Industry News
Big Fish Games and Sugarfina Form a Deliciously Sweet Partnership This Valentine’s Day
Leading mobile game, Cooking Craze to feature a Sugarfina themed event
Big Fish Games, innovative developer and publisher of world-class casual games, launched a partnership with luxury candy boutique Sugarfina to create a Sugarfina-themed branded event in Big Fish Games’ award-winning and genre-leading game, Cooking Craze.
“Creating memorable moments that inspire our players is something we always strive for and with today’s launch of the Cooking Craze Sugarfina event, we’re ushering in a whole new approach to creating fun and culturally relevant events in our games,” said Chris George, Vice President and Studio General Manager at Big Fish Games. “Sugarfina’s forward thinking approach to marketing, and passion for creating unique experiences for their customers and fans to interact with and enjoy has allowed us to create something truly special not only for existing Cooking Craze fans, but for Sugarfina fans as well.”
Cooking Craze is a free to play mobile game that allows players to serve the flavors of the world with the tap of a finger. Players travel to popular cities around the globe preparing and serving local cuisines to hungry customers. In the Sugarfina event, players will run their own Sugarfina Boutique and can flex their candymaking skills by creating and serving some of Sugarfina’s most popular treats including, cereal chocolate bars and Candy Bento Boxes® filled with their signature flavors like Champange Bears® and Sugar Lips®. Chefs and fans shouldn’t wait to show off their candy making skills. The first 1,000 players residing in the United States to successfully complete all 40 levels of the event will be awarded with their very own Candy Bento Box® (a $20 value). Other candy treats will be hidden throughout the event and rewarded to US and Canadian based players as they progress through the event. The event begins later today and is currently scheduled to last until February 18.
“As a personal fan of Cooking Craze, I’m thrilled to be able to offer such a cool experience to all of our fans and introduce a whole new audience to Sugarfina,” said Sugarfina Co-Founder Rosie O’Neill. “We’ve been fortunate to partner with some incredible brands and companies in the past and this partnership with Big Fish Games allows us to create an experience where people can interact with our brand like never before. We wanted to create something special for our Sugarfina fans this Valentine’s Day, and we can’t wait to see people’s reactions to running their own Sugarfina boutique in this exciting new Cooking Craze event.”
About Big Fish Games:
Founded in 2002, Big Fish Games is an innovative developer and world-class publisher of a diverse portfolio of casual game franchises, including Big Fish Casino, Gummy Drop!, Fairway Solitaire, Jackpot Magic Slots, Cooking Craze, and the upcoming Toy Story Drop!. Cooking Craze currently has over 38M installs and is one of the most successful games in the Big Fish Games portfolio, achieving #1 arcade game in 45 countries on both Google Play and Apple App Store.
Big Fish Games serves millions of players every day and is dedicated to providing players with the opportunity to play, connect, compete and discover anywhere and on any device. Big Fish Games is dedicated to enhancing life through exceptional play and challenges its fans to, “Play Inspired”.
The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with a regional office in Oakland, California, and is part of Aristocrat Leisure Limited.
About Sugarfina:
Sweethearts Rosie O’Neill and Josh Resnick have dreamed of opening a luxury candy boutique ever since their third date, a screening of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Inspired to create the first-ever candy store for grown-ups, the couple traveled the world in search of the finest candy makers to produce their exclusive and inventive line of confections. Best known for Champagne and Rosé-infused gummy bears, Sugarfina has been named “World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies” and “World’s 10 Most Innovative Retailers” by Fast Company as it disrupts the $200B confections industry. Recognized as one of the “World’s Most Beautiful Candy Shops” by Architectural Digest, Sugarfina opened its first boutique in Beverly Hills in 2013 and now has more than 50 locations across North America in major cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago and Vancouver, plus the brand’s first overseas boutique in Hong Kong. To learn more about Sugarfina, visit www.sugarfina.com or follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @sugarfina.
Source: Big Fish Games
Industry News
Maximising Your Cross-Market Appeal
With Bitblox introducing an entirely new breed of crypto-based price prediction games to the iGaming industry, we talked to CEO, Brandt Page, to discover how combining elements of both chance and skill with lightning-fast betting rounds has helped improve their cross-market appeal.
When Bitblox was first established, our core concept was relatively simple; we didn’t just want to provide players with a new twist on an existing format like slots or casino games, but instead sought to create an entirely new vertical that combined elements of chance and elements of skill.
One of the main drivers behind this decision was the fact that we wanted our releases to appeal to as broad an audience as possible – and I think from the figures we’ve seen so far, we’ve already had some notable success on that front in terms of the players that are engaging with our games.
Funnily enough, I was recently talking to the Head of Marketing from one of the operators that we work with and they told me they were struggling to place our games optimally. Initially, they’d put them in with crash and instant win content, but they soon discovered a lot of their in-game traffic was coming from sports bettors. A move to the sports betting tab followed, but the exact same-thing happened with casino players, leading to the games eventually winding up on the front page.
As this was going on, our games were continuing to post solid numbers with the customers who bet on both sports and casino – and all of this engagement was coming without there being any additional promotion from us or the operator. So why was it that our games were performing so well across these different player segments? I believe there are a number of contributing factors.
First and foremost, having this hybrid model of games of chance and games of skill that I’ve already mentioned has placed us in a fairly unique position within the iGaming industry. On the one hand, the simple premise of our Bitcoin-based titles – coupled with their attractive designs and intuitive UI – makes them highly accessible to casino players who are just looking to have fun.
On the other, the fact that Bitblox games aren’t based on RNG and are instead pinned to the real-time movements of the Bitcoin market certainly resonates with a sports betting audience. As they have the ability to follow the charts and use this information to inform their decisions, they definitely feel they have more control over the outcome than if they were playing a traditional slot.
Another key aspect of our cross-market appeal is the fast-paced nature of all Bitblox releases. With casino players being accustomed to the quick wins and instant gratification of slots and crash games and sports bettors also showing a growing preference for in-play wagering, we’ve ensured each game round is resolved quickly and that there are multiple opportunities for betting.
When we first launched Up or Down?, which features one-minute betting rounds, we soon learned that even this timeframe is too long for some players. This resulted in us developing Up or Down? Turbo – a game which kept the same mechanics as its predecessor but reduced the betting window to 20 seconds – and this has gone on to become one of our most successful titles.
Keeping all this in mind, one of the things I’m most excited about is the upcoming release of our latest game, 3 in a Row, as I think this is a title that really ties everything I’ve talked about so far together. Designed to look like a slot machine, 3 in a Row challenges players to correctly predict how the Bitcoin price will move over three separate 20-second windows for even bigger payouts.
Intended to appeal to casual users and serious sports bettors alike, players can elect to either spin the reels for fun and select a random price sequence or use the bet builder feature to put together their own custom prediction. With the latter essentially functioning like an accumulator bet, players can select up to three possible combinations – i.e. Up/Up/Up, Up/Up/Down etc – and only one result needs to land for them to win, ensuring they stay engaged until the final seconds.
I believe that 3 in a Row can help build on the strong foundations we’ve laid down with casino and sports bettors and provide operators with another popular option that offers significant cross-market appeal. Based on what we’ve seen from previous Bitblox releases, the audience for titles that combine elements of chance and elements of skill is definitely out there – and I’m looking forward to our unique brand of crypto-based games being enjoyed by even more players in future.
Industry News
Gaming Corps to launch with lotteries in the USA via EQL games deal
In-demand content provider extends reach into largest iGaming market in the world with its full suite of games made available via iLottery aggregation platform
Gaming Corps, a publicly-listed game studio based in Sweden renowned for creating industry-leading games, has made its debut in the US market through a breakthrough agreement with leading lottery provider, EQL Games.
The distribution agreement will see Gaming Corps’ full suite of games made available to EQL Games’ powerful iLottery Aggregation Platform, developed to provide lottery operators across America with direct access to a portfolio of proprietary and third-party games.
Following the integration, EQL Games’ lottery operator partners will be offered proven Slots, Table Games, Multiplier Games, Mine Games and Plinko Games, as well as titles under Gaming Corps’ innovative and trademarked Smash4Cash™ series.
The deal and integration come at a time of growing demand among online lottery operators in the US for non-traditional content, a format that Gaming Corps has excelled in, especially with its Smash4Cash™ games, which have been a hit with players in global markets.
EQL’s aggregation platform has been developed to allow online lottery operators to quickly and easily access content from multiple game studios simultaneously through one integration and one commercial agreement.
Its iLottery Aggregation platform simplifies the process of adding new games to an online lottery brand across regulated states. In addition to the third-party content provided via its aggregator platform, EQL Games has a portfolio of in-house titles.
This includes games produced under licence with Team USA which were rolled out by several state lotteries for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris this year, with new titles being planned ahead of the Winter Games in Milan (2026) and the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles (2028).
Juha Kauppinen, CEO of Gaming Corps, said: “The USA has always been somewhat of the holy grail for game developers like us, which has been further emphasised as markets in several states have become regulated. The potential in the American market is enormous, and the impact for us is a bit difficult to assess, but we have great hopes for the collaboration with EQL Games, which has an impressive platform towards U.S. lotteries.
“We believe it will have a significantly positive impact on our revenues. I would like to personally take the opportunity to thank EQL Games and Brad Cummings for the collaboration, and we are now working hard to complete the integration so that all our games will be offered to EQL’s customers via their platform.”
Brad Cummings, CEO of EQL Games, added: “Including Gaming Corps as a supplier to the EQL Games iLottery Aggregator is an exciting step forward in our mission to offer unique, high-quality content to state lotteries. Gaming Corps’ expertise in iGaming, along with their unique game portfolio, fits perfectly with our vision of enhancing the lottery experience through dynamic and engaging content.”
Industry News
Public Voting Starts for Ortak x B.F.T.H. Arena Awards 3.0
The highly anticipated Ortak x B.F.T.H. Arena Awards 3.0 has officially entered the public voting phase as submissions are closed.
More than 70 game providers have turned in over 160 submissions, including Tom Horn Gaming, Pragmatic Play and RubyPlay. Public voting involves enthusiasts casting their votes to pick the winner of the Game of Public Choice category.
The Public voting phase ends on December 1st 23:59 GMT+4.
Concurrent to public voting, the first phase of private voting also starts during which all participants who have submitted entries get the chance to vote for one favourite in each category. An international auditing company oversees this phase to eliminate duplicate votes and self-votes. This phase ends on November 19, 23:59 GMT+4.
The second phase of private voting will also take place with a jury of industry experts making their decisions based on the shortlist picked by participants during the first phase.
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