Blueprint Gaming has agreed a deal with Warner Bros Discovery Global Experiences (WBDGE) to license the Game of Thrones brand for a series of slot titles across global markets.
Ahead of the release of Blueprint’s Game of Thrones title, iGaming Expert sat down with Charlie Jacka, the studio’s Head of Product, to get a sneak peek into some of the game’s features and the development process.
Jacka touches on how Blueprint brought some of the blockbuster series’ characters and visuals to life for the casino lobby and how it fits into the studio’s wider branded IP strategy.
iGaming Expert: Tell us about the new Game of Thrones games from Blueprint. What titles are in the pipeline and what features will they contain?
Charlie Jacka: With Game of Thrones, we set out to capture the scale, progression and sense of conquest that define the series, while anchoring the experience in a mechanic players already know and value. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we built the title on our established Money Collect framework, layering in thematic progression inspired by the world of Westeros and enhancing a model that has consistently resonated with audiences.
Feature-wise, it’s built on our Money Collect mechanic, so there’ll be many base-game modifiers we’ve introduced, plus all-new collect variants in the base game. Players will recognise these, but we slightly tweak them to keep them fresh. We also have a free spins round, which is in our traditional trail format. The difference in this title is in the base game. Once the player has unlocked the Collect modifiers, they’ll then unlock the Game of Thrones map, and then from there, once they make it to the end of the trail, they’ll then unlock a super bonus slash feature round.
As we go along this trail, players collect bonus enhancements. The further you get along the trail, the better, because you get more enhancements.
iGX: Game of Thrones is one of the biggest cultural phenomena of the last decade, so how big a milestone is it to have secured that branded IP for your content?
CJ: We think this is probably the biggest brand that we could get. At ICE, when we were presenting to global operators, people in every market knew what Game of Thrones was, and everybody loved it. For us, it is a massive opportunity, and we feel like it can’t really get much bigger than this, so we’ve given it our full 100%.
iGX: How will you look to bring the Game of Thrones IP to life in your content through visual and audio?
CJ: This is actually quite a nice problem for us to have because there is so much you can do with Game of Thrones. Essentially, some of the episodes are games themselves. It’s quite hard to incorporate everything into one game, but we’ve incorporated as many of the characters as we can and as many of the sound effects, such as the dragons. In the future, we think we can build out multiple versions of Game of Thrones while keeping it fresh.
iGX: Do you have licensing rights to all the characters?
CJ: We have the majority of the key talent from the show. That’s a great thing because the last Game of Thrones that was launched a few years ago didn’t have any.. Luckily, we’ve got a lot to work with the talent this time around. There’s so much we want to do with it, and we’ve got so many plans for the future. It’s definitely something we want to double down on.
iGX: What demographic of players are you looking to target through these releases?
CJ: It’s a good question, actually, because we do look at this when we’re doing branded titles. But from the data we’ve looked at regarding Game of Thrones, what we know per market is that it appeals to all age groups, among people above 18 who could watch it. So for this title, there isn’t really a demographic on gender or age, because as far as we’re aware and what we’ve seen, it’s fair to say that it appeals to such a wide audience.
iGX: Branded IP has played a massive role in Blueprint’s content in recent years? How powerful is it for you to have access to those brands and what role does it play in your content strategy?
CJ: It’s no secret that out of all the suppliers in the market, Blueprint has one of the biggest numbers of brands. We go to town a bit more on branded IP and, within our strategy, we always want to make sure that we’re keeping things fresh.
The key thing for us is to incorporate that brand into proven models or player favourite mechanics while introducing new elements. In terms of our strategy, certainly moving forward, where we’ve got a lot of brands to go at it, I think it’s quite niche for us.
We are one of the only suppliers that has this kind of portfolio, and we are certainly looking to double down on brands and increase the volumes into 2026 and beyond.
iGX: Is it a case of bringing players a level of familiarity through those brands?
CJ: Of course. It’s a nice story for operators to tell as well. It certainly gets them excited when you’ve got a branded game that everyone knows, and hopefully people like. In that sense, it’s great for exposure and for getting players to a game. It instantly gives it some initial traction. Operators certainly want to get behind our games for that reason.
