Greentube at 25: Finding the Next Big Hit

As Greentube continues to celebrate 25 years in the industry, the company is looking forward as much as reflecting on the journey that established it as a major force in online gaming. At its Vienna headquarters, Head of Global Sales and Marketing Markus Antl and Opher Ben Zvi, Team Leader of Sales Operations explain how a more focused, data-led content strategy is bringing sales, marketing and product closer together, why localisation increasingly means picking the right markets rather than trying to serve them all, and whether the next Book of Ra can still emerge in an industry where hundreds of suppliers are competing for players’ attention.

Markus, Greentube reaches its 25th anniversary with a presence in around 50 markets. You’ve previously described the company’s content strategy as roughly 80:20 – predominantly games and franchises that can travel globally, with around 20 per cent tailored to individual markets. As Greentube enters more diverse jurisdictions, does maintaining that balance become harder?

Markus: It depends on the overall strategy and which markets we actively want to push. We are now present in around 50 markets, most of them fully regulated, and it would be very difficult to create localised content for every one of them. You have to pick your battles. When it comes to newer markets, the US is somewhere we want to grow, so we are making content specifically for the US. In Europe, we know that our objective is to defend our position in existing markets, so of course, we’re looking at how localisation could help us do this, and grow further.

The Netherlands is one example where we have done quite a lot of localised content. Classic AWP content from land-based gaming has traditionally performed very well there, so we can bring games such as Random Runner online and present them in a way that closely resembles the original land-based machine. We are also looking at more localisation in Germany and potentially Switzerland. We have already done so in Austria, while Italy is our biggest market, and we continue to grow there. The question is whether more localised content could help us grow even further.

When you approach localisation, where does the inspiration come from? Is Greentube primarily drawing upon NOVOMATIC’s land-based heritage or looking at what is already succeeding online?

Markus: It is a mixture. Since Greentube was established and subsequently became part of NOVOMATIC, we have had the advantage of being able to draw on the company’s land-based experience. When we entered South Africa, for example, we could ask our NOVOMATIC colleagues there what was already working in the land-based market. But we also look at what competitors are doing. We analyse which themes and mechanics work, what levels of volatility players prefer and which types of games are succeeding.

Does entering somewhere like the US therefore require Greentube to think differently from established European markets where the company already has strong brands?

Markus: Absolutely, and that is one of the reasons the job never becomes boring. I have been here for around 15 years. In Europe, having NOVOMATIC behind us gives us an advantage because there are products and brands in our portfolio that everybody knows and wants. The challenge here is taking that success to the next stage and asking whether we can find the next Book of Ra and develop something ourselves that achieves that kind of position.

When we entered the US, we were relatively unknown in the region. We had to ask what we needed to do differently to succeed. We knew, for example, that stepper games were important and that lock-and-spin mechanics had originated and become very successful there. We already had games using those concepts in our portfolio. We had effectively taken some of those ideas from the US, made them successful in Europe through families such as Diamond Link, and then reintroduced them into the US. That worked well for us. Now we are building from there and managed to add more successful games such as Piggy Prizes and Rumble Riches to the portfolio.

Book of Ra is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Given the sheer number of games being released today, is it still possible to create a title capable of achieving that kind of longevity and influence?

Markus: I think it is possible, but it happens less frequently. There are still examples across the industry of games that become major franchises, but the environment has changed enormously. Particularly online, it feels as though a new game studio is founded every day.

Look at the biggest casino sites, and they can have hundreds of suppliers. There might be new games arriving from 20 different suppliers in a single day. You are no longer necessarily fighting for a top position that you can keep for a week. You might be fighting to have your game visible for an afternoon. That makes creating a major hit much more difficult because if players don’t discover a game and spend enough time with it, it doesn’t have an opportunity to stick.

Getting that exposure requires investment. You need marketing, promotions and positioning with operators. That is one of the reasons we have changed our strategy.

How has that strategy changed?

Markus: Previously, we might launch 40, 50 or 60 games a year, and the expectation was that sales should push them everywhere. We realised we didn’t need to certify every game in every market because, based on feedback from operators and what we’re seeing in individual markets, we already know that certain games are unlikely to work everywhere.

Now we are much more focused. We can launch a game in markets where we believe it fits and, if the data is encouraging, add further markets afterwards. We have also changed how we approach promotions. In the past, we had a limited marketing budget and essentially gave everybody a little bit of it. Now we are much more selective. From those 40 to 60 games, perhaps 10 to 15 will receive a significant push during the year. Others can be promoted locally, or we can wait for the initial data to see whether a game demonstrates enough potential to warrant additional investment. It is about spending more money on the things we have much greater confidence will work.

Has that increased focus also resulted in a more data-driven approach to deciding where and when individual games should be promoted. How granular has that become?

Opher: There is a huge amount of data in gambling, and we are putting much more of it into context. Previously, you might say, “This is a great game, let’s promote it.” Now we want to know why it is a great game, where it is a great game and when we should promote it. We have gone from saying, “Book of Ra is a great game, let’s promote it,” to asking whether we should promote that particular game on this site, in this market, during this specific week.

We have developed a tool around that approach which allows us to become much more precise. It is also valuable for our customers because they can come to us with an opportunity to do something together and we can analyse much more than their individual site. They benefit from what we can see across different markets and operators.

We can recommend not only the game but the context around it – perhaps this particular title with this type of cashback promotion during this particular week, which gives us a much greater degree of confidence about how we use promotional activity.

Has that changed how you define whether a game is successful?

Markus: We look at games differently now. We have created an index that considers a range of different factors. You cannot simply say, “This is a great game.” It might be a great game for Switzerland but not necessarily for the US. Another title could work extremely well in both. We look at stakes, GGR, active players and uptake – how many customers put the game online on day one, within the first week and during the first month.

What makes me particularly happy is that, through looking at this data regularly, the sales team has become very good at looking at the product roadmap and identifying which games we think will work and which probably won’t. We are right a lot of the time now, and that’s because we have developed as a team and understand the content much better.

Does actually playing the games materially improve your understanding of the customer?

Markus: I think it does. Ultimately, we work B2B and our customers are operators, but who actually plays the games? Players. By playing more ourselves, we have developed a better feeling for why something works. When you spend time with a game, you begin to understand what the player is experiencing and why they might continue playing it. If you play yourself, you can better understand why someone is playing your game, what they want to see, and what could improve the next version. That is also valuable information that we can take back to the product team and say, “This game is great, but if it had this particular feature, perhaps it could be even better.”

Has communication between sales and product become closer as a result?

Markus: Very much so. In the past I don’t think we were aligned as well as we should have been. Towards the end of last year, we looked at how we could improve this, and one of these areas was how can we ensure the sales team gives more feedback and involvement to the development of our games. Now, game studios pitch the games they would like to develop, and those proposals are shared with the sales team. I sit in meetings alongside the board and the Director of Games Portfolio where we discuss whether we should proceed with a concept. It sounds like a relatively small structural change, but it makes a big difference.

How important is operator feedback within that process?

Opher: Very important. Because of the relationships we have with customers, and because we have demonstrated the value of the data and promotional work we are doing, we can have much more detailed conversations about what they actually want from Greentube. We can ask: what do you want to see that you’re not getting from us today?

With AI, we can now even sit down with an operator and quickly create a mock-up of a game concept together. We can take that to the studios and product team and say: “This is what this customer wants to see in Italy.” Of course, some ideas won’t make sense for us, but even an idea that initially sounds unusual can tell us something about what the market is asking for.

A customer recently gave us interesting feedback on two music-themed games. They loved the concept and told us that this type of content was missing. That gives us another piece of information: perhaps rock-themed games are something worth exploring for that market. And it just so happens that we have two releasing in September, with Highway to Bell Stack & Collect™ and Stairway to Sevens Stack & Collect™.

You have also been bringing the international sales teams together specifically to generate product ideas. How does that work?

Markus: Once or twice a year, we have what we call Game Days. The sales teams from different countries come together, and we spend a day or two going through individual markets, presenting what is happening and consolidating the feedback we’re receiving. We then bring that information back into the wider organisation.

At the latest session, we also used AI as part of an exercise. Before the workshop, everybody had to create one or two mock-ups for a game they believed could work either in their market or globally. We spent around half a day presenting those concepts. What was particularly interesting was hearing somebody present an idea for one country and having somebody else say, “Actually, that could work for my market as well.”

Some of those ideas have gone back to product development. We are now developing an Italian-themed game that emerged from that process, combining a locally relevant theme and presentation with mechanics that we already know work in the market. I’m very curious to see how it performs because, if it succeeds, it demonstrates that this whole process is producing something tangible.

Does involving sales in the creation of a game also make the team more invested when it eventually reaches the operator?

Markus: One hundred per cent. That is something we have deliberately tried to increase since last year. It creates ownership because you have been part of the conversation from the beginning. It also means the people who are constantly speaking with operators and looking at what competitors are doing can contribute that knowledge before development begins, rather than afterwards.

Book of Ra famously took time to build its audience. In today’s much faster market, will operators still give a game time if Greentube genuinely believes it has potential?

Markus: Yes, and I think our relationship with operators is important here. We have deliberately taken a very honest sales approach. We don’t want to tell a customer that every game is fantastic. If we have a game we genuinely believe in, but the initial numbers haven’t been particularly strong, we can sit with the operator and explain why we still think it has potential. Maybe there is a particular mechanic or feature that hasn’t had the opportunity to shine yet.

Then we can ask them to try it with us. We might invest ourselves, offer a discount or even make it available free for a period if they are prepared to give it better positioning. There is no additional cost for them; we simply want to test whether the game performs differently when it gets the right opportunity. That honesty has helped us build long-term relationships. We want to be able to look the same customers in the eye two, three or four years from now.

Some of the major brands we work with have been customers for five or six years. We even have operators telling us that when we develop something new, such as a platform, they are happy to test it before it is completely finished because they trust us.

So if a game initially struggles, data can help distinguish between a weak product and a good game that simply hasn’t been given the right opportunity?

Markus: Exactly. Sometimes a game might not perform in several markets but we see it working somewhere else where player behaviour is similar. That gives us a reason to look again. Perhaps it was positioned badly. Perhaps it wasn’t on the front page for long enough. Perhaps it was promoted at the wrong time. Even payday can be important. If you get strong positioning around payday, the game is more likely to be played. If we genuinely believe in it, we can try again, but we do it honestly with the operator. And if it still doesn’t work, we’re prepared to take responsibility for that.

Markus, you now oversee both sales and marketing. How important is bringing those two functions together, particularly when Greentube is trying to build the next generation of game brands?

Markus: It is extremely important. Ultimately, we are one big team and we need all of these functions working together. We can achieve certain things independently, but we can be much more successful if sales and marketing are involved from the very beginning – from the game idea onwards – so we can start building the story and the brand around the product.

We want to push our game families more strongly and increase product marketing across our channels. Marketing is also becoming involved in roadmap planning, so the team sees games much earlier and can start thinking about the story around them rather than receiving a finished product immediately before launch.

The important point is that these changes only began towards the end of last year. From the initial idea to a game going live can take a year to 18 months, which means we haven’t yet seen the full effect of the structural and strategic changes we’ve made. We should begin to see that towards the end of this year and into next year. A lot of work has gone into it, everybody is fully invested, and we’re very much looking forward to seeing the results.