How Slots are Born: An Interview with Play'n GO

We’ve got a chance to sit down for a brief interview with Tommy Adolfsson Saarela, affiliate manager at Play’n GO, one of the more productive and innovative developers of casino slots. We’ve used this opportunity to talk about some of their existing slots, the process behind envisioning and developing new games, as well as the company’s vision for the near future.

1) With games such as Sweet Alchemy, you've introduced certain gamification elements, whereby players are incentivised to stick around and come back to a game to win rewards for unlocking new levels. What kind of reply have you received from players and operators? Is this what players want?

Sweet Alchemy has performed very well for us since it’s release and is still performing to this day. It has seen great traction in various markets such as Asia, and so I would say it’s definitely a format that players have welcomed. That being said, the gaming audience is very diverse so it’s more about having a diverse suite of games to cater to all tastes and delivering new formats to satisfy areas of the market that may not have been fully explored yet.

2) Queen's Day Tilt is one of your latest releases. What can you tell us about it?

With Queen’s Day Tilt we wanted to create something a little different. It is a 3x3 grid classic layout, which is almost neglected in modern slots. We wanted to modernize this layout and add that Play’n GO spark to it. With the fun theme and the small grid, it makes for a much more exciting experience for the player, and that’s at the heart of everything we create, a great experience for the player.

3) The overall process of creating a slot at Play’n GO – how does it happen, from start to finish? Where do you get your game ideas from and what is your overall philosophy, if you will? What do you hope your games will deliver to the end user?

The creation process at Play’n GO is a long and detailed process. I don’t want to give too many of our secrets, but ideas can come from anywhere, we’re always encouraging creativity within our ranks. Once an idea is greenlit it goes through numerous stages, we check, re-check and then check again, we leave nothing to chance. From artwork and math models to music and features we want to make every game the best it can be. Our philosophy is to be the best entertainment supplier there is, and we can only do that by providing the best content.

4) Without revealing all of your secrets, what are some general plans for the near future? Are you planning to focus even more on the player experience aspect of your games through progressive levels, developing stories, and such?

We are always focusing on the player experience, and storylines and concepts are very important to us. You look at games like the recently released Cash Vandal, and it gives you a fine example of our focus on the game’s players; giving more interactivity and more choice to the player, engaging them by giving them decisions to make and different environments to play in and find their favourite. We’ll always do what we can to make a player’s gaming session as entertaining as possible. Which form will that take? We’ll have to wait and see.

5) Will we see any branded titles (movies, TV shows, video games, bands etc..) come out from the Play'n GO workshop in the future? Is this something you see would add further value to your games and make them even more appealing to the player-base?

We’ve largely kept out of the IP market so far, aside from our Hugo games and we’ve preferred to go the more collaborative route, for instance, our team up with Swedish Metal band Candlemass for the game House of Doom. Branded titles are something you might see from Play’n GO in the future, but we’ll do it when we feel it’s the right time and we can do the best job, rather than just doing it for the sake of it.

6) How big of a role do regional preferences take in terms of titles players play the most? For example, are Nordic players more interested in playing games like Viking Runecraft and Troll Hunters, given they're based on Norse mythology? Is this something that comes into play when brainstorming new game ideas?

Of course, some players in regions will gravitate to a game because it resonates with them culturally, and sometimes when you have a new game concept, you may have an idea of where you think it might be most popular. However, on the reverse of that, sometimes you bring out a game that you think will do well in a region and it ends up performing in a completely different area to where you thought. It is something that we do consider when brainstorming games, but our main concern is that we are faithful to the source material we are referencing; Viking Runecraft is a perfect example of that.

7) Do you think it would be valuable to include players in the game creation process? It would certainly require some resources but having a place where players could pitch their ideas could perhaps help give you an even better idea as to what type of games players enjoy the most in terms of theme, winning potential, game dynamics, etc.

It’s an interesting concept. Certainly, there’s potential in any source of an open forum to discover new and interesting ideas. We regularly check in and get feedback from the operators we partner with, and we welcome feedback from players themselves on any of our social channels, and we take it all on board when planning for the future.

Thank you Tommy once again for your time and for sharing with us and the players some of these details. It is always interesting to find out more about what happens behind the stage and how some of those games we enjoy so much came to be. We wish you all the best in your future endeavours and looking forward to many more exciting games from Play’n GO workshop!