What’s in a name? Bollocks, it seems, as three companies connected with the gaming industry make rebranding plans.
On Tuesday, B2B real-money and free-play online gaming technology supplier GameAccount Network announced it will be known as GAN effective Wednesday (9).
The rebranding will be accompanied by the launch of a new logo, trademark and a new website (www.gan.com) The company’s sub-brands, including Simulated Gaming, SENSE3, GameSTACK and iBridge Framework will not be affected by the switcheroo.
Company CEO Dermot Smurfit claims the shift is no big deal, given that everyone in the United States already refers to it as GAN. Smurfit also believes the name “better reflects our corporate identity as a highly specialist B2B internet gaming technology company” because, um, it’s shorter?
Last week, GameAccount/GAN opened its new North American headquarters in Las Vegas. The space is three times the size of GameAccount’s old campus, is scalable to support the company’s planned growth and will allow the company to pimp its wares to the host of gaming firms who call the state home. Also calling the state home are Smurfit and his family, who demonstrated their commitment to the US business by recently relocating to the Vegas area.
OPTIMAL PAYMENTS IS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK
Online payment processor Optimal Payments announced last week that it plans to change its name to the Paysafe Group. The proposed change will be decided by a shareholder vote at Optimal’s upcoming extraordinary general meeting in the Isle of Man on Sept. 28.
Optimal, which has strong ties to the online gambling industry, has been itching to operate under a more “distinctive brand” following its blockbuster €1.1b acquisition of rival Skrill this March and the $225m acquisitions of two California processors the previous year. Quite why Optimal was deemed sub-optimal to the somewhat bland Paysafe moniker remains unclear, but they’re in the payments business, after all, not art school, so cut them some slack.
GAUSELMANN FINDS SPANISH DIVISION WORTHY OF MERKUR NAME
Finally, the Spanish arm of German gaming firm Gauselmann Group has changed its name from Dosniha Gaming to Merkur Dosniha. Gauselmann sales director Jürgen Stühmeyer said the Spanish operation had “become an industry leader in the Spanish gaming segment in a very short space of time” and thus it was “the next logical step” to integrate it into Gauselmann’s core Merkur brand.
Merkur Dosniha CEO Carlos Chacón said it was “an honor and privilege in our industry” to bear the Merkur label but said the firm was keeping the Dosniha appendage “as a measure of respect to the path beyond the success, as well as keeping the reputation that our team has built for itself” in Spain’s casino, arcade and bar gaming market.
