Interactive

ICE – Habanero hoping for international year

By Phil - 27 January 2016

After a year of developing its games and quietly doing deals in Asia, Habanero is now ready to burst onto the international scene. According to CEO Nic Ioannoy, 2016, starting at next week’s ICE, is going to be hot for Habanero.

“Habanero has been around for a while now, but things really got going in 2012 when the company was bought by a group of European investors,” he explained. “As industry veterans, we were aware that competition was stiff for suppliers, yet we were convinced that there was still room for a flexible provider of quality slots and table games who could tailor their products to the widest possible variety of devices and operating systems, as well as individual markets.

Mr. Ioannoy added: “As a result, we put together a team of skilled designers, developers, and mathematicians who had the know-how to produce games that would appeal to hard-core slot fans and casual gamers alike. Habanero now has offices in Johannesburg, Manila, Sofia, and Kiev and a very good understanding of what modern online and land-based operators and their players want.”

“The first job for the team was to make sure that existing content performed to the same high standards across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. A significant number of the best games of the Flash catalogue are being converted across to HTML5 and will be ready by January 2016. The games work beautifully in portrait and landscape modes and players enjoy the same immersive experience no matter what they chose to play them on.

Our solution is multi-language and multi-currency administered through a single back office, tailored to suit the individual requirements of the operator. As well as games, we provide payment solutions and an end to end casino management system with all industry options supported. Operators and aggregators are serviced by client and integration support both in Chinese and English,” he added.

“We’ve also got some fantastic new products on the way, all of which has been designed in HTML5 too. Games like Ruffled Up and Bombs Away are very different to what’s on the market at the moment. As well as producing great graphics and soundtracks for all our games, we’ve also thought long and hard about themes and storylines. These have become quite formulaic in some places and I think players are crying out for fresh ideas.

The quality of our games has already helped us secure deals with over twenty operators in Asia, which is a specialist area for us. More and more suppliers and operators are trying to make the most of that market, amid a new-found confidence in RNG slot games,” Mr. Ioannoy explained. “They are a perfect accompaniment to the hugely popular live dealer. But the different territories are idiosyncratic and require different solutions. We are helped greatly by having people like our Head of Asia, Daniel Long, on board, who not only understands the industry but local culture too. But it’s not all about Asia for Habanero. We feel we’ve got the breadth and depth of games to satisfy brands in multiple territories.”