Pulse
Playson: catering to a Netflix-style of thinking
By William - 2 January 2023
Ahead of launching a new promotional tool catering to the short attention span of modern players, Anna Guseva, Product Owner at Playson, explains how a ‘Netflix-style’ of thinking is shaping the supplier’s development ethos.
Anna, what is your remit as Product Owner for Playson’s promotional tools?
As the Product Owner, I’m responsible for Playson’s promo tools portfolio, which involves bringing ideas to life and analysing products to see how we can further improve them. I research market needs and work with our product and platform teams to implement the ideas in new promotional tools.
Another aspect of my duties is to help our partners to utilise our promo tools in the best possible way and help them grow their businesses.
What is the direction of travel when it comes to promotional tools in the iGaming industry? What are we seeing more of, and what’s becoming stale?
We’ve noticed that casino operators and game providers are struggling to find ways to maximise player retention. With new games being released almost every day, the market is oversaturated and this makes it extremely difficult to stand out.
Our promotional portfolio is comprehensive, consisting of features that can give players instant benefits, as well as the opportunity to claim larger wins across a longer time period.
Currently, we’re focusing on our tournaments and promotional tools such as Free Spins and CashBlast – a tool which distributes random cash prizes to deliver a more immersive gaming experience.
What does a next generation and comprehensive engagement toolkit consist of?
It seems to me that there’s a universal trend of shorter attention spans, with players quickly losing interest in products and wanting to try other forms of entertainment.
Players are exhibiting what we call a Netflix-style of thinking: they’re finding it hard to focus on one task for a long amount of time, desire quick wins and want lots of things on the go.
There’s a growing number of non-traditional players that don’t understand how slots work; this emerging demographic has made the task of player engagement harder.
Our strategy is to deliver promotional tools for our partners that work in the long-term and short-term. We want to make sure we can keep players engaged for a long period of time, but also give them immediate wins.
Playson will shortly be announcing the launch of a new promo tool called Short Races. Could you share more details about the innovation?
We wanted to diversify our portfolio with a fast-paced and short-lived tool that appeals to the short attention spans of modern players – like short episodes on Netflix, everything is fast and clear.
The Short Races promo tool features the same win mechanics and characteristics you find in short-lived tournaments. In order to maximise player engagement, the new product will include highly motivating prize pools, where a player can receive an award at almost any time.
What inspired the tool’s development? How does it build upon Playson’s existing offer?
The trend of shorter attention spans was definitely a key factor, but we also conducted research and asked our operator customers for feedback.
When communicating with partners, we found that a promotional tool that offered a short burst of excitement would be a strong addition to our portfolio. So, we conducted experiments with short tournaments and our analytics showed positive results.
How does Playson quantify player engagement? What metrics have you used to test the success of your new tool to operators?
When measuring the performance of promo tools, we always look at what the main goal was. Depending on this, we might look at the growth of unique players, increase in bets placed and macro rounds in terms of specific promotional campaigns.
With Short Races, we did our own experiments and got positive feedback – this informs our partners that the new tool does what’s required and will be a success.
Tournaments are becoming increasingly prominent as a means of engagement. Does the communal, competitive element of tournaments set them aside as an engagement tool like no other?
In my opinion, tournaments are the most common tool for player engagement within the slots space. While our tournaments are highly successful, we’ve diversified our portfolio to fill the gap between tournaments and game releases, and our brilliant CashBlast tool is a great example of this.
Although, with our Short Races tool composing of similar mechanics seen in tournaments, you could argue that we’ve modified an existing concept and released it as another feature. In some ways, this pays respect to the strength of tournaments and how they can elevate engagement by themselves.
Should all games utilise tournaments, or do certain titles lend themselves better to the format?
I think it’s important to cherry pick the right games for each tournament and not mindlessly insert all games into an event. For example, our tournaments are often advertised around various themes and to elevate the experience, we pick the right games for each promotion.
Additionally, by segmenting your titles across different promotions, you’re giving players a more unique and tailored experience every month.
How important is it for operators to offer a range of tournament types to cater to different player demographics?
It’s very important to offer a variety of tournament types as different players have different preferences. Therefore, the more diversified we are, the more chances we can attract a large group of players.
Short Races complements this as it can attract different types of players and gives operators the chance to offer the short burst of excitement that many users seek.
We also utilise specific mechanics that cater to different demographics. This includes winning multipliers, one-spin points or win races for VIPs. This allows you to attract more regular customers, as you’re levelling the playing field.
What differentiates Playson’s tournaments from those offered by other suppliers?
A major benefit is the fact that there’s no need for integration and the configuration is very simple. We also offer custom designs, several types of prizes and the possibility of issuing different levels of limitations.
We don’t just want to present a great tournament, we want to deliver a product that can be unique to partners, matching their brand values and being flexible to their market needs.
