Interview with Bryan Upton, Game Director at NetEnt
This rather lengthy post provides an overview
Interview with Bryan Upton, Game Director at NetEnt
Interview with Bryan Upton, Game Director at NetEnt In February 2019, CasinoBeats journalists met with Game Production Director NetEnt.demo thai river Bryan Upton talked about how “quality” is relative, and also answered questions about whether the developer has traded quality for quantity, deciding to double the annual production. The text is not presented in the form of an interview, but something like an article with quotes from Brian. Read the translation below. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So when you hear “quality” in relation to pokies, what do you mean by that ?. Bryan Upton calmly expresses his thoughts in a small meeting room on the upper level of the NetEnt booth at ICE London. Dressed in jeans, an Ozzy T-shirt and Converse shoes, Upton has just announced to a crowd of over 200 people at the NetEnt booth that it will launch the last two branded games, Conan and Ozzy Osbourne. Brian's resume includes jobs at IGT, GTECH, OpenBet and Inspired, moving from online to terrestrial and back online at NetEnt's expense. CasinoBeats speculated that the high quality standards for which NetEnt are famous could be threatened as the company increases its game production. I've been in the terrestrial industry for the past three years, but when I went back online, I noticed that the games themselves haven't changed much, but the punters have changed. This is something that came as a surprise to me because in the land-based business everything moves much slower, so the production rate is not that fast, ”said Upton. “But online punters have reached maturity levels very quickly. Some customers don't want super sparkling games, others do. “Quality” can be defined by the person to whom you provide something. There are games that are fantastically well received by punters, but that don't look pretty. And there are some pokies that look absolutely great, but there is little demand for them. %sFor us, it means being smarter about what we do, what games we create and for whom." NetEnt views the ICE pavilion from a unique perspective within the online casino sector. Upton quickly pushes the conversation away from the company's special status, but in terms of maturity - NetEnt is in its 24th year of operation - it has a huge number of games, integrations and transactions, the developer has few equal competitors, if any. Upton agrees that this deep experience is of immense value in being able to read the market and choose the quality of the game the punter wants. “We've had about 45 billion transactions, and for each of them we have data that we use to learn about the punters,” he says. %s"It's fair to say that we have more data than any single operator because we have a huge distribution network." “The amount of data available to game developers at this company matters a lot. We can make reasoned decisions, ”he explains. “We use the data to understand why. There are different ways to develop games, different approaches. The only way to do this is to be smart and think things through." Having such a huge resource is, of course, invaluable, but there are other measures by which companies are evaluated. And there are innovators in the sector who bring something new without data analysis for two decades to create each game. CasinoBeats cites Big Time Gaming's Megaways mechanic as a recent innovation that has raised the bar. “This isn't the first time something like Megaways has come out,” says Upton. “They do a fantastic job - I take off my hat to them. They keep the rest of us on our toes, and I love that we have these guys in our industry. On this topic Real Time Gaming (RTG). The laissez-faire has turned out to be a failure But for us these kinds of things are only part of what we do. We have games that use similar devices. If we find something amazing, then we will react. But we're a slightly different beast than BTG. We have those muscles that we have yet to use." The connection Megaways is playing on - with developers directly talking about their strengths to the punters - is nothing new. In fact, NetEnt's enviable online and social footprint has likely exemplified this kind of interaction. “I don’t think we’re alone on this right now,” says Upton. “A few years ago, this may have been the case. Our punters communicate with each other on forums and so on, and it's nice to hear them talk about the things we do. This is a kind of bar. I don't think there are many punters who don't know who NetEnt is." And does this brand awareness carry certain expectations? “Yes, it's a powerful brand. But we also need to keep an eye on our top brands and fuel them. Dead or Alive is an iconic pokie and we will be launching a sequel. Taking care of our brands is important to us." The roughly doubling of games that NetEnt is set to do in a year seems to be paying off early dividends, with revenues up nearly 10% in Q4 2018. Quantity versus quality - where the conversation with Brian started is a recurring topic, and here it comes back. Taking what he says about perception and definition of quality, is taking care of brands definitely more challenging as the number of NetEnt games released? “We've increased our productivity, it's true. Last year we announced Narcos and Vikings, and now Conan, Ozzy and Scudamore's Super Stakes.demo pg soft thai river wonder We are quite open to licensed brands and we are constantly contacted about this. Sometimes we refuse for whatever reason, and in some cases the brand owners can make the collaboration worthwhile. For example, the guys from The Conan are fantastic to work with." he says. “Working with brands is a kind of talent in itself. Choosing your brand carefully is very important, but working with them is the second part, can you do it well? Jumanji is a great example. We took the game we filmed and really built it into the pokie, which is why it was such a huge success. We love games like this that have existing game mechanics." Source: https://casinobeats.com/2019/02/19/netent-games-guru-bryan-upton-beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder/
Leave a comment
