How do you truly distinguish yourself among a never ending wave of competition? That is precisely the challenge facing Celestar as the new kid of the block looking to carve its own path through a congested iGaming landscape.
Despite this, much confidence has been stressed that the start-up has both the support, direction and USPs to differentiate itself from its vast number of competitors.
At the recent SBC Summit Malta, CEO Vassilis Trochalidis addressed just how the studio will make an impact across the numerous European jurisdictions that lie within its crosshairs, offers a little background as justification of its assuredness, and just what the next 12 months will have in store.
iGaming Expert: To begin, could you give us a little information about Celestar, and, as a new entity within the industry, elaborate on what exactly it is that you represent?
Vassilis Trochalidis: Celestar is a start-up, but it’s part of a small group that is very much established and whose story goes back a few years. It goes back to two brothers who were very successful entrepreneurs in the US.
They set up a social casino business that had a couple of sites in the area of sweepstakes etc. and, as I said, they were very successful and have all the infrastructure to support this endeavour.
This means that we now count over 120 professionals, including engineers, developers, designers and mathematicians, that have a huge capacity, imagination and ability to develop casino slot games. So, having been established in the US, the next step is to play the games for real money.
Of course there was a lot required to adjust the games to comply with European standards. I don’t just mean the Malta Gaming Authority specifications, because we are fully licensed with those, but also to what is appealing to European players.
We have worked with reputable consultancy firms to do that, and we have quite a large portfolio of titles that we are planning to launch. We feel that the infrastructure is there, and although we are a young company we do have big support behind us to do real business in Europe.
iGX: This has been billed as ‘a new era of online slot gaming’. So if we look at your gaming catalogue, why is this so?
VT: It is a new era in the sense that everybody is looking for USPs in games. Everybody is looking for that unique aspect. We would all look to have this, but it’s just as important to look for complete products that are really fulfilling.
When we talk about players, it’s not just about winning. Winning is important, but it’s not just an aspirin you take to heal the pain. There’s a journey there. It’s playing, enjoying the game and then winning.
Every aspect of our titles, from the theme, colours, characters and music, will be created in order to create a pleasant environment for players. That’s important to us.
However, as we’re a B2B company, the player is not really our customer. Just as important as the player and our USPs is that the operator or aggregator understands the support we can offer in terms of pulling those relevant games off the shelf from a huge library.
We are aiming to produce a minimum of five to six titles per month, which is a considerable number. These will also be translated into a number of languages.
We’re aiming at a number of European regulated markets, Spain, Holland, Sweden, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Italy, are all on our radar.
Our games have been translated into local languages and certified by reputable certification labs. We are also prepared to support the operator or aggregator with whatever certification licences needed on a local level to do that.
Our games are also certified not just for a single RTP, but for a whole range of RTPs from 92% to 97-98%, which means we are prepared to tackle markets of various demands.
Overall, I would just like to say to any potential partner, come and talk to us, get in touch with us and see how we can create this new era together.
iGX: You previously mentioned a lot of geographies that are on the Celestar radar. WIth this in mind how do you ensure that you enter it with a purpose and with impact as opposed to just having a token presence? How do you make sure that you can achieve your goals with so many targets?
VT: There are two-parts to this question. The first I have just touched on with the RTP ranges. We’re ready to cover both the lower or higher demands of RTP across various markets.
The other is the likeness and appeal of games per country. We undertook an extensive project a few months ago with a Dutch consultancy firm to help us on this, and tune our games for the markets that I previously mentioned.
We know that there is room for more, which is why we say come and talk to us, because we have the capacity and the willingness to adjust even further.
I would say that this is one of our greatest assets that we’re prepared to move along with the operator and to be in this together. It’s not just a case of giving them a game, walking away and giving it to someone else. We move together on this.
iGX: As a new company, if we were to speak again in a year’s time what milestones would you hope to have achieved?
VT: An obvious achievement would be to have penetrated the number of markets that I mentioned previously, and to have done so with quite a number of games.
The greatest goal or target is that one of the games within our portfolio distinguishes itself and therefore Celestar as a key player within the slots arena.
