Aristocrat dominates Asia’s slot floors by knowing what works and how to make it better
Macau’s prodigious growth as a slots market the last seven or eight years speaks volumes to just how good manufacturers have gotten at localizing themes, content and playability.
No one has done this better than Aristocrat. To say the New South Wales-based slot giant dominates the city’s floors here is an understatement. At the end of last year, the company estimated its share at 55% to 65% of Macau’s installed base at the time of 16,000 or so machines—a market that generated in US dollar terms more than $1.43 billion in 2011 and is likely to hit $2 billion this year. In some casinos, Aristocrat’s share runs as high as 70%. Ask anyone here whose business is slots, and to a person they’ll rattle off six games that essentially define the experience for the majority of Macau’s machine players—5 Dragons™, Choy Sun Doa™, 50 Dragons™, FA FA FA™, 5 Koi™, Fortune King™—and they’re all Aristocrat’s.
“We had a good base and an understanding of Asia, being Australian,” says David Punter, general manager Asia Pacific for Aristocrat Leisure Limited, recalling how the company first planted its flag in the market in a big way with the opening of Sands Macao back in 2004. “We consider Australia a part of Asia. We’ve got a large contingent of Asian players in Australia. And our games designers represent a combination of Australian-based Chinese, so they understand some of the concepts.”
What Aristocrat grasped early on was that Sands Macao was bringing to the market its first experience with a Western, resort-scale gambling model, with all that implied, including the potential for a mass market that could evolve into a sizable slots market.
“We localized pretty quickly,” Mr Punter remembers. “We came up and we saw certain games we had that weren’t Chinese, so we made sure we had Chinese there. Some of our other competitors came in with more US-based product, and we took a more Australian, a more tailored, approach.”
The result was first-mover advantage. Aristocrat hasn’t looked back since.
5 Dragons, a member of the company’s stalwart Reel Power™ series (as is Choy Sun Doa), was introduced in Macau the year the Sands opened. It is still the most popular standalone in the city. What’s innovative about Reel Power is that it allows players to buy reels rather than lines, opening up scatter pays for all winning combinations, any win with a symbol on an adjacent reel, with up to 243 “ways” to win with 25 credits played. It’s a technology for the serious player. Part of the beauty 5 Dragons brings to it is an “ante” bet, which pays five additional free games in the bonus, the effect of which is to jack RTP to better than 95%. Casino patrons were quick to catch on. They love, too, the fact that in the bonus they can choose their volatility—more spins at lower multipliers or fewer spins at higher multipliers—with a 30-times multiplier that might pay more than 24,000 credits on a single spin. If they re-trigger the bonus feature during the free games, that lets them choose the number of free games and multipliers again after the initial bonus round is complete, which means they can change their volatility in subsequent rounds. Three “Gold Coins” on reels 1, 2 and 3 trigger the free-games bonus. Four or five coins from left to right trigger the bonus starting with a bigger win. Five coins pay 50 times total bet. A “Red Packet” on reel 1 and reel 5 pays a bonus ranging from two to 50 times the bet.
Aristocrat enhanced its edge by layering winning base games like this under its popular Hyperlink™ progressive. The strategy was launched in Macau with Cash Express™, “The Train Game,” as it came to be known among the Chinese, which proved that Macau’s fledgling slot players were more than willing to be seduced by the idea of the big win. It was followed by FA FA FA, the first Hyperlink developed specifically for the Asia-Pacific market, which would emerge as one of the most popular games in the region. Its unique, randomly triggered game-within-a-game and interactive touchscreen let players select any of the “Shrine” symbols in the second screen to reveal either a “Grand, Major, Minor” or “Mini” jackpot character. Any three-symbol match is a win.
Aristocrat’s profits out of the Asia-Pacific region were up more than 51% in 2011, driven by a 21% increase in revenues. Galaxy Macau opened in May of last year with a record 60% Aristocrat machines. The casino’s dedicated high-limit slot area is entirely Aristocrat. Sands Cotai Central opened this spring with half its floor Aristocrat. All of which comes back to stellar game performance.
“The core thing,” says Mr Punter, “is really good maths, fundamentally good games.” They are an outgrowth of “working with our customers closely, understanding their requirements and trying to drive that back into our product portfolio.
“Every successful game is a lot of hits and misses,” he says. “We seemed to have a good mix of games that we’ve taken through different cabinets which have held up, as well as creating new links and some new standalone games which are tailored to the marketplace. That’s probably what’s most important. Our understanding of gaming, the operators’ understanding of gaming, bringing the two together and then driving that back into our D&D and not just taking products off the shelf—that’s what’s driving our competitive edge.”
The phenomenon is being repeated throughout the region. In 2010, roughly 24% of Aristocrat’s Asia-Pacific revenues came from outside Macau and Singapore. Last year, 45.5% did.
“We try and work very closely with our customers because we’ve spent a lot of time in the region,” Mr Punter notes. “I have Account Managers in Singapore dedicated to the region, the Philippines, two in Macau that service here, Vietnam and Korea. I have another Key Account Manager based out of Australia, a gentleman who also covers a broad range of accounts across those regions.”
The “Year of the Dragon” has been an auspicious one for Aristocrat so far. There was the Sands Cotai Central placement, the launch of FA FA FA on the new Viridian WS™ cabinet, with its larger screen, enhanced graphics and sound package and a more flexible foundation to support new game concepts, and the continuation of the company’s “brand extension” strategy with the debut of 5 Koi Legends™, the follow-up to last year’s 5 Dragons Legends™, which has quickly asserted itself as a top performer across the region. Legends lets players choose between a classic game and a deluxe updated version of it—all on the same cabinet. The enhanced graphics of the series provide a more immersive experience. The new, higher win multipliers and mystery feature option add to the excitement with a choice of either six free games with up to a 40-times multiplier or a “Mystery Choice” in the form of a “Pink Dragon,” which randomly picks both free games and multiplier.
“We believe really that taking players on that brand extension journey is the successful step,” says Mr Punter. “Whether it moves them from a standalone game to a better standalone game, a standalone game to standalone progressive, standalone to a link, standalone to a community, standalone to online.”
The slogan Aristocrat has adopted heading into this month’s G2E Asia: “We create Asia’s greatest gaming experience.” They’ll be looking to back that up with an array of new games—Keys of Fortune™, Dragons on the Lake™, Dragon Superior™, 5 Bats™, Heaven & Earth™, The Phantom™—and a new game category called Win Your Way™, which allows players for the first time to choose the volatility of the game to suit their style of play by selecting any one of three pay tables, “Green, Yellow” or “Red”. It will be shown at G2E Asia under the MultiLine hits 50 Dragons and Miss Kitty™.
Here’s a taste of what the company will be exhibiting:
• Keys of Fortune, Aristocrat’s first symbol-driven link progressive, extends the Hyperlink concept but with an integrated free games jackpot feature replacing the mystery trigger. Players collect “Key” symbols to enter the feature for a chance at multiple jackpots depending on the number of “Keys” collected.
RelatedPosts
• Dragons on the Lake, developed on the back of FA FA FA’s success, is Hyperlink 2.0 designed specifically for the Asian market and includes a new jackpot feature based on 5 Dragons. It’s the first Hyperlink with a symbol-triggered jackpot feature coupled with selectable volatility in the feature that lets players target the jackpot they want to hit.
• Dragon Superior, the first Xtreme Mystery™ game available with an LCD topper and enhanced graphics package, gives operators the flexibility of combining a standalone under a mystery link with up to three levels of prizes.
• 5 Bats is based on the success of 5 Dragons and like its popular forbearer incorporates strong maths and selectable volatility with a new progressive jackpot. The top prize can actually exceed 5 Dragons’ with a progressive multiplier.
• The Phantom is a licensed title based on the famous comic book series and one of Aristocrat’s top-performing games outside Asia. A standout on the floor by virtue of its bust topper, edge lighting and leopard skin trim, it includes a new feature called Mega Pay™ that allows up to four games to be played in the free games feature.
“Those are some initiatives, some fundamentals there, some new things, as far as content and links and products, some new categories in our games and our themes,” says Mr Punter. “Then you double that up with new markets opening, with the Philippines and Vietnam, and the larger resorts, as well as doing more work and research into understanding players.”
The understanding, as he’ll tell you, is the part that never gets any easier. In fact, The Phantom will be an early test for Aristocrat in Asia of a new software platform called World Base, which aims, with customer involvement, to guide the company in handpicking proven games from one market for introduction into others.
“We’re pushing it and trying to create innovative game play and features and links and benefits to take it to the next level,” he adds, “and technology’s helping, as is working with the larger resorts that are seeking top-end products. They’re demanding cutting-edge technology as well as good games. It’s exciting times for us. It’s challenging. But I think we’re well-placed. The fundamentals are pretty solid. We just got to make sure the moons align over the next 18 months and drive our plan, keeping an eye on our competitors, who are chipping at our heels daily.”
