IGT customers are seeing their eInstant sales catch fire with titles like Hot Pepper Payout, Wheel of Fortune® Prize Burst, Georgia Bankroll Jackpot, EmotiCollect Super Spin, and Pots O’ Plenty.
The company’s US eInstant organic YoY sales growth of 200% in CY 2021 is no surprise, as IGT now offers its most diverse game-mechanic library to date. Customers have access to that wide variety of content to build portfolios that optimize sales and returns for good causes, and those strong sales are continuing into 2022. For example, the Kentucky Lottery Corporation is experiencing a banner start to the year with its highest eInstant sales months ever.
To learn as much as possible about players and what games they are looking for, IGT continuously analyzes game performance data, providing its designers with insights to optimize games and develop innovative features and mechanics, like the first-of-its-kind feature in IGT’s licensed Wheel of Fortune® Prize Burst. In this key-symbol match eInstant, the Prize Burst symbol can change between one to four adjacent spots into Instant Wins, allowing players to win numerous prizes per game to increase their winnings to levels that have proven higher retention rates.
Collaboration is part of IGT’s game development fabric and key to the creation of design features like the “Prize Burst.” IGT’s new idea crowd-sourcing portal is the perfect means for IGT game developers to work with other employees to influence new game blueprints. The idea portal empowers all IGT game development staff to upload innovative mechanics and features, game themes, concept ideas and even music. As a team, IGT designers review all idea portal submissions, allowing a new idea for a mechanic from a game producer or a bonus round feature from the graphic design team to progress from initial kernels of ideas to the next top-performing game.
IGT also references retail instant ticket data for eInstant design. “Our 40-years of experience creating top retail instant tickets is a real advantage,” said Chris Costello, IGT Senior Director iLottery Studios. “Based on the data, we know what themes and playstyles resonate with Lottery players. For example, we knew that retail scratch lottery players respond well to hot-pepper themes, so we created a collect symbol-match mechanic called Hot Pepper Payout, which is proving to be a top performer. It’s 30-to-90-day average revenue per player is competing for the top spot along with Georgia Bankroll Jackpot, another proven IGT game design. Like retail instant tickets, general themes and seasonal content are also player favorites.”
The Georgia Lottery Corporation (GLC) launched IGT’s Pots O’Plenty Match 3 mechanic in time for St. Patrick’s Day and realized its second highest launch-day for its branded eInstant Diggi Game sales.
IGT partners with its customers to create locally attuned games, customizing names, price points, and math models to create bespoke omnichannel content. For example, IGT localizes the games for the Poland National Lottery market by changing the game titles to suit market needs and translating them into Polish. IGT’s portfolio management team analyzes game performance and recommends customer roadmaps and game optimizations, including payouts. With the benefit of this consultation, Poland’s eInstants sales increased year to date by 70%, and the Lottery’s pipeline is well-rounded. Selecting games from IGT’s diverse game library is important because the top two performing games have completely different themes, playstyles, and mechanics, and they appeal to various player segments. “IGT’s philosophy is to create games that resonate with many different player segments in order to engage a broad iLottery audience,” said Costello.
IGT also customizes games for the local Italian market and offers players a balanced mix of traditional digital scratch games and games with a heavy focus on innovation and engagement. With these game categories, the Italian iLottery market saw an increase of over 100% in sales in last 2 years. A popular innovative game category, Multiflexy, La Conquista del Tesoro, appeals to players because the game experience evolves as price points increase. The landscapes and game features change, and it appears to offer a fairy tale experience as players move through five different castles.
Georgia Bankroll Jackpot is a locally attuned version of a progressive jackpot mechanic from IGT-titled Bank Buster Jackpot. GLC and IGT partnered on localizing the game for the Georgia market, including the name and prize structures. IGT designed the game to hit at a higher winning recurrence as well as to have wide player appeal. This was proven when Georgia Bankroll Jackpot reached 19% more eInstant players in its first three days than any other game the Lottery has launched with a total of 79% of GLC’s eInstant players that purchased the game. This exciting game launched in mid-January with 32% higher sales than any other game launch in Diggi Game’s history. In Kentucky, Celtic Coins had the third highest sales numbers in the first three days of launch and reached over 75% of players in its first few days. Only KLC’s popular IGT omnichannel games outperformed this game.
Creating a family of games adds to the diversity of IGT’s eInstant library. EmotiCollect Super Spin is one of three EmotiCollect eInstants. The first game launched in 2018 with the highest IGT game launch that year and continues to have strong sales given its competition with new game launches. Using game performance analysis, the development team evolved the game to provide 2022 players with enhanced features and animations. In EmotiCollect Super Spin, the base game still uses a wheel and focuses on collecting the emojis while a redesigned bonus round, elevated animations, music, and sound package add to the enjoyment of the game. Global players have taken to this game, and it has become the most successful game launch at the Loterie Nationale Belgium, and the fourth most successful at the Georgia Lottery.
IGT continues to maintain a strategic focus on game development and its diverse iLottery library. New additions to the portfolio include a cluster-match reactor game called Prize Potions, and a crossword mechanic, Lil Lady Winning Words, leveraging the beloved proprietary casino ladybug, Lil Lady. Incorporating IGT’s proprietary, recognizable, top-performing, brands is another successful strategy to offer iLottery players one-of-a-kind content.
Be on the lookout for the new titles Hexbreaker, Retro Pinball Riches, Full Blast, and Cleopatra Clusters Jackpot, as well as new seasonal content from IGT.