Two of the world’s largest slot machine and gaming product manufacturers, Scientific Games and International Game Technology (IGT), have signed a historic patent cross-licensing agreement.
Under the agreement, the industry giants will be able to offer games using patented game features from each other’s portfolios, as well as those of other members of the IGT slot game features pool. Financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.
The agreement follows major mergers by both companies in recent years, with Scientific games having purchased Bally Technologies and SHFL entertainment Inc for US$5.1 billion in 2014 as well as WMS for around US$1.4 billion. IGT merged with Italian company GTECH Holdings in a US$6.4 billion deal in 2015.
In a recent interview with Inside Asian Gaming, IGT’s Chief Executive Officer – International, Walter Bugno, said the company was coming from “a little bit behind the pack” of companies such as Scientific Games and Aristocrat in regards to its global expansion plans, specifically into Asia.
“When we merged IGT with the gaming part of GTECH, Spielo, the international component of the business became much more important,” Mr Bugno said.
“We need to develop Asian games for Asian markets rather than trying to export games here and that’s a process that takes a couple of years. You don’t always get it right the first time either, so we’re going through that process at the moment.
“This year is the first time we’ve started to bring a lot of new content which has been developed specifically for the Asian market. We have some structural changes in regards to studios and people that are focusing solely on Asia.”
