Fresh from the success of its Spectra UR43 cabinet in 2023, AGS will focus in 2024 on becoming the leader in the middle-tier marketplace for slot operators.
Mark DeDeaux, general manager and senior vice president of slots, said AGS started realigning its slot strategy about four years ago with investments in game studios as a way to ensure the company is creating entertaining and compelling games for slot players. The content spans all segments of the market, from retail and high-worth to everything in between.
“We started with investing in the studios and building a game roadmap with games we felt would resonate with slot players across the different player categories,” DeDeaux said. “Behind that, we built a hardware roadmap and deployed those games into different cabinets that would fit into different segments of a slot operator’s floor.”
Some games are designed to fit into high-traffic areas, others for competitive sections of the floor where equipment is taller and more robust, DeDeaux said. AGS also designs products that perform in high-limit rooms.
“The first cabinet we deployed as part of this strategy was the Spectra 43. It spent nine months as number one on Eilers last year and currently still sits in the top five for new cabinets. The Spectra 43 and Spectra 49 that we launched last year are both in the top-five cabinet category and if you include our Orion 49 cabinet, we have three of the top 10 cabinets. We’re the only slot manufacturer to have three out of the top 10 cabinets on Eilers. That’s an indication of our success last year. That is also supported by our success with some of our notable titles, like Shamrock Fortunes from the Triple Coin Treasures family that still appear in the top 10 rankings. We’re still deploying a lot of the Triple Coin Treasures games more than a year later. That’s how popular they’ve been.”
Those were part of the early-stage rollout. In 2024 and beyond, AGS will pick up the momentum and the full strategy will be implemented. To start, AGS is launching four new cabinets in 2024.
“We’ve aligned the game roadmap with what we understand slot players want,” DeDeaux said. “We’re confident that we have a game roadmap to support the full deployment of this new strategy. One of the new cabinets is a mechanical reel. We’re really excited about entering into this segment. We’ve been investing in and building games for this area for several years and now we will be able to deploy those games on the new cabinet.”
AGS is also launching the jumbo Spectra 75 and two new slant Spectra 49s, one a premium and one a core product.
“We’re getting into full-launch mode with all the different cabinets and that’s very much supported by the investment we made in our studios,” DeDeaux said. “We’re really excited about the momentum. Our teams are focused on the execution and implementation of this strategy and we believe we will continue to build on that momentum.”
According to DeDeaux, two or so decades ago, one supplier dominated upwards of 65% of the domestic slot market, which wasn’t healthy for the industry. Today, only a handful of suppliers continue to account for the majority of the market.
“We don’t feel like that’s optimal for the industry,” DeDeaux said. “We feel like the gaming industry is better served by having more compelling product options, as our industry continues to expand into new markets and the digital environment. Our vision and goal are to provide casino operators and slot players with more options and a more diverse selection of products. We think that’s healthier for the gaming industry and incumbent on us to continue to focus and execute on it.”
DeDeaux said the goal is for AGS to create its own position in the market. What casino operators want, need, and like from AGS is that the company takes an approach with the customer and player in mind.
“We believe we can gain a lot of market share by not only executing on our strategy, but also being hardwired to what players and operators want and need. Casino operators appreciate that. A big part of AGS’s culture is being entrepreneurial in spirit and very connected with what players and operators want, while remaining humble and hungry as we’re delivering that to the marketplace.”
The top-tier slot market includes Light & Wonder, Aristocrat, and IGT. The middle tier comprises AGS, Everi, and Konami.
“Our goal last year was to become very competitive in that middle tier, then start to lead it,” DeDeaux said. “We’ve seen a shift in customer sentiment, with our products being comparable to a top-tier supplier.”
When AGS looks at the future and vision of its product portfolio, it wants to provide not only scale and scope of product optionality but also a broader scope in the market segment, DeDeaux said. There’s the core market segment, which is typically products that casino operators can purchase while the premium segment is defined by casino operators leasing the product.
“We see an opportunity in the middle and we have products that work well for this strategy,” DeDeaux said. “The Pinata Pays family are two of the new premium games we launched that initially came out on Eilers as the number two and three top-performing premium games. We also have great core products. But we also see there’s an opportunity to have a product segment that’s more flexible, where they’ll have larger form factors and premium-style cabinets, but offer some pricing flexibility for purchasing and leasing. Casino operators see the performance premium games attract, but budgetary constraints limit how many they can put on their floors. This year, we’ll be rolling out this middle-tier product segment with premium-style games that we call ‘specialty’ games. We will also have pricing optionality. For customers that want to lease them, they can. For customers that want to purchase them, they’ll have purchasing options. This is back to our focus of being hardwired to what casino operators want and need.”
