CalvinAyre.com’s coverage of London Conference Week 2019 continues, with the “main event” of the week kicking off today, the grand opening of the ICE London expo floor doors. The Tuesday of ICE is notoriously full of scheduled, elaborate reveals taking place throughout the day at the respective booth displays, spectacles delegates are certain to mark on their calendars.
First up at 12:00 was the SIS reveal, delivered by Commercial Director Paul Witten.
“Today we’ve launched SIS Competitive Gaming, it’s the first ever eSports product designed for betting”, said Witten.
“We’ve done a load of research with both operators and end consumers and this is the sort of bridge product that people think ‘Ya, I’m a sports bettor, but I understand it because its ice hockey and its street fighter, I would bet on this’. And its also for those guys who are playing eSports but not betting, an easy entry into the world of, ‘I understand this eSports thing and how it works, I’m going to play it’”, he said.
“SIS Competitive Gaming is the bridge between the two worlds and the interest has been amazing. So we’re absolutely delighted to be launching it today, big things to come”, he added.
Next up at 2:30 was the elaborate SBTech reveal, along with the appearance of a very special guest.
“We had the big champ here, Tyson Fury with us, launching our product, we had our product experts there, explaining the product to all of our colleagues, clients and databases of people we have here and we’ve had a superb reaction to the launch of big bang already”, confirmed SBTech’s Chief Operating Officer Dave Hammond.
“I know we are specifically in a place that no one else can deliver this product. We have a platform that allows us to deliver a jackpot system across all of our verticals to all of our operators. So that could be sports betting, that can be across our casino, live casino, that could be across all of our third-party providers as well…and [the jackpot] can be won by any player across any vertical at any time, randomly”, he said.
A short 30 minutes later, NetEnt attracted a huge crowd of delegates for their annual ICE reveal of newly branded slots, this year coming in the form of Conan and Ozzy Osbourne.
“When we’re looking for brands, we’re looking for brands we can work together with and we can do our own twist on their brand and they work with us, it has to fit, so we’re always looking for brands that fit both with slot games but also with NetEnt”, shared NetEnt CEO Therese Hillman.
“I think Conan is a great brand and its perfect for a slot game but I think Ozzy is very special”, she said.
Following the announcement, delegates were treated to Ozzy-branded T-shirts and an open bar. Funny enough, this year’s installment of Fire & Ice, the biggest iGaming party of the year taking place on the Wednesday evening of ICE, has a theme of Rock ‘n Roll, so perhaps those T-shirts will come in handy for some!
Amongst the jungle of reveals, the enormous Scientific Games stand caught the attention of hundreds of ICE delegates, all eager to check out the latest innovations the supplier has to offer.
We had the pleasure of catching up with Scientific Games’ Chief Product Officer Tim Butcher, a seasoned professional with an impressive track record of product innovation, working alongside icons in his past such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Michael Dell.
In addition to talking on the latest product releases at ICE, Butcher explained how Scientific Games carefully tweaks their games so they appeal to customers around the globe.
“One of the greatest examples that we’re showcasing here is our Jin Ji Bau Xi brand which we started in Asia and it did really well in the Asian market. Then we made some modifications to that content for the US, that was more applicable for the North American market and then this week at the show we’re introducing the version that’s coming out for Europe”, explained Butcher.
“I don’t think we would have been successful with that particular title if we had launched it in Europe, so we have to make our content applicable to the different regions and what the players are really attracted to in those regions”, he added.
