Although free-to-play games are a key asset for online casino operators, their pay-to-play products drive revenue and player acquisition.
As one of the leading providers of free-to-play games, Incentive Games has entered the real-money gaming sector by producing a portfolio of crash and arcade games.
In the second half of a two-part special with iGaming Expert, Ahmed Baker, Chief Commercial Officer at Incentive Games, details how the company will continue to uphold its high-quality standard of free-to-play games that run side-by-side with its pay-to-play games.
“While the company strategy is to offer new real-money games, we know free-to-play is still an essential part of our portfolio,” he explains. “We use the free-to-play games to funnel the users into our real-money games”.
“We are very rich in data. There’s a lot to play with and a lot to leverage.”
This is due to Incentive Games’ strategy to incorporate its free-to-play and pay-to-play offerings into a combined ecosystem, where players earn credits from the former to use in the latter.
Baker explains that this will allow free-to-play games to “remain an important part of our portfolio” because the supplier “is not just trying to push real-money gaming” but will “combine them with free-to-play which results in exponential growth”.
The supplier’s free-to-play and pay-to-play offerings are powered by its Incentive Labs division, a team of “some of the best data scientists in the industry” who focus on player behaviour, segmentation, user research, and more.
Baker details how the division will ensure that Incentive Games’ pay-to-play offering increases player engagement through “data-driven” games supported by previous iterations.
He states, “We are very rich in data. There’s a lot to play with and a lot to leverage, so we can guarantee that the products we bring to the industry will be data-driven. They aren’t just random products that are coming to market; they will be player-led.
“What we aim to do, and have done with some of the content we already have, is produce variations of the base-game as time goes on. We have a game called MEGA Flight, and another variant will be based on what we learned from the first game.
“A lot of games are commodity products and are very competitive.”
“This will add value every time we build content, using these data experts that focus on improving and enhancing content.”
The CCO also refers to the company’s vision to create an “engagement cycle” using the data that supports the real-money games, similar to the provider’s range of free-to-play titles.
“A lot of the data that we’re using currently for the real-money gaming side is actually from the free-to-play offering,” he says. “We’ve tried to build a ‘hook cycle’, getting players into the habit of returning. This is something that we can use to create real-money gaming content, too.
Baker suggested nothing is “off the table” regarding the products operators and players can expect from Incentive Games’ pay-to-play offering.
He comments: “If you look at slots in general, it’s a very saturated field. A lot of games are commodity products and are very competitive, whereas most operators now tend to introduce an arcade category for differentiated and more recreational content. This is where we feel we can add more value and stand out.
“We will be doing classic games such as Plinko, Mines and Towers but crash games will be a key focus. This is where we can differentiate our products into the market.”
“We plan on building a family of games, and our products will have multiple iterations.”
Tapping into the popularity of crash games will be key to the success of Incentive Games’ personalised offering for operators, with Baker believing that “we can do it in a very different way”.
He notes: “Crash gaming is recreational, very easy to follow and resonates across almost all markets globally. If you look at the numbers behind popular crash games, they are phenomenally high.
“I think you’ll see a lot more providers creating crash games, and that’s why we’ve also focused on such content. We believe we can do it in a very different way. By being personable and working with operators to leverage IP and create bespoke content.
“We believe we can change the game in the crash segment,” Baker adds.
To round out the conversation, Baker believes that Incentive Games will thrive in the real-money gaming industry by using its cyclical ecosystem and data-led production teams.
Baker concludes: “We plan on building a family of games, and our products will have multiple iterations. I don’t think there will just be any products on the shelf. We will cut through a lot of the noise, purely through the scientific and data-driven approach we will be taking.”
