Gambling Trend Is Development of Interesting Games and Establishment of New Geographical Markets. Interview with Vladislavs Hveckovics, Co-founder of SoftGamings

“There is a great deal of game developers,” Vladislavs Hveckovics, CIO and co-founder of SoftGamings, says. How has this fact affected gaming software companies? In an interview with Russian Gaming Week, Vladislavs talks about iGaming software development trends established recently.    

SoftGamings is a platform provider and a gaming system aggregator with more than 10 years of experience in the industry. The company offers off-the-shelf relevant solutions and develops its own White Label and turnkey casinos, Self-Service casinos, bitcoin platforms, bonus systems, as well provides integration of casino games by 50+ providers, etc. Over 100 customers have been applying SoftGamings’ products and services since 2008.

Interviewer: Russian Gaming Week (RGW)
Respondent: Vladislavs Hveckovics (V.H.)

RGW: Over the past two years, a lot of experts have been describing gamification as the future of casinos. Do you agree with this opinion? Why?   

V.H.: Gamification enthusiasm has started falling on the foreign market. Currently, there are several pretty successful projects based on gamification (e.g. well-known Casumo) and a huge number of copycats, and even non-gamification ones.    

We believe that there can be a lot of gamification ways: the desire to set players in motion and take them over all games, allowing to collect points and levels, frequently appears to be unreasonable, and gamers get bored.      

If gamification gives an extra incentive to try something new, that’s excellent. If this process fetters players’ opportunities, it can result in the opposite effect. Nevertheless, the majority of casinos are integrating gamification elements, but if such casinos do not have tournaments, levels and so on, it seems mediocre.

RGW: Gaming software development is a little easier today. Thus, the market is full of game development offers. How can a brand withstand competition and not vanish among them?  

V.H.: Indeed, there are plenty of game developers. Moreover, they are really competent and strong with world-class games. Sometimes it seems to us that the market is congested, but most players are in favor of trying something new. The industry growth in general still allows manufacturers to obtain good revenues.      

In my view, the better part of games are similar with predictable math. Therefore, we have the room for improvements. Consequently, we will hardly see any slowdown in the development or amount of new teams in the nearest time. Those offering brand new solutions will occupy their niche.

RGW: How important is gaming software licensing? Why?  

V.H.: As we cooperate only with original manufacturers, it is difficult to tell you what is happening on the illegal software market. The current growth of licensed software application will probably lead to shifting from bootleg versions to original products.    

Obviously, expenditures for licensed software are not the main and fundamental aspect to casinos. Players also like licensed software, as it excludes cheating and unfair math. Besides, payment systems and licensing authorities of different countries have begun to pay close attention to content, so one can lose accounts or licenses.

RGW: Are cryptocurrencies in-demand in the iGaming sector? Why?  

V.H.: They are non-demand in the global sense. Cryptocurrencies have not yet become a modern payment method, as they are not commonly used. Digital money is more popular in some regions than in others, but there are far fewer crypto casinos than online ones. Nevertheless, we offer a turnkey crypto casino. We like its potential and the annual growth of cryptocurrency payments.

RGW: Fight against problem gambling is one of the trends as well. What is the role of developers in this issue?  

V.H.: Tools for combating gambling addiction are quite standard and are legislatively needed in many jurisdictions. I think that requirements in this industry will be toughened, and each developer will be obliged to integrate them in all games.

RGW: Are there any prerequisites to new gambling trends? If so, which ones?

V.H.: The development of new interesting games, including p2p ones, where players can compete with each other. The local regulation and severe payment system operations can be mentioned in many countries.     

The establishment of new geographical markets caused by the growth of mobile quality and speed: Africa, India, etc. It is very interesting to observe the USA: the majority of experts suggest that the online casino and sports betting market will be opened in many states there.