Supplier News
US – Aristocrat announces pre-orders of 800 for The Walking Dead
By Phil - 17 December 2013
Aristocrat Technologies believes that its The Walking Dead slot machine based on the AMC cable television series will prove the company’s most successful new game ever.
Having launched the game at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas in September, pre-distribution orders have already surpassed more than 800 games. The first bank of Walking Dead slots will go live at Atlantic City’s Borgata before Christmas.
The games will then be released across the States in early January. Dallas Orchard, Aristocrat’s Vice President of gaming operations, said the pre-orders for Walking Dead were the highest he’d seen. The company’s hugely successful slot ode to Tarzan didn’t surpass 800 orders until six months after it was released.
“This had to be one of the best licenses available at the time. I think AMC is pretty happy with what we developed,” Mr. Orchard said.
The hope for Aristocrat is that AMC’s leading brand combined with Aristocrat’s math and the experience of Aristocrat’s surround sound iChair will attract a horde of new players in a game that challenges players to win the fight for survival.
Since its debut in October 2010, The Walking Dead has become the most-watched TV drama in cable TV history. The season three finale set ratings records, attracting 12.4 million viewers total, with 8.1m viewers in the key 18 to 49 demographic. The show also has nearly 17m followers on Facebook and has earned two Emmy Awards.
“We are very excited to bring AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’ to our product line of player-favorite games. We have been very aggressive in bringing top licensed products to operators and to their players, and this new license with AMC and ‘The Walking Dead’ is a continuation of that strategy,” Mr. Orchard added.
“Capitalising on the show’s dedicated following; we have designed a game that will appeal to the show’s audience which consistently draws a viewership, the most for any show on television for the 18 to 49 demographic. Clips and images from the show will combine with our proven math models to create an incredible experience.”
Housed in the VERVEhd cabinet, it is packed with clips from the Emmy Award-winning drama that follows a group of survivors struggling to stay alive in rural Georgia after a worldwide zombie apocalypse.
Bonus features include Reel Growth, where reels will randomly grow to a height of 5, 6 or 7 high; Wild Attack, where random positions in Reel Growth are replaced with Wild; The Horde, where the horde reveals a winning combination on the reels in Reel Growth. In Atlanta Wheel Bonus, players win credits, jackpots, CDC Wheel or Escape from Atlanta Free Games. In CDC Wheel, players win credits, multiple prizes with the Grenade or trigger Walker Bonus spins with a multiplier. Players win free games in Escape From Atlanta Free Games, and there is a Grand Jackpot that starts at $500,000.
Eilers Research founder Todd Eilers agreed that 800 games on order this early was ‘a strong number’ for a new slot.
The US slot sector’s top game remains Wheel of Fortune, based on the popular television game show and owned by International Game Technology. There are 8,600 Wheel of Fortune games in the US market.
