Gambling device maker International Game Technology (IGT) used the kickoff of the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) 2013 to unveil a corporate rebranding, including a snazzy new logo. Patti Hart (pictured alongside said logo), IGT’s occasionally embattled CEO, said the new corporate image was more than a chance to order new stationery. The blue-tinged revamp was intended to “complement the company’s vision and promise” as well as some other indecipherable examples of management-speak.
The company intends to make the new IGT logo more prominent on its gaming machines as well as online in order to better connect consumers with the brand. (There’s also a new bluer logo coming for IGT’s oft-criticized but surprisingly successful social gaming division, DoubleDown Casino.) Susan Cartwright, IGT’s VP of corporate communications, said the shift to lowercase letters would tell customers that “you can’t look at IGT in the same way as you have in the past,” but stopped short of saying customers would require 3D glasses or Arc 14 welding headgear in order to observe the logo without incurring irreversible retinal damage.
In far more concrete IGT news (and which doesn’t appear to have much in the way of ‘blue’ content), the company has just inked a massive deal to supply Caesars Entertainment with 7,000 AVP video poker terminals. The deal, which will replace existing units in operation at Caesars casinos across the US, is the largest gaming re-investment Caesars has embarked upon in a decade. The 7k machine order includes 3,600 G20 Upright units, 2,400 Universal Slant cabinets and 1k G20 Bar Tops. While no time frame was offered as to the pace of the rollout, IGT VP of Global Sales Eric Tom offered Caesars “a huge thank you” for signing on while Caesars’ senior VP of gaming Melissa Price said the deal was “a reflection of the confidence we have in [IGT’s] products.”
Befitting IGT’s increasing moves into the online gambling sector, the company also announced the rollout of PowerBucks, a “future-proofed gaming experience” that claims to be the first Wide Area Progressive jackpot to link online and land-based play. While IGT intends to make PowerBucks available on a variety of its MegaJackpots titles, the online aspect will only be available in applicable jurisdictions, which for the moment is nowhere, but Delaware’s coming online next month and New Jersey the month after that.
IGT also announced the launch of two new MegaJackpots titles based on the popular James Cameron movie Dances With Space Wolves, er, Avatar, which by sheer coincidence, happened to feature a race of very blue people. To fully appreciate IGT’s new obsession with all things azure, watch this video, which gives the impression that IGT is a whisker away from renaming the company after the hue.
