Pulse
QTech Games: efficient evolution in Europe’s slipstream
By Lewis - 14 December 2020
Ulf Norder, CCO of QTech Games, details the opportunities and challenges facing aggregators in Asia and emerging markets. Ulf hails the company’s success with its new campaign tool in helping to carve out a niche in an increasingly competitive aggregation space.
Is the need to adapt and innovate now more pressing than ever for aggregators?
Yes, but I think that the same could be said of every stall in the marketplace, particularly in an industry with a proven flair for innovation. Of course, the onus is always on aggregators to add something extra: open up new markets, harness the latest tech or the proprietary marketing tools that readily give your partners an edge for new accounts, increased activity and ultimately reliable retention.
QTech Games’ proprietary technology means we’re the only aggregator that is not just delivering fantastic games but also adding engaging features (such as daily or weekly tournaments and progressive jackpots) which are constantly being upgraded and refined. Other powerful gamification layers also include live leaderboards, which constantly update in real-time, allowing players to keep track of their progress throughout a tournament, increasing engagement and dwell time through a battle for bragging rights.
Just take the median performance statistics from our signature QT Tournament campaign tool which reveals revenue surges of between 30-40 per cent for all participating studios, alongside multiple increases in the number of active customers. Recent prize pools up to $15,000 for this fresh series of rewards campaign have been sponsored by partners such as Thunderkick, Ezugi and Epic Media.
For example, beginning in February we ran a 20-day tournament in partnership with Thunderkick, a studio based out of Stockholm keen to showcase their range of games. The report unpacked three different periods, each generating progressively favorable comparisons with the previous month for engagement and turnover.
For topline growth, Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) was up 26.3 per cent month-by-month, with QT Tournament rounds also up by 24.02 per cent. Rather than a one-off success story, I’m happy to say that these robust and repeatable figures are forming part of a reliable trend.
At QTech Games, we pride ourselves on staying ahead of pressing industry trends, and that’s never been more important than during the ‘new normal’ post COVID-19’s outbreak and its subsequent unpredictable waves. QT Tournament essentially allows operators to select specific games or studios like Thunderkick whose popular games they want to promote.
These ‘championship’ campaigns foster an ideal environment for providers to boost their games with a great opportunity to generate extra exposure and sustainability. For operators, it’s an influential marketing tool for improving acquisition and retention rates by offering players a chance to win big from small stakes. The terms of these rewards can be easily maneuvered and directed to fulfil any operator’s preferred conditions, and are also configurable by tournament.
Carving a niche
We have carved out a unique position in the aggregation space at a time when it’s vital to adapt if you want to not only survive but also thrive as an aggregator. We have more features to be announced over the coming months, and firmly believe that the Asian market is evolving effectively in the slipstream of its more proven European forerunner. The price of player loyalty for any given casino is assuredly becoming more nuanced and demanding.
The QTech Games platform is integrated with the industry’s best games from the world’s top suppliers. We provide brands with everything needed to run a flexible and responsible gaming offering, complete with bonusing tools, segmentation, reporting, responsibility checks and data analytics.
As a jumping-off point this is crucial, especially when you’re operating across diverse worldwide regions, where cultural trends and player preference can vary wildly. Consequently, only a localised premium-product set will speak to any given audience – and QTech’s proprietary tech delivers that flexibility in spades.
Wherever you set you set your scene, we know the gaming revolution will progressively be mobile led. Therefore, operators that can’t provide an engaging mobile user interface (from intuitive design to basic glyph size, let alone the native language) will be swiftly left behind.
More broadly, trends strongly suggest that players using mobile devices are predominantly rolling their screens in one direction: portrait. Understanding how to enhance the UX to reflect this has become the new battleground when it comes to customer retention. You’ve got to have the RNG mobile games that exploit an interface’s real estate efficiently.
At QTech Games, our modus operandi has been to tailor our platform to the overwhelming number of players whose gaming sessions are on smartphones. This business decision is obviously down to the amount of time people spend interacting with their devices – a tide that is only moving one way as mobiles almost become an extension of our consciousness, or at least an add-on to our cognitive experience. Studies show that people check their phone on average nearly 100 times a day.
Regarding the games themselves, dazzling graphics and immersive soundscapes are all for nothing if you can’t get the mathematics right. So, the dials of data science have to be set correctly. Indeed, you need a multi-faceted gaming suite that can vary the volatility spectrum. After all, many games offer similar experiences from a maths-modelling point of view and that can lead to predictability and disengagement.
QTech’s broad suite of games leverage varied maths models, so we can broaden their underlying appeal to different players in diverse markets. We’re constantly encouraging game developers to evolve and change as we learn more about the industry and what works, what doesn’t, and in which markets. After all, cultural preferences, not to mention regulation, speak specifically to the games our platform promotes in any given region.
What market is exciting you the most?
In crude terms of potential, it has to be India. Unsurprisingly, this is where we’re witnessing the greatest growth considering its population of 1.4 billion, near universal access to 4G, and dropping costs for smartphones and the internet. You don’t need to be an accountant to unpack the latent possibilities.
Consequently, India’s online sector has welcomed a raft of acquisitions this year, as operators plant their flags in the sand ahead of the anticipated boom. Accordingly, QTech Games has been offering operators the chance to become the integration partner for new content and studios, removing the hassle of integrations in order that internal tech teams can concentrate on value-added processes. It’s all organic progress from our no-nonsense company adage: one seamless integration for all emerging and growth markets.
As for the games themselves, again it’s a question of localisation. Just take a recent key supplier deal we made for the region with Woohoo’s targeted suite of games for India. The agreement features timeless table games, such as Andar Bahar and Teen Patti, alongside exciting new RNG additions like Cricket Kings, whose immersive soundscapes and stunning graphics are tailored to give players a thematically engaging experience in a cricket-obsessed country.
Like us, Woohoo brings a modern RNG methodology to the table, prioritising mobile games that maximise the UI and UX in an efficient, uncluttered fashion. After all, the fragmentation of Asia for game design and regional differences (be they the result of player preference or regulatory requirements) can always surprise. More broadly, QT Play, our game-changing recommendation engine, now harnesses the capacity to partition this Pan-Asian variety, and package it according to user choice or respective market conditions.
