Q&A: Designing Games in a Pandemic

Throughout the shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry’s game designers have kept chugging along. Here’s how they’ve done it.

The shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic have affected businesses of all types, but the gaming and hospitality industries have been particularly hard-hit. However, while casino operations were idle for more than two months, certain segments of the gaming industry kept right on rolling.

One of these segments was game design and development. While suppliers were forced to furlough hundreds of employees, R&D departments continued work to create the next big thing on the slot floor, as well as adjusting their product roadmaps to allow their customers, the operators, to reopen safely post-pandemic.

We contacted the industry’s major slot manufacturers to form a snapshot of how they have managed to keep game design and development rolling during the COVID-19 pandemic and the industry shutdown it caused. The following covers how four of the top slot suppliers in the business — International Game Technology, Scientific Games Corporation, Aristocrat Technologies, and Everi Holdings — have kept their creative forces moving forward during the unprecedented crisis.

How has the pandemic changed the process of game development at your company?

Dubravka Burda, Vice President of Global Studios, IGT: There was certainly a transition period when our global studio teams had to acclimate to remote working environments and virtual meetings, but overall, IGT’s transition was swift and smooth. In terms of what drives game performance in today’s pandemic-impacted world, I believe the key ingredients have remained the same: strong math, compelling graphics and sounds, and high entertainment value. The members of our global game studios are passionate about creating the world’s best casino games, and that passion has only been amplified by our customers’ greater need for high-performing IGT content.

Phil Gelber, Senior Vice President, Product Development, Scientific Games: At Scientific Games, we are constantly evolving our way of thinking, reimagining play at every turn. Many of our innovations — like our Unified Wallet cashless solution — were in development long before we could foresee what impact COVID-19 would have on our industry. Now those innovations are more relevant than ever before. In addition to solutions (we’ve) developed specifically to aid operators in adapting to the new normal, we’re also working with our partners to respond to what players are looking for as casinos reopen. During this time of uncertainty, players are seeking comfort, and we are seeing a lot of demand for some of our more classic and familiar game titles. That’s why we are bringing our classics like Zeus, Pirate Ship, Mystical Unicorn and Heidi’s Bier Haus forward onto new cabinet lines on our G+ series and Twinstar Matrix cabinets.

Matt Primmer, Chief Product Officer, Land-Based, Aristocrat Technologies: The only significant change is location. Now, instead of working from one of our design studios, our teams are working from home. So instead of collaborating in a studio, our designers are collaborating using virtual technology. As a company, we mobilized very quickly to transition our designers — as well as the overwhelming majority of our total staff — to a work-from-home environment, and we continued to invest in design and development to ensure game development and delivery stayed on track.

Dean Ehrlich, Executive Vice President and Games Business Leader, Everi: The process hasn’t changed, but our product strategy has slightly pivoted. This pivot has allowed us to slow the clock down and take a deeper dive into our product plan and assess whether we have appropriate coverage for each of our segments. From there, we can determine if we need to double down in certain areas.

 

To what extent has your game development staff been able to work from home, and how has that affected this year’s volume of new titles?

Burda: Thanks to reliable access to quality technology, our game designers have successfully been working from home for the last several months and will continue to do so for some amount of time. We’ve found that IGT employees have proven their capacity to continue producing great work from remote environments. Also, given IGT’s global footprint, remote teamwork was already ingrained in our work culture. For example, it is very common to have a player focus group test under way in Las Vegas that is live-streamed to IGT game studios in Graz, Austria and Sydney, Australia. The volume of games that IGT produces is predicated by market and customer demand, so we have slowed new title releases during casino closures, but we remain focused of creating and delivering best-in-class, market-attuned content to our global customers.

Gelber: We have some of the best game designers in the industry, and they’ve really adapted well to working remotely and keeping our development process moving quickly. We have taken our standard gaming development environment to a virtual platform, and the team is as dynamic and industrious as ever, doing what is necessary to find creative solutions to working together and delivering high-quality products. New game titles and our key cabinet developments are in flight and on track.

Primmer: Thanks to the herculean efforts of numerous departments, including IT, HR, and the affected teams themselves, our designers and departments across the company are working from home. That fast action meant we didn’t skip a beat in design process. We kept moving and continue to deliver on all projects, and we don’t foresee the shift to working from home as having any impact on this year’s volume of titles. We have already introduced several titles to the market, including Cash Express Luxury Line, Buffalo Chief and Zorro Wild Ride, and we have several more in the queue to help our customers welcome back their guests with fun and entertaining gaming experiences.

Ehrlich: Our teams working from home was a big part of the initial shutdown, but going forward, it depends on the region where our studios are located. We will work within the laws of each of those states, and most likely implement a hybrid strategy. As far as new titles, most of the releases for this year are already well in flight and just need to be finished up and submitted to the regulatory labs. It’s worth noting we had a tremendous amount of approvals come in prior to the shutdown. 

How will this year be different as far as presenting prototype machines to your customers?

Burda: As the COVID pandemic and the circumstances around it continue to evolve, so do our strategies for interacting with customers and marketing our portfolio. IGT remains committed to developing and delivering solutions that drive growth for our customers, and we plan to be resourceful, safe, and innovative in our approaches to showcasing our products to our global customers.

Gelber: Just as our team has adapted to working in a virtual setting, we expect to do the same with our partners, showcasing our innovations in a safe environment through video conferencing. We have had success in showing our latest products virtually, and we are also seeking additional ways to safely bring small groups of customers to our showroom so those who want to experience the product in person can do so. Educating our partners on our products so they can understand and apply them to a real-world scenario has always been our focus and will remain so.

Primmer: This year has already been different with trade shows being canceled, so we have had to create different ways for our customers to experience our new products. The bottom line is we will do whatever makes the customer most comfortable. We have an active showroom at our Summerlin Campus in Las Vegas, and we are also prepared to adapt to a virtual world. It’s all about our customers, so whatever helps them the most, that’s what we will do.

Ehrlich: We anticipate more virtual presentations to customers in addition to local and regional properties visiting our facilities’ showrooms, if permitted.

Are there hardware/software innovations your game designers are implementing specifically with coronavirus safety in mind?

Burda: IGT has a range of solutions that will help our customers thrive in the post-COVID-19 world, many of which stem from our systems and payments portfolio. Cashless gaming, for example, is one area where IGT is positioned to lead, given our history in the segment and the market readiness of our mobile, cashless gaming solutions. Similarly, our stand-alone Peak ETG terminal is an ideal hardware solution for our customers looking to uphold social distancing requirements and reduce labor costs while still offering highly entertaining table games experiences.

Gelber: While the pandemic has certainly changed many things, we have been resolute in ensuring we continue to provide innovations that will help operators navigate this new normal. In addition to providing new packaging to support how cabinets are spaced on the casino floor, sign configurations that support social distancing, and new back-end technology, we have also developed two new cabinets, and are working steadily to have more by the end of 2020. Right now, we’re hearing from our customers that they’re seeking innovative solutions to help them adapt to the new normal, rather than requests for big new hardware packages.

Primmer: Throughout COVID-19 we have continued to design, develop, and engineer our cabinets, and have had no impact to our hardware development. For example, we have several cabinets in various stages of design from launch, including the MarsX Dual Screen in ANZ to those in the final stages of engineering and go-to-market such as the MarsX Portrait in North America. Furthermore, we are fortunate to have continued our one-year, three-year and five-year roadmaps at our pre-COVID speed without any hiccups. Our teams have continued to work remotely to ensure all key milestones are met and, as a company, we’re ready to deliver market-leading hardware that will complement the creativity of our studios when our operator partners and consumers are ready for us.

Ehrlich: As we’ve shared in the past, we are still committed to introducing one new form factor per year on an ongoing basis, having just released our Empire Flex cabinet earlier this year. We’re excited to launch multiple new products in the back half of the year. Our fully featured banked product Empire Arena is inherently designed to promote safe social distancing, and our fintech business has several contactless cash access solutions, which has generated significant publicity recently, including our digital wallet product and our award-winning QuikTicket solution that can dispense gaming tickets in lieu of cash from Everi kiosks.

Are your customers even seeking new games at this point, considering distancing requirements and reduced capital due to the pandemic?

Burda: Yes, IGT customers are still investing in their businesses to ensure their offerings are compelling and competitive. For example, we recently launched the PeakBarTop post-pandemic, and early performance is strong. What our customers need most, however, are solutions that they can place on their casino floors with confidence, which makes IGT’s disciplined test bank, player focus groups and Proven Performer programs more relevant than ever.

Gelber: Data points from those casinos that have reopened show that players are seeking comfort and are gravitating toward classic titles. We are finding ways to help our partners deliver those games in a fun, safe environment, and bringing back classics in new forms on new hardware. We have been working with our partners to reconfigure game banks, providing more rounds and more spacers, as needed. We aren’t just offering new products; we collaborate with operators to adapt and address any needs they have, whether that be the desire for new games or hardware or, as we are seeing now, solutions to assist them with the new normal.

Primmer: As a company, we are consistently focusing on innovation, and that includes adapting as the industry changes so that we can provide our customers with leading technology that also promotes safety. One example is our “In the Clear” solution, which provides dynamic enforcement of social distancing based on patron play at an EGM. By disabling the machines next to the patron’s selected game, the patron can play with the assurance that no one will be seated next to them. When they finish play, their machine will disable for cleaning and the surrounding machines will re-enable to allow play. Casino staff carry FloorFocus, a mobile servicing app, that notifies them when a game is disabled for cleaning. As soon as the EGM is sanitized, it is placed back into action and ready for the next patron. Of course, cashless wagering is in the spotlight because the current crisis rapidly advanced the adoption, approval, and acceptance of e-wallet solutions across the industry. Our Oasis 360 platform provides a card-based cashless feature to limit the need for cash handling by customers and by employees.

Ehrlich: Surprisingly, orders are coming through and not being canceled. We believe great product will find its way to the floor, albeit in a much more calculated fashion than pre-pandemic. Some of our premium banked product configurations help with the social distancing requirements, which in turn makes for an easier placement. We will have to wait and see how quickly casinos recover, which will differentiate from place to place, and how this could impact customers’ capital spend.