focussing on – we have an operational focus to make sure our games are delivered  “on time, every time” ensuring reliable delivery for our partners. We’re also hosting a daily tournament with great prizes for the top three winners on one of our exclusive ICE launch games, Moonlight Guardian, a feature-packed game with free spins, a bonus wheel feature and multipliers. We’re also excited to be celebrating a full year of our brand launch, with Playnetic Anniversary cocktails from 4pm on Monday with some extra additions! We will also host our cocktail event on Tuesday from 4pm and our famous coffee station and open bar will be available all day. The team is looking forward to meeting with our partners and new customers as well as industry colleagues to show our progress since last year,  so make sure to stop by to help us celebrate.

Looking back, how have the past 12 months been for Playnetic?

Exciting and fast-paced, for sure. Our global workforce has now surpassed 100 people including game designers and developers. We’ve been able to attract talent from some of the biggest companies in the industry thanks to our company USPs, product roadmap and ambitious expansion strategy. This has seen us hit the ground running with some of our launch games performing incredibly well to date and with licences secured in key jurisdictions such as Sweden and Romania as well as our Malta recognition. Over the past 12 months, we’ve continued to enhance the technology that powers the Playnetic machine – this technology is key to creating quality games at scale and ensuring we can reliably and consistently meet the needs of our partners (both operators and distributors) while providing top-level service. Ultimately, we want to become the most trusted and reliable content partner in the industry and by building on the foundations of the last 12 months, we’re excited about and confident in achieving our goals.

Just how important have your partners been in building momentum behind the business?  

They have been really important and are at the forefront of everything we do – and we continue to sign partnerships with distributors and operators on a monthly basis. We really do believe in the power of collaboration and forging true partnerships by working closely with distributors and customers to bring the best casino entertainment to players in markets across the world. We have a run of new deals that we will announce during ICE and beyond. Having a network of key distribution partners, such as our recently announced agreement with Hub88, is vital for any new content provider but so too is having the ability to undertake direct integrations with operators. . This has enabled us to put pen to paper on deals with big-name operators which we will be announcing in the coming months.

You mentioned that Playnetic promises to deliver content “on time, every time”. Can you tell us more about this?

We know we have great games, but so do a lot of other studios. This makes standing out difficult and in a market as competitive as this one, you need to bring something to the table that is a little different. For Playnetic, this means setting the standard in core areas of our operations, such as consistency of delivery, ease of integration and straight forward commercial agreements and contracts. While these may sound like the basics, the feedback from our customers is that things are not always straight forward in this industry when it comes to these areas. By continuing to build on our strong foundations, we can ensure our great games are built with quality at the forefront, ensuring they are delivered “on time, every time” with ease, which in turn makes Playnetic a very attractive content partner for operators and distributors that’s what makes us More Than A Game! At the crux of this is ensuring our three studios are empowered to focus on what they do best and that’s producing immersive, engaging and entertaining online casino games.

This must be hard given the ever-evolving nature of the industry?

It is, but by being agile we can adapt to the changing demands of the industry – be they regulatory, technology or consumer preference – without having to compromise on quality or reliability. This agility comes from embracing cutting-edge technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence and automation. This is why we have focussed on hiring talent from across the globe as it allows us to onboard the best people to deliver our goals by enhancing the unrivalled experience of our teams which come from diverse corners of the gaming and entertainment worlds (including gambling, social gaming, compliance and AAA development). This collective knowledge is unrivalled and, combined with our unwavering commitment to operational excellence, plays a significant role in Playnetic being able to 100% deliver on its promises 100% of the time with superior “start to end” customer service.

What does the rest of the year have in store for Playnetic?

Kicking off the year with ICE in January really does set us up really nicely as we will be launching a number of new game titles with our commercial team leveraging this increased visibility off the back of the show. I’m really looking forward to seeing delegates try our new flagship title, Moonlight Guardian, for the first time and experience more established titles from our portfolio such as Max Catch, Nefertiti’s Ring, Miners are Wild and Pop the Bank. We will have a continued focus on ramping up our efforts to launch more games month on month and securing additional licences across regulated markets in Europe while introducing ourselves to new global markets including LatAM. We are also growing and developing our teams, so our people will be a big focus for us this year. We are excited about the pipeline of deals we have and how we are building an operational infrastructure that makes us future proof, too. We’re fully committed to delivering our goals, so we can take the business from rising star to power player, and working closely with our partners to continue to improve and evolve as well.  All of this will be underpinned by our core values of providing quality games that are reliable and delivered on time, and a focus on our dedicated customer service.