eGaming Review January 2015 | Page 86

SPONSORED EDITORIAL / M A G N E T G A M I N G SOCIABLE CASINO PROVIDES GAP IN UK MARKET MADS PETER VEIBY, CEO OF MAGNET GAMING, TELLS EGAMING REVIEW HOW HIS NEW COMPANY HAS DEVELOPED AND ITS PLAN FOR THE FUTURE t CEO t MAGNET GAMING Mads Peter Veiby is a Danish entrepreneur and casual games pioneer who co-founded Magnet Gaming in 2014. He is also CEO of Spilnu.dk, the first company to hold a gambling licence in the country following deregulation in 2011. 84 our research and development goes into the bonus features that are essential to casual casino customers. These people are put off by highly volatile slots and prefer the steady flow of our games to some of the more aggressive products on the market. We will do well in the UK because we are offering a choice to players who are not being fully catered for at the moment. eGR: You are targeting the UK slots market. Why the UK and what is your plan to penetrate this market? MPV: On the surface, the UK market is very crowded – both with operators and suppliers. But we’re very confident there is a gap in that market. We have done a lot of benchmarking against games currently on offer and believe ours perform very well in comparison. We also know that Danish players are very similar to British ones in their outlook. Like the UK, the split between male and female players is much narrower than other markets, with bingo and other softer gambling products proving very popular. Social games are played a lot too, and it will be these types of audiences that we will be targeting. We also think our games are very different to what is currently on offer. Around 80% of MADS PETER VEIBY eGaming Review (eGR): Magnet Gaming has recently announced its plans to offer a range of real money slots to operators. With your background in the social casino sector, what drove this move and how have you found the transition? Mads Peter Veiby (MPV): For the past 10 years we’ve been building and operating social casino games across Europe. With the deregulation of the Danish market three years ago, we saw an opportunity to apply our competencies to new markets. As a result, we’ve quickly become the leading local provider of real money slots for both casual and core users. We’ve been building our portfolio of real money games and are delighted with the results we’ve had so far, particularly on one of Denmark’s largest operators, SpilNu.dk. We’re very confident that the knowledge we’ve developed in the social sector, and our experience in our home-grown real money sector, will serve us well when starting to offer our games abroad. We’ve been successful at converting social casino players into real money customers and also finding new customers who are discovering our games for the first time. They all seem to enjoy our low-stakes ‘sociable casino’ philosophy that resonates with a large sec tion of the public who wouldn’t consider themselves to be serious gamblers. eGR: What are your plans for 2015, what new products or features are you developing?  MPV: Our aim is to launch with eight new slots in the beginning of 2015, and roll out an additional eight to 10 new slots throughout the year. We also have ambitious plans to take the success of tournament features in social into the real money environment. ICE is going to be very big for us this year as it is our opportunity to take our products out into the world from their Danish home, where they are proving very successful. As a result, we’re very excited about meeting operators in regulated jurisdictions who are interested in trying something new and tapping into audiences who are currently underserved by the products on the market. We are confident that 2015 is going to be a big year for Magnet Gaming. eGR: What makes Magnet Gaming stand out in the crowded casino market? MPV: If I was an operator looking for new games I would consider retention first and foremost. At Magnet Gaming, we have very low churn rates and many of our customers have been with us for years. That’s because we give them what they want and use customer retention tools that have been successful in social games. We also analyse player journeys and their habits and respond to them to ensure they enjoy the experience. Our games are unique, with different graphics and maths models on each of them – but the delivery is very much cross-channel. A customer can play one of our games on their desktop during the day, their mobile on the way home, and tablet at night. They will be playing exactly the same game, rather than three different versions. That variety wedded to consistency is the key to player engagement. W W W. E G R M A G A Z I N E . C O M