On the back of securing platform certification in Brazil, Steven Valentine, Chief Commercial Officer of Comtrade Gaming, discusses new features for iCore, expectations for the market and the latest goings-on for CG Games.
Comtrade Gaming’s bread and butter is its iCore offering, a comprehensive online gaming and PAM platform. Constantly being advanced every three weeks and no downtime, these new versions are typically a mixture of two things, explains Steven Valentine, Chief Commercial Officer.
“These versions comprises features and functionalities we’ve developed specifically for them that they’re asking for on their roadmap, as well as features from our roadmap which get included as well. These two streams of development are constantly ongoing for our clients and being delivered every three weeks.
“What operators value most is that with iCore platform we form a dedicated development team for each client, working exclusively on each operator’s roadmap giving them highest possible attention and speed to market for successful growth and brand differentiation.”
Operating in a dynamic and competitive space with a lot of moving parts, the mix between in-house development and external demand for features is something a lot of companies are managing these days, especially with the push towards customisation and differentiation.
“For us that mix is probably around 50-50, but from a client perspective it’s 20 per cent theirs and 80 per cent new because they’ve got all of the other features that other clients are requesting being fed into it.”
In terms of what’s being asked for by clients, it’s a mix of player engagement tools and bonusing on the back-end side of things. In response to this demand, Comtrade has introduced a new Campaign tool, upgraded Tournaments and Jackpots modules which reduces reliance on third-party solutions like CRM and gamification systems.
With iCore Campaign operators can now setup automated campaigns ensuring personalised player journeys with communications and rewards for successful conversion and retention. Tournaments have been upgraded with real-time front-end widgets for players tracking their positions and rewards during gameplay.
iCore bonusing is one of the best on the market for casino and sportsbook with almost endless bonus variations, including offering players multi-choice bonus bundles for meaningful rewards. It also provides the player full transparency with visual progress bars on front-end from when bonus is to be awarded to actual completion.
“Multi-currency is another big thing being requested right now too,” Steven adds. “Platforms have always offered multi-currency across different jurisdictions, but not where players themselves can have multi-currencies. Traditionally with a gaming platform a player selects their currency and that’s their currency for life, but now with the adoption of crypto they expect multi-currency.”
On the front-end, iCore’s latest Content Management System is adapting content based on player behaviour resulting in meaningful banners, promotions and game lobbies driving better conversion. Comtrade’s AI team has been busy perfecting AI models for second deposit, churn, and LTV prediction for an even more effective player lifecycle management, as well as introducing a drill-down BI for self-service reporting and analytics which users can publish to their teams for easier future insights.
BRAZIL
Marketwise, Comtrade’s recent focus has been Brazilian regulatory compliance, conveniently securing GLI certification a week before ICE opened its doors. Steven believes the certification is a significant step forward for the business in the short and long-term: “We’re of one of the first to get that [certification] and, like everyone else, we see Brazil as being the world’s biggest online gaming market. Sports are what’s big over there and gaming is something they’re not so accustomed to.
“I think there’s going to be huge growth on the casino side. A lot of the providers currently present in the market aren’t that good because they’ve not had to be in the past whereas now, they have all the European competition coming in, they’re going to have to up their game and that creates a real opportunity for us.”
Because Comtrade is by nature a technical company – out of 390 staff, 360 occupy “technical” roles – Steven finds the process of securing certifications relatively straightforward. “I think we find it easier than most to achieve these certifications. We’re already regulated in markets such as Belgium, Poland, Romania, Malta, the UK so we found it easy. What caught everybody out in Brazil is that the regulations were dropped so late in the year it was a very short space of time to get it over the line.”
In Europe, iCore is known as a platform for large enterprise level operators. Although it’s a longer lead time, operators eventually become unhappy with one platform or another and that’s where Comtrade comes in. Asked whether the business has maxed out its European potential, Steven still sees the business potentially having a lot of growth in Europe.
“We’ve just done a couple of smaller operators in Romania via a partnership deal with one of our existing operators, taking us up to five brands in the market. Romania’s tougher because it’s now very expensive to get a licence so the smaller guys are having to go to other operators and ask to shelter under their licence.
“We haven’t touched Holland yet which I’d like us to do. When the market initially regulated, we missed the opportunity, but I think operators on that five-year cycle are starting to look at different platform options. Tax rates are going up there significantly which is making business tougher so operators will be looking to optimise and maximise player value which we see as potential opportunities for us.
“Platforms are typically the last thing anyone wants to change. Everyone sees it as this mammoth task, so people put up with bad service because they just scared to change it. However, it’s all we’ve ever done as a business, migrating from most of the platforms out there including the likes of Playtech, SOFTSWISS and Oryx to name a few, as well as proprietary in-house platforms.
“We’re efficient at doing it, but even still convincing operators we’re a safe pair of hands and the business is going to be okay takes time. It sometimes feels like the dissatisfaction needs to reach a tipping point where it’s really affecting the business and there’s a compelling event to make the migration happen.”
CG GAMES
At ICE 2024, Comtrade announced it was to become a game supplier with the launch of a new division, CG Games. However, whilst the official announcement was in London, it took a further six months to get to market and only “properly” got going in Q4. Now, Steven explains, it’s starting to ramp up operations.
“It’s the same old story of getting those integrations completed, dealing with aggregators and starting to scale. This has always been a lengthy process. Operators and aggregators have such a huge backlog of other providers who are already in the queue, so we’ve got to fight for that space which takes time.”
CG Games is still embryonic, with the website at the time of writing listing 16 titles comprising a mix of slot and crash games. From Q2 this year, Steven sets out, CG Games will be doubling its output with the launch of two games a month.
“Of course, some of the other game vendors are releasing one game a week these days. Page position is important, and you get three or four days at the top of the page before bang the new game is in, so you’ve always got to have something fresh. We’ve got some big integrations with major operators and aggregators happening right now which will go live in the next quarter so hopefully we start to see CG Games really grow this year.”
Steven Valentine
Chief Commercial Officer
Editorial published in Comtrade Gaming: migrate, don’t tolerate G3 Newswire Pulse |