Can you tell us a bit about your ‘twist, transform and elevate’ strategy for your live casino vertical?
‘Twist, transform and elevate’ is our design and development blueprint for creating original live casino content that creates new experiences for players. In essence, we aim to add a twist on classic titles, transform player favourites and elevate the entertainment with novel mechanics.
The twist comes from switching up classic titles, such as by adding the PowerUp bonus rounds feature in our PowerUp Roulette, which inspired the Lucky Numbers with Lucky Multipliers to the traditional Roulette format in our upcoming Lucky 6 Roulette game.
We also transform player favourites into immersive game show experiences. Sweet Bonanza CandyLand was inspired by our popular Sweet Bonanza slot, for example, while Snakes & Ladders Live was a fun take on the popular board game.
And we elevate live casino content across the Pragmatic Play portfolio by introducing different types of gameplay and ways to win – such as with the PowerUp feature in Boom City, which can activate an extra dice roll and multiply bets by up to 20,000x for a chance to win the €500,000 ($530,670) maximum prize.
What goes into the research and development of new products in your live casino?
Pragmatic Play benefits not only from creative and imaginative individuals who build and shape our live casino roadmap, but also teams of experts who understand player behaviour and help to refine ideas into top-performing products.
Our product development is detail-driven focusing on providing quality gameplay both in terms of the studio atmosphere and the welcoming presenters, creativity that tells a story to take players on an exciting journey and of course most importantly the insights gained from our most successful titles.
We do this against the backdrop of our ‘twist, transform and elevate’ strategy, which guides us when choosing new themes and mechanics to develop.
Because ideation is deeply entrenched at multiple levels, we always have a diversity of new concepts to consider. There’s certainly no shortage of brilliant ideas. Obviously, we review our own portfolio to see how best to expand it and we also look at the wider industry to see what’s working, what’s missing and what could be better.
We also continually seek to push boundaries with elevated design and research new technologies to apply in the space. But the best research and development leans into what we know players love, because ultimately that’s what it’s all about: learning from player behaviour to create even stronger entertainment experiences time and again.
Pragmatic Play’s live casino range has certain themes such as Sweet Spins, what other themes would you like to incorporate in future?
Sweet Spins is a bonus game in Sweet Bonanza CandyLand that sprinkled a little slots magic in live casino. PowerUps, Mega Multipliers and Mega Wins are some of the many other popular features we’ve introduced to our game shows in recent years.
We even have some more slots magic in store for 2024 by putting a live casino spin on one of our biggest franchises that we know will be a big splash.
The idea is to keep diversifying our portfolio with highly engaging new features. We’ve already explored a variety of game themes to date, but arguably our most adventurous yet is coming this November in the form of Treasure Island.
This epic game show will take players on a multi-bonus quest across an expansive deserted island where treasure and mystery await.
Can you tell us about the game show you plan to release at the end of November?
This year especially, we have placed a considerable focus on creating the ‘razzle dazzle’ of live casino – the excitement, the ingenuity, the entertainment. Treasure Island is set to resonate greatly with players that are keen to discover the soft and adventurous game play that comes with this game show format.
The game show is inspired by the nostalgic treasure island theme packed with adventure, mystery, and unexpected turns.
Introducing cinematic effects that use the same technology as Hollywood blockbusters, we’ve been able to create rich, layered gameplay that merges the physical and the digital to produce the extraordinary.
Treasure Island offers a multi-level, interactive experience for players, with the attention to detail clear across every aspect, from the props on set to the outfits and even the personas enacted by the presenters themselves.
It moves the game show format even further into the realm of an immersive virtual world in which art and technology combine to offer unique entertainment experiences.
