Wheel of Wonders Launched: Interview with Push Gaming's CCO Nicola Longmuir

Push Gaming has been one of the leading names in the world of online casinos for some years. We had an exclusive chance to talk to the company's CCO Nicola Longmuir and discuss the provider's platform, unique games, future plans and so much more. Without further ado, let's jump straight into the interview. 

GP: Hello and thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Before we get started on anything too detailed, can you tell our readers a bit more about Push Gaming. When was the company founded and by whom and what is the long term vision behind Push Gaming?

PG: The company was founded back in 2010, by James Marshall and Winston Lee, who continue to lead the business today. Both with significant experience in the industry prior to Push Gaming, their initial business model focused on providing popular land based games to the online market.

By 2012, 8 games had been developed in-house and were distributed to several major operators. In 2013 a pivotal change in direction to the business took place, as the company started to produce its own games. Here, the key focus was on creating games that were designed specifically for mobile.

Two years later, the company’s distribution was streamlined through a partnership with Relax Gaming. This new framework allowed content to be put out to a much larger audience and also proved to be highly successful for its fresh approach by both operator partners and players alike.

Fast forward to 2020 - we now have our own platform licensed in key jurisdictions, as well as an exciting roadmap coming up ahead. With plans to enter new markets in the coming months, as well as more big partnerships on the way - we are extremely keen on getting our new content out there and delighting even more players with our fantastic games.

The key vision continues to remain that of creating the very best in entertainment for players to enjoy. We don’t shy away from taking big risks, and are continuously challenging ourselves to provide something for the player that wasn’t already existing.

Innovation and creativity lie at the heart of everything we do, and the longevity of our releases proves this to be successful. We will continue to delight players through our content, but are also looking at some interesting upcoming projects that will allow us to get even closer to players - so keep up to date with what we’re doing for more information on that!

GP: The studio has been around for a decade now and in that time you have shown plenty of success in the game development arena. Some of your titles like Jammin’ Jars became real hits with the players around the world. What is the secret behind the magic that helps you constantly create competitive games even though you are competing against much bigger studios with a lot more staff?

PG: Firstly, we are truly passionate about games and work hard as a team to offer a positive gameplay experience to all our players every time. We also ensure that our games are always unique! There are many copies out there on the market, and we only want to offer players something that’s different, and not already available for them to enjoy.

Apart from being innovative, we also strive to delight players with gameplay that’s truly memorable and exciting to experience. Not only do our games offer a lot of high potential and possibilities for great wins - they also offer fun and excitement in every session. These are just some of the many reasons why our older hits are still engaging players till today and continue to live on.

GP: You recently underwent a rebranding process and came out with a cool new visual identity. Can you take us through the main idea behind this rebranding? What does Push Gaming hope to achieve in the short and the long term and where do you see the studio a few years down the line?

PG: The decision to rebrand came about as we underwent many big changes and growth in the business. As we slowly transitioned from a small games studio to a well recognised B2B supplier, the plan to refresh our brand identity to reflect this change, just felt like the obvious way forward.

Launched at ICE 2020, our new brand identity encapsulates our journey so far. The logo is made up of a ‘P’ and a ‘G’, for ‘Push Gaming’, that is formed out of a shield. This reflects our core company values along with our mission of providing the very best in innovative and memorable entertainment experiences for our players. The shield symbolises strength as well as security and trust. This strength relates to our game portfolio, and security and trust towards the honesty and transparency that we have for our players, partners and teams.

The logo is bold and modern, yet approachable. We too are bold in our innovative approach to development, while the approachable aspect comes from the overall culture within the company, and the way we work together internally as well as with our valued clients.

Moving forward as a company, we will continue to remain focused on doing whatever we can to continue to stay ahead of the curve, and provide more top quality content for players that is innovative, exciting, and stands the test of time. Delighting players with new and positive gameplay experiences is key to us, and although we have been successful in achieving this so far, we will continue to inspire ourselves and push our boundaries to ensure that this lives on.

Besides delivering a high quality product, increasing our reach to even more players, is also part of our bigger plans for the upcoming months. We have already finalised some key partnerships lately, such as GVC, William Hill, and more recently, the Rank Group, Norsk Tipping and Gamesys. However, there is plenty more to come. We will also be entering into new markets, which will enable us to deliver our innovative content, and entertain even more players than we are now.

GP: You have just released your latest video slot, Wheel of Wonders. The game is visually stunning and has some great features in store. Can you tell us a bit more about what those features are and what kind of gaming dynamics players can expect from this slot? What bonuses and mini games are available?

Like with all our games, Wheel of Wonders is one we are very keen for players to experience, as it offers something new and different for them to enjoy, when compared to our other releases.

The beauty of this game is that it is highly dynamic, so it will evolve and change as you play. This also means that something exciting and unexpected can happen with every spin, and is set to bring about highly engaging gameplay every time.

Here, the base game offers huge potential and a lot of action starts to take place immediately before you even trigger any of the features. The expanding reels start out at 6x3, but can be built up quickly to 6x6 as new positions are added with every win. As this happens, the number of ways also increases from 729 and can go all the way up to an impressive 46656! Once at the top, the Wheel of Wonders feature is triggered.

Throughout the base game, three levels of Ancient Wheels can be unlocked, and each one rewards players with one of 16 instant prizes ranging from Win or Bet Multipliers, along with several other exciting base game features that bring out even greater anticipation and win potential.

The Wheel of Wonders Free Spins offer 5 free spins, and here the wheel is also filled with multipliers as well as the chance to upgrade for even greater wins. Players are also able to use up any stored features from the base game and upgrade even sooner. Retrigger meters are also possible to fill up here with every win that takes place, which means that even more wins will bring about more free spins and bigger multipliers.

As you can see, it's definitely an action-packed slot that’s got all the right ingredients to thrill players and offer memorable sessions regardless of the final outcome.

GP: Wheel of Wonders is another Push Gaming release that offers some huge prizes for the luckiest players. What kind of top jackpots are we looking at and how likely is one to win them? Considering the game’s high volatility, are we going to require a big balance to play the game effectively?

Like with most of our games, Wheel of Wonders is also at the higher end of the volatility range, at 96.50% and offers some huge win potential that is quite possible to achieve. The base game itself allows for fantastic wins as soon as the ways start to build up with every win, and even greater wins are also attainable through the unlimited multipliers during the free games.

However, that being said, we are proud of the fact that this game offers so much more than just big win potential. It is relatively easy to create a game that does this, however, for us,  the key ingredient of a truly successful game is one that can really keep players engaged throughout their sessions and get them excited to play the game again over time.

We love the fact that something exciting can happen at any moment, and that anticipation builds with every spin that will lead to a different outcome every time. We believe that this game has got what it takes to be another smash hit, and from the feedback we’ve received from players so far, it seems that it’s on the way to do just that.

GP: You were awarded MGA and UKGC gaming licenses in January this year, just before the Coronavirus pandemic started to affect Europe. Has the pandemic and the lockdown affected the way you did business or forced you to change any plans for the near future? Do you see it as being a problem pushing forward?

PG: The pandemic has undoubtedly affected the way we do things, as I’m sure it has for everyone else. That being said, we have also been very lucky to have been able to work almost uninterrupted throughout this time.

That’s not to say that there haven’t been some challenges too. It’s been a tough time, and has affected all of us differently. However, as a company we have all worked hard to collaborate together and keep communication between us going smoothly.

We feel that we’ve been quite successful in doing this, as in some cases, our more frequent meetings have actually improved the way we share information between different departments.

Apart from this, a number of initiatives have been organised internally to keep our spirits up and keep us closer as a team. We’ve had various online workout classes, games nights, art sessions, as well as fitness challenges and meditation sessions just to name a few, which we will continue to do.

GP: Thank you so much for taking the time to take this interview and we wish you the best of luck with your latest release as well as your other projects. We hope we will have a chance to talk again soon about even more exciting things coming out of the Push Gaming studio.

PG: You’re welcome. Thank you for having us, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you and we look forward to catching up again soon.