In the offline industries product launch events are common place. Car manufacturers and luxury goods companies have been doing for years. More recently Apple has become the mast of drawing considerable attention from not only tech bloggers and geeks but also in the wider media and population with their special launch events.
Launch PR firm Schneider Associates released their Top Ten Most Memorable New Product Launches of 2013 earlier this month. In this list were the likes of Apple, Twinkies, iPhone 5C, Taco Bell, Vaseline and several others. Tellingly, only one of the product launches was for software and that was Microsoft’s Windows 8.
Unsurprisingly product launch events haven’t traditionally been that big of a deal when it came to online products. However, in the iGaming industry there have been a few software developers attempting to address that.
Conferences and exhibitions have long been a place for B2B providers to showcase their latest technology and products but more recently we’ve seen specific products take the spotlight and even be the subject of unveilings.
The most noticeable use of this strategy has been conducted by Swedish casino software company Net Entertainment. Big name games Scarface and South Park have been unveiled to quite considerable crowds in the past two years with another release taking place at the International Casino Exhibition (stand N11-241) on Tuesday at 4:30pm.
Ahead of this year’s release, we spoke to Net Ent CEO, Per Eriksson, about why they felt that this form of launch strategy works so well.
What is the main purpose of the launch events that you’ve done for Net Ent games?
The ICE event offers a great showcase not only of our latest and upcoming titles but to also celebrate and educate on Net Entertainment’s wide ranging and growing offering.
The exposure of the Net Entertainment brand at ICE and product has many benefits including attracting new business, discussing and furthering relationships with existing business partners. It also demonstrates to the gaming market why Net Entertainment continues to be a market leader in the casino supplier field.
Through launch events and showcases at ICE we can inform the market of the latest and greatest within our business and also demonstrate the additional value to our customer offering.
Does ICE provide the only opportunity for this sort of launch? Have you or will you try it at other conferences?
There are of course other events in the year which Net Entertainment launches new products and services as well as through our own press and publications throughout the year. ICE is growing to be one of the largest gaming events of the calendar year, especially in Europe, so it is natural that we focus extra attention to this diverse event. The spectrum of gaming professionals and business personnel at ICE offers great insight in front of a broad audience.
Due to the size of ICE, Net Entertainment invests into ensuring increased visibility and product exposure and therefore it’s a natural platform for showcasing our innovation and best of breed content.
Our tradition is to release at least one major branded game per year and therefore it makes logical sense that we use the biggest online gaming stage available.
EiG is also important to us, but we use it more as a chance to connect with our partners. A frequent and proactive dialogue with our partners keeps our business relationships healthy and strengthens the relationships even further.
Have you measured the amount of media coverage/attention that Net Ent’s games get when launched normally against those that have been the subject of a launch event?
Launching new games, services and offerings creates a real buzz at the event as the industry awaits our latest addition to our portfolio and we’re expecting more of the same this year.
Frankenstein, Scarface and South Park all drew huge amounts of media attention. We’re particularly excited about this year’s unveiling and it promises to have everyone talking about us at ICE.
ICE is an extremely valuable opportunity to meet with clients and network. Everyone is there, including media, so naturally we want to take advantage of that when showcasing our newest branded game for the first time.
Last year Bloomberg TV attended the show and spoke with us about the rise in mobile gaming.
A sign of the times
Unfortunately for much of the marketing and PR staff in online gambling, casino gameplay is not a spectator activity. Unlike sports betting and poker where participants are happy to read about the latest news and share their experiences, the public perception of casino gambling means that players keep it quiet.
Given this lack of wider media interest in your products, you might question why software developers such as Net Ent and Microgaming go through the rigmarole of launches at all. But it’s important to remember these companies’ primary business objective: to sign clients. It’s the potential clients of casino operators who are going to catch wind of these events of read about them in industry press.
The increasing trend towards multi-provider platforms such as that of Mr Green means that operators are looking to cherry pick the best games out there on a regular basis. Considering this it’s no surprise that the game launches correlate with the increased adoption of multi-provider platforms and it’s something that we can expect to see more and more of.
