“ We want to successfully defend our leadership position in markets like video poker and VLT , and seize growth opportunities in specialty areas like Class II , HHR , EGTs and systems . Most importantly , we are going to be laser-focused on developing highperforming video content targeting both the global for-sale and premium video markets .”
Perpetual Motion
Nick Khin President , Global Gaming , IGT
“ We want to successfully defend our leadership position in markets like video poker and VLT , and seize growth opportunities in specialty areas like Class II , HHR , EGTs and systems . Most importantly , we are going to be laser-focused on developing highperforming video content targeting both the global for-sale and premium video markets .”
In the coming year , gaming supplier International Game Technology promises to continue what has been the norm for IGT the past few years — a state of perpetual motion . IGT has remained at or near the top of the industry in a collection of game genres by never standing pat . Every year brings a parade of new game categories , new hardware , and new content , not only in its legacy game styles , but in non-traditional categories like electronic table games , VLTs , Class II and historical horse racing .
Within those categories , new game titles intermix with legendary IGT brands , reworked into new formats , game mechanics and hardware .
At the center of this constant innovation has been Nick Khin , the longtime executive who , in August , was elevated from his post of chief operating officer and senior vice president of gaming to president of global gaming , responsible for managing the IGT Global Gaming business unit , including studios , technology , sales , games and hardware , manufacturing and services , and systems .
Industry veteran Khin , who has been an IGT executive for 11 years and was CEO of Aristocrat Technologies before joining the company , says the past year has provided a great example of how the company will grow each of those business units in the near future .
Multi-level progressive slots like Prosperity Link , Tiger and Dragon — which took the Gold Medal as top slot product in this year ’ s GGB Gaming & Technology Awards — and Mystery of the Lamp have all taken up residence at the top of the Eilers-Fantini Game Performance Report . At this year ’ s Global Gaming Expo , these games shared booth space with examples of classic titles in totally new game genres .
At the center of these classic titles over the next year will be new incarnations of IGT ’ s most famous game family , Wheel of Fortune . This year , IGT will launch versions of Wheel of Fortune in a video poker game , an electronic table game and a VLT game .
“ We ’ ve had Wheel of Fortune now for 28 years . It ’ s the most famous licensed brand in gaming today , and as you saw at G2E , we are really determined to bring Wheel of Fortune to other segments of the gaming market ,” Khin says .
“ So you will see Wheel of Fortune games in poker , and you will see Wheel of Fortune games in the video lottery terminal market , and we ’ re really excited about bringing Wheel of Fortune to life with our electronic table games .”
Other IGT classics will find their way into the core and premium video segments . These include a new version of Little Green Men on the PeakCurve49 cabinet and a new Pinball game on the DiamondRS stepper cabinet .
“ We really have a huge library of popular brands that players are always looking out for ,” Kihn says , “ and something we ’ ve been doing over the past few years is bringing some of those back to life and evolving them .”
The coming year will bring opportunities for both legacy and new game brands to capture share in new markets not only in regions like Latin America and EMEA , but in the North American markets like HHR , Class II and ETGs where the supplier has been underrepresented .
“ We still have to make sure that the games we ’ re developing for those segments are going to really resonate with players in those segments — that the player experience is right ,” Khin says . “ Porting these games over and developing content for these particular segments has enabled us to organically grow share in these markets .”
The Wheel of Fortune electronic table game , for instance , will follow a growth trend that has placed IGT ’ s roulette ETG at No . 1 in the market .
Production of games in all genres this year will be helped by continuing expansion of IGT ’ s studio system . “ We ’ re setting up a brand-new studio in Las Vegas , and the leader of that studio is joining us from one of our competitors ,” says Khin . “ She ’ ll be setting up a pretty big team in Las Vegas . We ’ ve also just set up a new studio in Europe .”
Along with these expansions will come a rejuvenation of IGT ’ s systems business , as the new IGT Advantage X casino management system spreads its industry footprint . “ It ’ s something we ’ ve been working on the past four to five years ,” Kihn says . “ It ’ s even more bulletproof than our current system , which already has an up-time of 99.99 percent . Its architecture is really going to set it apart from the competition . We ’ ve done a lot of work on the user interfaces , and it ’ s fully ready for both cashless and the cloud .
“ This version of Advantage also has brand-new data capturing capabilities . Customers will have access to a lot more data .”
IGT ’ s strategy for the coming year — which Khin says will remain the same regardless of the pending acquisition of IGT Gaming by Apollo — is “ pretty simple ,” according to Khin .
“ We want to successfully defend our leadership position in markets like video poker and VLT , and seize growth opportunities in specialty areas like Class II , HHR , EGTs and systems . Most importantly , we are going to be laser-focused on developing high-performing video content targeting both the global for-sale and premium video markets .
“ Bottom line : We ’ re determined to grow .” — Frank Legato
JANUARY 2025 www . ggbmagazine . com 19