November 2016 Indian Gaming 35

G2E 2016: Robust Innovations Move Industry Forward

Ainsworth Game TechnologyMike Dreitzer, President – North America

G2E 2016 is a great opportunity for us to showcase thetremendous growth we have experienced over the past year. Weare introducing exciting innovations like our new A600® andA640® cabinets. These products continue the momentum we have from opening our brand-new 291,000 sq. ft. NorthAmerican headquarters in Las Vegas and beginning to offer ourClass II gaming products following the successful acquisitionof Nova Technologies.

We believe the A600® can be a game changer. The earlyfeedback from customers has been tremendous and the newgame content can truly take Ainsworth to the next level. Ourgame library has grown to more than 200 unique titles and withupgraded hardware capabilities, we can offer customers entirelynew possibilities for their casino floors.

Tribal casino operators have reported strong performancefor our initial entry into Class II markets. Tribes have the sovereign right to operate Class II gaming systems and we arecommitted to developing best in class content and products tohelp ensure long-term prosperity and growth in this veryimportant gaming segment.

American Gaming Systems (AGS)David Lopez, President & CEOJulia Boguslawski, Chief Marketing Officer

David Lopez: We’re extremely excited to showcase ourgame-changing new products for the tribal gaming market atthis year’s G2E. We have deep roots in tribal casinos, so wealways cater heavily to this market from a product, service, andrelationship perspective. This past year, we have successfullydelivered on our strategic acquisitions in 2015 to bring bothour tribal and corporate customers new, high-performing

products across both our slot and table game divisions.Julia Boguslawski: The first thing tribal customers will

notice this year when they visit our booth is that we’ve takenAGS to a new level – not only from a booth design perspec-tive, but also from a product perspective. Our booth is fun, bold,and highlights the progressive engineering of our new premiumcabinet Orion, which is such a unique piece of hardware withan arsenal of high-quality content to back it up. On the tableproducts side, customers can see the progress we’ve made withour new Dex S card shuffler and the new white-label versionof Bonus Spin – both attention-grabbing new product intro-ductions designed to improve operations and bring more profitpotential to our customers.

Aristocrat Brooks Pierce, Managing Director – Americas

Tribal and non-tribal customers are both equally importantmarkets to Aristocrat. Perhaps the biggest part of G2E for Aristocrat this year is the introduction of our new Relm

Indian Gaming magazine spoke with leading game technology companies at G2E about what products they are most excited about for Indian Country. Here is what they had to say...

Julia Boguslawski and David Lopez

36 Indian Gaming November 2016

CONVENTION COVERAGE

stepper – a mechanical reel product available as both a for saleas well as a participation model. This is a market Aristocrat waspreviously in and is entering again after a few years. Workingwith our team at VGT, the Relm stepper brings innovation tothe cabinet space and games that will appeal to players in thissegment. We are introducing the product with twenty-four different games to support the for sale side of the business. We are also showcasing some gigantic steppers by leveragingsome of our best brands including the Britney Spears game,which is a mid-denomination and Buffalo Thundering Herds,which will be the first game to market.

Lightning Link is the fastest growing game family for us. Ithas been unbelievably successful, and we will have a LightningLink stepper product. On the participation side, we are very excitedabout Dragon Link, which is an Asian-themed extension ofLightning Link and is made by the same game designer. It hassix different denominations up to $2 dollars, which will give players and the operators a bit more flexibility. We were alsoexcited to have Tim McGraw at the show for the premiere of hisnew game. We actually dropped him from the ceiling in front ofan enormous crowd. It was very exciting and he was very supportive of what we were doing with the game.

We divided G2E into three segments. The first segment iseverything available for sale to customers who are at the showto make purchases – we have a great variety of product for themto invest in. The second segment is products for the future, whichmay not be available for 9 to 12 months. Customers and operators are able to see where we think the future is going interms of hardware and software. Our third segment is forward-thinking and may or may not be commercialized – such as virtual reality and combining social with land-based gaming – alot of conceptual ideas that we are getting customer feedback on.

Eclipse GamingGreg Drew, Principal Owner

We are very excited about the launch of our new EclipseGaming brand at G2E. Our new image and expanded gameportfolio, which are showcased on the enhanced Starlight Pluscabinet, as well as our more prominent presence at G2E has the industry saying, ‘Look what you've done – look at the

transformation that Eclipse has accomplished in just one year.’We made some very difficult decisions over the last year, andto see customers and industry leaders coming by and congrat-ulating us for not just persevering, but achieving new heights– that says, ‘we made the right decisions.’ That's what I'm mostexcited about.

EveriKeith Riggs, Vice President, Linked Gaming & SystemsAngela Segovia, Director, Product Marketing

Keith Riggs: Everi Games is proud to be a continued leaderin the Class II arena – as always all of our products shown atG2E are designed to perform in the tribal market and beyond.We are particularly excited about two of our premier licensedthemes Casablanca and Penn & Teller that will debut on theEmpire MPX premium cabinet. Both of these premier themeswill include a Class II wide area progressive, which, to myknowledge, has never been done in this space.

Angela Segovia: This year, Everi Payments has a three-pronged approach. First, we have a revolving digital capacityto offer our CashClub Wallet for cash access in all types of casi-nos. Second, is our dedication to compliance – achieving fullEMV compliance, PCI compliance, and offering a comprehen-sive AML software solution for all types of gaming entities.Lastly, we offer innovations to increase funds to floor, ourbiggest goal for customers. We accomplish this through manyproduct enhancements as well as new products that continueto increase funds to floor for all gaming operators, no matterwhere they are in the world.

IGTKen Bossingham, SVP, Global Core ProductMike Brennan, Senior Director, Product Market Manager

Ken Bossingham: Coming out of G2E last year, we completeda critical review of our product portfolio – where we stood inthe market compared to the rest of the manufacturers in thespace. We’ve spent the last 12 months identifying how we could best close any existing gaps. My team’s responsibility in the core side of the business includes poker, steppers, video reel productand Class II product. We have taken large steps, across all theproduct verticals, which our customers have recognizedthroughout our booth at this year’s G2E.

Keith Riggs and Angela Segovia

David Lawrence and Greg Drew

November 2016 Indian Gaming 37

A key objective and responsibility as a manufacturer is to pro-tect our customers’ cost of ownership. Through our test bankprogram, which we have live at over 30 sites in the U.S., we areable to verify if a product can test at certain performance thresh-olds, and if so, release it to the market. If a product doesn’t meetthose thresholds, it goes on the shelf. This was an effort thatwe were able to kick off at the beginning of the year, and sincethen, we've held back a number of games that will never be released to our customers due to low performance. Theobjective is to validate test bank performance with real life performance, and we're holding ourselves as a companyaccountable. And only releasing to our customers content thatwe know with confidence will perform at a high level.

There are three key areas important to our core products– diversity, depth and discipline. If we exhibit those threetraits, we can ensure to build world-class product in each oneof those product verticals. Going into next year's G2E, our customers will see more activity in the Class II area. We areputting in the market research, player focus, and market analytic work to figure out what needs to be done in that segment, and all of those product verticals, to be able to bringforward world-leading product.

Mike Brennan: Of our test bank program partners, 60 to 65percent are in Indian Country. Our products have to meet certain thresholds and we only look at the last 30 out of 90 days.Here at G2E, we also have a Proven Performer Zone, whichhas gone through this filter and people can buy now.

The most exciting thing for me this G2E is we have someexciting wow areas that have elicited emotion in our customerson core video, which isn't as easy to do as it is in other segmentslike the premium space. In core, we have some features and func-tionalities that haven't been seen before in the industry. Someof these products are a little further out, and they have to gothrough the test bank program, but to see customers’ eyes lightup when they see these products has been incredibly positive.

Ken Bossingham: You never know what to expect coming intoa show like G2E. Everyone works so hard to bring this expe-rience to life. Our customers have acknowledged us for that greatwork, which is a testament to the incredible team we have here.For all of our employees – if there's ever a time to be able to

walk with a degree of confidence and be proud, this is one ofthose days. Now we have to take that goodwill and continue.That passion's contagious in the company, and it sets us up sowell going forward into 2017.

Interblock USAColleen Stanton, VP of Global Marketing

At G2E this year,we are showcasingnearly a dozen newproducts. A highlightis the Pulse Arena,which demonstrates a variety of new features and function-alities in comparisonto what was seen atG2E last year. Afterlast year's show we

were fortunate to start working with ten operators on multi-year deals to bring Pulse Arenas to their casino floors, whichwe'll start launching globally in the coming months. The firstPulse Arena to go-live is with the tribal organization SenecaNiagara Resort and Casino, and we'll be announcing othersshortly after that and throughout 2017.

The feedback we've been receiving from operators at G2Ethis year regarding the Arena has been fantastic. They see thegreat opportunity to be able to easily control and customize anentire section of their floor based on the player type, time ofday or day of the week – throughout the day, casinos canlaunch pre-programmed moods: to mix gambling with a club-like environment, to a VIP mode for core gamblers; theycan even set the Arena's mode to educate players. The PulseArena’s exciting nightclub mode is perfect to bring in a youngerdemographic in evenings and on the weekend. Alternatively,during the week and in the daytime when an older demographicmight be playing, the lights can be adjusted and the music can be softer. Our Pulse Arena generators offer a unique dealerinterface that allows dealers to see a variety of statistics in theArena and even gives instructions on how to draw and placethe cards. Dealers are entertainers in the Pulse Arena and dueto our customized software, they can focus on players, their winsand providing the ultimate gambling experience.

The Pulse Arena is the ultimate premium Stadium experience, but we also offer different degrees of Stadiumconfigurations to meet any casinos' need. The other Stadiumconfiguration we're showcasing at G2E offers four dealer assistgenerators and 27" play stations that allow players to simulta-neously play four games at once. The Stadium can also be setto automatic mode – meaning operators don’t need to staff theStadium 24/7. The real estate is always live, generating revenue.

Our Automated Dual Roulette is also receiving a lot of buzzand positive feedback from our customers. The Dual Rouletteis composed of two roulette generators, allowing players to play

Mike Brennan and Ken Bossingham

38 Indian Gaming November 2016

both roulette games at the same time. Both wheels are color-coded, so players can place bets easily. A picture-in-picture viewon the graphical user interface also shows players exactly whatis going on, regardless of what station they are seated at.

The attention to StarBar, our new bar top product, is fantastic and timing is perfect. We’ve just finished Nevada fieldtrials for StarBar and it did amazingly. StarBar features all thepopular video poker games as well as all of our table game content. What we found out is that players want table gameslike craps, roulette, Keno and Baccarat in a bar top. We are giving players what they want, and providing incremental revenue for operators.

Konami GamingSteve Walther, Senior Director, Marketing & Product Management

This year at G2E, we're most excited about the breadth anddiversity of products we’ve been able to bring to market. Thisis a result of the investment we’ve made in our resources andfacilities. We've been able to showcase an entire collection ofcore products, as well as a broad range of unprecedented next-generation gaming products including skill-based games likeBeat Square and Frogger: Get Hoppin’.

In order to help our customers diversify their floors, we'vealso introduced new multi-station concepts to the show this year.The first is Fortune Cup, a horse racing game that combinesdigital displays with mechanical horses to allow players towager, with true odds, for win, place and quinella. The otheris Crystal Cyclone – a multi-station slot game with a colorful,high-energy center mechanical bonus game that can simulta-neously bring all players into the bonus action jackpot. We’rebringing these new types of games to market because casinoshave been asking us to innovate and help them attract new anddifferent gamers. From the response we’ve seen from attendees,we think these products are designed to do exactly that.

Novomatic AmericasRick Meitzler, President

We’ve had a great show. The past few years have given usthe strong development foundation to present 22 “never beforeseen,” U.S. designed titles and over 40 new products at G2E2016. The World Championship of Slots was a great success

story based on customerresponse, and we are wellequipped to move for-ward and finish out 2016with a nice uptick. We arefocused on North Amer-ica, and on increasing ourpresence by leveraging in-house brands like Talesof Darkness, Four Seasonsand the World Champi-onship of Slots. We havestrategically moved into aposition that demonstratesthe revenue generatingcapabilities of our product.

This year at G2E, attendees witnessed the results and inven-tion of the evolving Novomatic Americas.

We have acquired the best available talents to execute on ourvision – licensed games, progressive products, entertainment-based games and innovative slot competition products along withthe proven games design support from Austria. We have astrong studio system that is designed to produce successfulgames across many categories and we are building our businessaround great gaming content. We are an innovative and creativecompany at the core, begun by an innovative and creative familythat has set the bar high and given us the foundation to explorethat creativity in North America. It is important to our parent company that we are an innovative and idea driven group thatprovides a culture of collaboration and success here in NorthAmerica. It’s important to us and important to our customers.

We have had a great response to our efforts this year andare excited for the new games to be revealed in the nextmonths. We have new cabinets and game presentations that arebeing showcased in amazing trade show displays that are a resultof our focus on delivering a new wealth of product to our NorthAmerican market. We are having a very successful show andwe are seeing growing performance as we continue to see ourinstalled base grow with a great value for our customers. It’s aculmination of the last three years and I’m delighted that weare delivering products that resonate with our customers. It’sgreat to be in this position and to continue to gain customers.We’re in the content business and based on our G2E response,we have content and this clearly is our transformational showing – and we’re pleased. In terms of a successful G2E –we’re growing strong and steadily.

We also have had an online boost with our Foxwoods Livecasino, powered by Greentube, which has grown in a short timeto over 10,000 users and continues to perform well. We willcontinue to grow those capabilities further as an importantindustry tool.

We’re working hard to offer a compelling group of productsin every market and we’ll continue to focus on content, gamestyles and establishing ourselves in new channels. We have a

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November 2016 Indian Gaming 39

strong balance sheet, we’re focused and we’re investing in ourdevelopment, people and growing our customer relationships.But it always comes back to great content. It’s part of our master plan to become a leading entertainment content providerof choice.

Scientific GamesDan Savage, Chief Administrative Officer

The gaming floor ofthe future CEO panelat G2E very quicklyturned to sports bettingand how much moneyis illegally bet every year.AGA and AGEM obvi-ously want to legalize itbecause we think it canbe controlled in a betterway than the gray mar-ket currently does. We'llcontinue to work withtribes on that.

This year, we’ve had alot of tribes through ourbooth. Our product is asstrong as it's ever been,

not only for the tribal market, but all markets. With the inte-grations, our portfolio is not only broad, but also deep, and nowthere's so much product that people couldn't get before. Theproduct this year is strong, not only from Scientific Games, butalso from our competitors. It's a great time to be a customer –there's just so many ‘cars’ on the market today to choose from.

Our Simpsons game this year is an example of where we'regoing. The Seinfeld game this year has been huge for us, butwe've also got a new for sale unit called the J43. Our tribal customers have been all over that and we're doing some exciting things, for instance, with Spiderman – where it's alicensed brand from Marvel, but we're offering it on a for salegame. Customers have asked us to give them licensed brandson for sale units. We've done that the last three years with Wonder Woman, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and nowwe're doing it with Spiderman.

We have some really neat things happening in table gamesthis year and we’ve started to brand our products. We took Blazing 7's over to tables, so players can enjoy Blazing 7's pokeron felt now. We also have a roulette game where the player actually gets to launch the ball, another extension of our U-Spin branding. It’s another way of getting people engaged.It's an exciting time of year for us.

Our tribal customers have liked what they’ve seen. They'remanaging their capital and cash like everyone is doing, but wehave a great product offering. The power is with the buyer'stoday. We hope that changes a little bit, but what a great timeto buy.

VGTJay Sevigny, President

This year, we are very excited about our new Ovationgames, which are Class II video games based on the Gen8 Aristocrat platform married with the traditional and solidVGT bingo engine and math. We also now have these gameson the Helix cabinet. The games are beautiful and their performance is indistinguishable from a Class III game.We’re doing a few things – we're making new games and thenwe have faithful copies of classic Aristocrat games, such as WildLucky Lepre’Coins in a Class II version. It's just like the ClassIII game – beautiful, fun and the graphics, features andmechanics are what people have grown to love in Class IIIvideo. We have 19 new titles that will start hitting the mar-ket in December, and by the end of 2017, we're going to havereleased a total of 42 Class II titles. We are hitting the market hard and are absolutely delighted with the responsethis is getting from customers. Quite frankly, customers wantit faster than we can get it to them, which is kind of a new wonderful situation for us to be in.

We also have some new lock and nudge games and a newseries of five-reel mechanicals. We started up a studio in Virginia and brought back some of the leaders that developedour original games. They are capturing such a VGT flavorin these games that we're very excited about, and our cus-tomers are too. We were excited to bring Easy Money Jack-pot out a year ago – a great progressive, which has hit about20 times since then. The highest jackpot it has paid was over$900,000, but it tends to hit in the mid $300,000's, which islife changing. We have four new titles for Easy Money Jack-pot, so we're reinvigorating interest in the WAP and keep-ing it fresh. Our team has also been developing a lot of funwealth series games around gold, platinum, diamond, ruby andemerald. These are fun titles, and we are also showing 14 newmechanical reel titles that our customers haven't seen before.

Being acquired by Aristocrat has been an absolute grandslam. Aristocrat has brought us into the product planning anddevelopment phases, and another wonderful outcome is thatwe now we have access to and support from game studiosaround the world. ®