Play’n GO plots next stage of growth ahead of ICE
Focus Gaming News caught up with Play’n GO’s Global Head of Sales and Account Management Magnus Thalin to talk about the upcoming company’s attendance at ICE London 2023.
Exclusive interview.- With ICE 2023 around the corner, Play’n GO’s Global Head of Sales and Account Management Magnus Thalin reflects upon a successful 2022, the importance of honest conversations with operator partners, and the secret behind creating the world’s most popular online slot.
What does Play’n GO hope to get out of ICE 2023?
Meeting our customers has always been at the very heart of everything we do. We can’t build games in a vacuum and expect them to meet the expectations of both our partners and players. So any opportunity to sit down together with operators and discuss how we can all better serve the player is really important.
ICE is obviously one of the biggest dates in the online gaming calendar, and we’ve been attending the show for as long as Play’n GO has existed. As always, we’re really excited to catch up with everyone in London once again.
“ICE is obviously one of the biggest dates in the online gaming calendar, and we’ve been attending the show for as long as Play’n GO has existed.”
Magnus Thalin, Play’n GO’s Global Head of Sales and Account Management.
Does this contribute to your strategy of giving the market what it wants? In which way?
Our goal here is to help our operator partners grow their businesses, in a safe and sustainable way that provides the very best entertainment to players. We can’t achieve this without building real and deep relationships with these operators. It’s not enough for us to create a game, push it out into the world and then assume our job is done.
This industry is always changing, whether that be player preferences or regulatory environments. We take part in an ongoing dialogue with operators so we can meet their needs and go the extra mile. When we truly understand their goals we can recommend the type of content required from our unparalleled portfolio to help them succeed.
Is it fair to say Play’n GO aims to build games that are daring and out of the ordinary?
We’re always trying to push the boundaries of what is possible with online slots, across graphics, sound, narrative, game mechanics and more.
Of course, we’re famous for Book of Dead, the world’s most popular online slot, as well as the wider Dead series of games of which the recently released Pilgrim of Dead is a fantastic new addition that players seem to absolutely love.
You don’t create the most successful individual title and series in online casino history by accident. It’s taken a huge amount of effort, planning and creativity from a team with unmatched expertise. The Dead series has also been meticulously planned, with storylines following through multiple games.
This all adds up to a range of titles that players are genuinely excited about because nothing else gets close when it comes to pure entertainment.
This in turn helps our operator partners with retention. We invest so much into our games and IP, they are designed with multi-year trajectories in mind. In an industry as competitive as ours, you need to be thinking long-term.
Play’n GO is behind many of the industry’s first mobile titles. What challenges has the company faced at the time and what did you learn for today?
We trusted our instincts on mobile gaming at a time when most of our industry still had its doubts. It is easy to look back now and think the mobile casino was an obvious progression, but in the mid-2000s, before the first iPhone had even launched, the future destination perhaps wasn’t so obvious to everyone.
I think our advantage in those early days is that we weren’t thinking purely commercially. Play’n GO was a small team of online casino fans, and mobile gaming was what the founders were passionate about, so it’s what they wanted to build. Obviously, that decision has paid off nicely!
This approach – trusting our instincts and acting like a normal online casino fan – has served us very well over the years. We also focused on regulated markets because, as players, we always wanted a safe environment. As your readers will have no doubt noticed, the biggest companies in our sector are now vocally exiting unregulated spaces and placing more of an emphasis on sustainability.
We’re really happy to see others following a similar path to us as it will build a more sustainable future for the whole industry.
Can you share with our audience the main goals for the company in 2023?
Everything at Play’n GO starts with making great games, because without the games there’s nothing else. But from a strategic perspective, we see significant growth opportunities in 2023.
We’re only getting started in a handful of states and provinces in the US and Canada, but even in Europe as more mature markets introduce tighter regulatory frameworks we are well placed to become the casino entertainment supplier of choice, as we already are in countries like Italy, the UK and Greece.
“Everything at Play’n GO starts with making great games.”
Magnus Thalin, Play’n GO’s Global Head of Sales and Account Management.
Over recent months we’ve shifted to a model whereby we have dedicated teams focused on key markets, which is already allowing us to provide a more personalised service to our customers. It makes us more excited for the coming months than ever.
