“ I understand the expectations of our customers on an install . I ’ m taking the customer perspective back to who are the most important people in the industry — our customers and the players .”
— Steve Kohon , Executive Vice President of Operations and Service , Bluberi
Working Together
Brennan notes that the growth plan for Bluberi going forward will succeed because of the team , product and market-entry plans formed to this point . “ What has happened in the past has given us that strong foundation , so we ’ ve been spending a lot of time on Act Three , which is growth ,” Brennan says .
Burke says what will make Act Three work is the ability of Bluberi ’ s diverse team to work together . In putting together a team that would produce effectively between the various studio and administrative teams , he says , “ It was important to find people I knew would fit into our culture here and be able to work collaboratively . That was one of my biggest criteria — I just want a team that works really collaboratively .”
Brennan adds that throughout Bluberi ’ s operations , team members have been able to adapt their unique experiences to new roles , in the interest of achieving the best overall results .
“ We like to use the phrase , ‘ aptitude and attitude over experience ,’” Brennan says . He offers Kohon ’ s transition from sales to operations as an example . “ I don ’ t know how many service and ops leaders have a background in sales ,” he says . “ It ’ s a huge advantage for Steve to have understanding and empathy for the end user , the customer .
“ Then , there are a lot of examples over in Drummondville with talent rising across functions . Benoit Lapolice is the vice president of game development and R & D . He came up through quality assurance . Again , I don ’ t think that ’ s too commonplace . In fact , most of us have taken on stretch roles . So I think we ’ ve been able to really find people that have the drive and the aptitude rather than check a box with specific experience . And they ’ ve really flourished in these different roles .”
“ We wanted to find people that had a lot of capacity and could really take on a lot of different tasks , and had a different set of experiences ,” adds Burke . “ We ’ ve all come from different companies . Casey and Steve worked together in the past , but before that , Casey worked at Bally , Mike at IGT and Atronic . And , we ’ ve had a ton of different perspectives as we ’ ve approached the business , all coming together to create a superpower .”
Analytic Approach
If performance data is any indicator , Bluberi ’ s growth phase is well under way . The company quadrupled revenue from 2021 to 2023 . In addition to the big numbers turned in by Devil ’ s Lock , the company ’ s b49 cabinet is now earning 1.75 times house average across a significant sample size .
According to Brennan , those numbers are no accident . Rather , they are the result of strong creative talent and an analytical approach to game design .
“ When you look at our product roadmap , it is tied to data ,” Brennan says . “ We ’ ve used this term ‘ datagility .’ I think we ’ re in a world that is overinvested in data and analytics , but I think what is unique about us is we ’ re willing and set up to act upon that data quickly . The people who are moving product forward are listening to it .” Utilizing the concept in game design , Bluberi uses data on current game performance to reasonably predict game features that most likely are to resonate with players and translate into strong game performance . Brennan calls it “ predictive performance .”
“ We are working on a 45-point predictive performance model ,” he explains . “ We ’ re trying to understand how a game could perform in the field as we ’ re developing it , before we ’ re releasing it , to plan our product roadmap . Agility really helps us understand and fine-tune our predictive instincts .”
Brennan says data and research also help create the best sequels and spinoffs to popular games . “ It leads to us understanding how a game might perform and helps us understand how we ’ ll handle a sequel or a game on that same track ,” he says . “ There ’ s an intangible element , but there are really four elements to what we ’ re looking at : Will players try it ? Then , how long are they going to stay ? Is their session going to be really short ; are we going to engage them in that moment that we have them ? Can we attract heavyhitters , and are they going to come back ?”
“ Our predictive approach has really raised the floor on game performance ,” adds Burke . “ Our worst game that we ’ ve put out in the last year has done over house average , and while we haven ’ t guaranteed ourselves that we can recreate Devil ’ s Lock every time , the odds are much more in our favor .”
Brennan says Bluberi never develops clones of games , and will not create game pairs . They “ sequelize ” the strongest games , he says , while taking the strongest game mechanics and features and creating games along what they call the same “ tracks ”— they are creating new games from tried-and-true mechanics , and even signature characters from their popular games .
“ We ’ re developing on tracks , and some of those tracks highlight a couple of features ,” Brennan says . “ We need more content , but paradoxically , we are not going to do any clones . We want to be focused , and we would rather sequelize or create what we call ‘ de-clone-structions .’ That ’ s where we
24 Global Gaming Business SEPTEMBER 2023