AGS will open two more interactive game studios to support the rapidly growing demand for the company’s burgeoning omnichannel slot offerings.
The company’s existing interactive studio has helped to nearly triple AGS’s interactive business, Zoe Ebling, vice president of interactive, said. “We will now have content from three interactive studios, and that plays into a lot more omnichannel offerings. We’ve been strategic about where we’ve placed these studios and how we do land-based development, so we’re scaling the interactive business to meet the demands we’ve created.”
With the additions, AGS will have 10 game studios around the world.
Ebling said the demarcation between online and in-person slot play has faded since the introduction of online gaming in the United States. “People want to move from one to the other,” she said. “When you’re able to have someone play on multiple channels, their lifetime values skyrockets. That’s what we want to expand.”
One way to encourage the crossover is by having “activation” events that appeal to both in-person and online players. She cited a recent event with BetMGM with Rakin’ Bacon Jackpot Bonus Wheel and Rakin’ Bacon Jackpot Bonus Board, which are available online and on land.
“We curate an experience where we bring online customers into the casino. Maybe you attract casino people, and tell them about online. There’s a lot of ways you could move people in and out, but what you need is something that ignites that. We’ve found a lot of success in these experiences.”
She noted that gaming is not the only industry finding ways to help customers bridge the gap between online and retail operations. Target and Walmart, for example, offer the option of buying online and picking up at the store or buying in-store and having it shipped to the buyer’s home. Fast-food operator Carl’s Jr. did a pop-up nightclub event using influencers to draw people in and then served Carl’s Jr. hamburgers to all. Last year, Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas celebrated the 65th birthday of the Barbie doll, with a mammoth ball pit and photo opportunities in oversize Barbie boxes.
“As we move further and further into a digital space, physical things are going to become more and more valuable,” Ebling said. “We see these intersections of digital and physical occurring, not just in our space, but in other spaces, so we know this area of convergence is really valuable.”
AGS has found success with events that have a non-gaming theme. She pointed to the company’s Hawaiian-themed “Aloha Alberta” events held simultaneously across 30 properties in Alberta, Canada, celebrating the Rakin’ Bacon family of slots. “We had product on both sides, but we applied this really fun theme. It’s about making sure it grabs peoples’ attention,” Ebling said. In this case, casinos had staff members throughout the casinos wearing leis, flowers, or other paraphernalia to spotlight the event.
“Instead of just having digital marketing and maybe something on the floor, we had a team of people that were working together,” Ebling said. “When we can engage a property and really get everybody working toward the same vision and goal, we see better success.”
Several online operators prefer being the exclusive provider of a particular slot title or line as part of their overall player-retention strategy. “We have so much that we can carve out so one customer can have this game family and another can have that game family,” Ebling said. “We try to have that something special be relevant to what their business is, so we also feed into what the operators want.”
AGS Interactive is active in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and several European countries, including the United Kingdom, Italy, and Romania.
While many users and retailers have become accustomed to functioning easily in both online and land-based settings, Ebling said the gaming industry as a whole is not there yet. “It’s still so fragmented,” she said. “But we know we have to have offerings that are seamless, that are frictionless. That’s where we’re going.”