Interview Push Gaming CEO James Marshall iGB
Interview: Push Gaming CEO James Marshall
The company celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2020, but at this time, push gaming has just begun to execute bold intentions to expand, including major strategic acquisitions and hig h-end customers. However, under the criteria that the regulatory environment has become increasingly stricter and one of the most competitive fields in gambling business, the company intends to continue its own activities for further 10 years. Is it?
The company celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2020, but at this time, push gaming has just begun to execute bold intentions to expand, including major strategic acquisitions and hig h-end customers. However, under the criteria that the regulatory environment has become increasingly stricter and one of the most competitive fields in gambling business, the company intends to continue its own activities for further 10 years. Is it?
Push gaming began its own activities as a company for Internet games in 2010, but the quality presented on each channel has a significant difference.
"No one had the opportunity to arrest these games and distribute them on the Internet," said James Marshall Managing Director (Photo). "At this point, the game account (now GAN) was attracting attention, but I dreamed that this was a really good opportunity to incorporate games on the network and create services to hunt them by distribution."
Marshall accepts him and his business partne r-Operation pus h-Winsto n-Lee accepts that it took time to develop a company, but he actually created it for a personal way. He explains that it was a reliable business model for emerging companies.
2. Of course, now Push creates personal content and does not process ground manufacturers for new channels. Marshall says that the transition from the ground studio to the Internet has become a moment, but even the paid return was quite weak.
"We didn't have a personal platform." Before we gained the opportunity to gain our share, players, platforms, and suppliers had each share.
But at this time, mobile games are the main inclined channel of these companies, such as QuickSpin (acquired by PlayTech) and Netent. Marshall actually adds the fact that the first game has been developed very similar to a "rectangular ground machine gun".
This transition to a portrait syste m-At the beginning of the formation of a mobile casino, it is often called an important innovatio n-as a push to expand push work by forming two unique games for related groups. It functioned.
"This was the beginning to establish its own development," he said.
However, since then, other studios, regardless of large and small, have been particular about the most “maximum” approach, while pushing has been particular about fairly small roadmaps and concentrated on a small number of games. According to Marshall, other studios can concentrate on quality by providing volume.
"Operator already has a lot of content." Our approach is what the player is looking for. I want to get a lot of similar games or want to play something unique. Is it?
"Because competitors emphasize volume, there is no problem for casinos and players. Competitors emphasize volume, so there is no problem for casinos and players. We need what players need. By providing and creating new exciting games, players and operators are looking forward to the release of new works. "
According to him, in the "Transport Approach," the development team will not be able to create a "truly unique" game. It also acknowledges that this approach is "very good" for business, but needs to increase the release of new games to increase competitiveness.
"Instead of releasing 50 games, such a release schedule can increase market competitiveness.
Characteristics and functionality are more important than the amount, and a small number of truly unique names may provide unusual, which does not guarantee success. First, it is very difficult to create a name that guarantees high performance, as Marshall points out.
According to him, the push is high-typical, but has a popular indicator of 60-70 % of games, which is determined by the extension plan of many games. I maintain the indicators.
"We can't get everything correctly, but we have to delve into the details that the players really like and do what they like, what they don't like." say. According to Marshall, it is very important to study what the player wants, which makes it more effective for developers to avoid which functions to avoid. Can be done.
"After all, this is very difficult."
He says that the battle is the player's engagement, the number, and individual performance. In short, features and functionality are more important than volume.
Mr. Marshall believes that the acquisition of GSI (gaming technology provider) announced in January this year will promote it. This has access to solutions such as Hive Remote Gaming Platform and Mesh Aggregator, and goes without saying that Evison and Paul Bitty experience, veteran of the industry (formerly open bed technical leader).
Prior to this transaction, push was a studio that handled external games, but now it is trying to open up fate with its own platform. The transaction is based on an existing relationship between companies that Push acquired GSI Remote Game Server and Integration Layer, and Marshall said that this partnership was the "best business control."
"When the transfer of the code was completed, it didn't make sense to break up.
The transaction is immediate, and the push distribution trading with GVC Holdings announced in April and the establishment of a transaction with William Hill, which started content distribution in the same month, was "surely played a role."
"In relation to partners, the UK was not a major market for us, so we focused on Scandinavia and other European regions." "It was very pleased to be able to establish such big brands in the UK. After all, this platform works in the market we want and control the whole distribution. It gives you abilities. "
With the uncertainty of regulations, the company spent most of his life as a beginner's startup, then raised a large amount of money in the past three years, and Push has customers and skills to accelerate growth. However, this overlaps with a great uncertainty time for online casinos, especially for slots.
In the UK, the number of supporters is increasing from the betting of 1 to 5 pounds. In Germany, players are limited to spin rates to one euros. In Sweden, there is a weekly deposit of 5. 000 Sweden Crona. The regulation is likely to restrict the growth of casinos in the next few years or to reduce revenue.
Marshall does not complain about the current situation, but immediately declares that a new rule is a good phenomenon. According to him, this is the way the industry should develop. However, the slot was made as entertainment. If the technical change stipulated by the law loses entertainment, the business will not be possible.
"I'm more concerned about it harming entertainment, especially in the case of technical claims," he says. "There's no substantial evidence that some of these claims reduce gambling harms." "The rules have to be realistic. Regulators should recognize that the vast majority of payers are not obliged to gamble. "For example, limiting the bet, the spin, and especially in Germany, the entertainment value of the game is negatively affected. "If you take away this excitement from players with support for customization, they're more likely to switch to illegal sites." Marshall says that while it's true that a huge share of regulatory measures will affect operators, he believes that in reality, suppliers have every opportunity to play a more functional role in discussions with the broader branch stakeholders. "For us as suppliers, we believe that it's fundamentally a good thing to have with the operators on the front end of regulation," he explains. "A lot of the responsibility lies with the operators, but we are not obligated to leave this to the customers and make it their problem. We need to find ways to support the operators.
Similarly, operators have every opportunity to contribute to their own support partners, speaking of their protection, especially when it comes to new technological standards. Marshall believes that B2C companies need to really say what happens when technical configurations supersede the emotions of players, because they often deal with regulatory bodies and have a big impact on them.
It is very basic to create a serious and stable industry, but the comfort of the game is the least basic, Marshall adds. If players do not receive joy, they will find a website that provides more peace of mind.
Facing these challenges, Marshall believes that Push still has a great lifting capacity. In fact, he says that a while ago, after starting the process of fundraising, it became important for suppliers to expand their work in a short span of time, receiving support.
"Now we are faced with the challenge of placing value and taking on what is potentially there," he says. There are many large operators that we work with now, and in the past five years, there have been many first-level launches.
"But rather than focusing on the overall upswing, we still have quite a lot of fresh buyer potential and many other markets where we can still shine.
"We're revealing a wide range of skills. We've already achieved almost everything, but we can still manage almost everything, and in fact, with the brand new lines that form the company we're entering, it's been quite entertaining for us.