Play’n GO’s Thea Agius: “Our seamless flag integration solution really does set us apart” 

The director of integration management for the global entertainment provider spoke about one of the company’s qualities: facilitating a seamless integration experience for teams and customers.

Exclusive interview.- Over more than 15 years, Play’n GO has built a reputation for creating some of the most popular and entertaining online slot games, delivering them to more than 25 regulated jurisdictions simultaneously. Focus Gaming News caught up with Play’n GO’s Head of Integration Management Thea Agius to discuss the studio’s approach to integration and just how vital it is to get it right in today’s fast-moving industry.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Play’n GO?  

I’m the Head of Integration Management at Play’n GO and in my role, I focus on facilitating a seamless team and customer integration experience.  

This involves promptly addressing and adapting to upgrades in technical requirements, navigating changes in existing and emerging markets, and seeking solutions to challenges.  

Additionally, I work to enhance our product by gathering customer feedback and leveraging internal insights to determine what works best for our teams. Embracing a philosophy of continuous improvement, I collaborate extensively across the organization, identifying opportunities, proactively highlighting potential risks and improving processes.  

As I enter my sixth year at Play’n GO, I take pride in leading my exceptional team for the past four years.

Can you explain to us why integration is important in our industry, and what exactly the team does? 

Operators need integration management to launch games, so we are pretty important!  

Once an agreement has been signed with our Sales team, we take charge of setting up the testing and production environments. As Technical Integration Leaders, we focus on direct integrations through our APIs.  

To ensure a smooth process, we have developed a comprehensive set of test cases that cover both the back end and the front end of the games, including promotional tools. Our primary objective is to verify that everything functions as expected and complies with jurisdictional requirements before the games are deployed in the production environment. 

During this phase, we also take on the responsibility of educating the customer about our systems and games. We make necessary adjustments and configurations to establish seamless connectivity with their systems while troubleshooting any issues that may arise, ensuring a successful launch.  

Meanwhile, our Technical Account Managers follow a similar procedure but focus specifically on custom integrations, where Play’n GO integrates with the customer’s APIs. In these cases, the Development team lays the foundation for the integration, and the Technical Account Managers take ownership of the rest, and of the accounts once they go live, providing ongoing technical assistance due to the complexity involved. 

In addition to this, my team also handles various bespoke integrations and technical projects, such as Social Casino integrations, iOS embedded solutions, Games enabling, Technical Setup changes and more. It’s busy but I love it. 

“Operators need integration management to launch games, so we are pretty important!”

Thea Agius, Head of Integration Management at Play’n GO.

Are there many differences in integration between different markets, such as the UK compared to the US? 

There are differences for sure, but the solid principles behind a good integration remain the same. 

When entering a new jurisdiction, we need to gather information, such as the server hosting location and infrastructure, details of the Data Centre for both the stage and production environments, games that require certification or can utilize existing certifications, technical requirements set on flags, games limitations, data provisions, report generation, and solution development. 

Throughout the integration process, we continuously fill in gaps, prepare processes for future integrations and work on parallel tasks whenever possible.   

Licenses may vary in complexity, for example, once all the necessary steps have been completed, the US states regulators reviews and approves each stage before the customer can officially launch the games.  

Tell us what makes Play’n GO experts at integration, and how easy it is for customers to integrate our content 

One of the advantages of Play’n GO is our streamlined integration process that only requires additional testing for jurisdiction-specific requirements.  

Our seamless flag solution really does set us apart from other providers who need to configure each setup individually, step by step.  

At Play’n GO, we have developed an automated system where technical jurisdictional requirements and certified games are triggered automatically. This approach is super-efficient and leaves very little room for error.  

More than anything I’d say that our success in integrations is a product of collaboration across teams internally and how well we work with customers. I’m really proud of what we’ve built at Play’n GO in terms of integrations and our customers get to enjoy the benefits every day. 

“One of the advantages of Play’n GO is our streamlined integration process that only requires additional testing for jurisdiction-specific requirements.”

Thea Agius, Head of Integration Management at Play’n GO.