Q&A: Marketing Director, Darren Stephenson speaks to Kongebonus
Push Gaming’s Marketing Director Darren Stephenson has a chat with Kongebonus for their 2022 Awards. Push Gaming was nominated in three categories – Best Provider, Best New Slot with Big Bamboo, and Best Joker Slot with Joker Troupe.
Congratulations on your two nominations for Kongebonus Awards 2022. Best Provider, and Best New Slot in Big Bamboo. Fortunately, neither Push Gaming or your slots (in general) needs too much presentation in Kongebonus, so I'll leave this slot for you to salute and greet our members here in Norway.
Thanks very much. We are really happy to have received these nominations. A lot of hard work goes into producing the games and it feels great when we get news like this that shows us the slots community are enjoying them as much as we hoped. A massive thanks to everyone at Kongebonus and the Kongebonus community for the continued support and we hope there will be plenty more games for you to enjoy in 2023 and beyond.
It sure seems like 2022 was a very productive year for you guys. Aside from launching new fascinating slots, we also observe that you have trademarked your first 3 features/mechanics in RaceReels™, ReelBets™ and ClusterLink™. In that matter; Do you regret not having trademarked your slot innovations before?
It was a busy year that's for sure. I think this is a sign of our growth and development to be honest. Innovation is really important and one of the key drivers behind our successes to date however we've learned that sometimes there is room for further innovation, development and refinements within features so it makes sense in some instances for us to trademark. Previously we have focused on the individual game build and how features fit within that project without viewing the feature as a product in its own right that players would love to see in other games.
Even if we are not too fond of asking generic questions, we feel kind of obligated to ask which slot is your own favourite between all your releases up to now?
I'd be lying if I said this was the first time I've been asked! My first favourite Push Gaming slot was Peter and The Lost Boys which is sadly no longer in the portfolio but was an important factor in me joining the company in the first place. Over time it changed to Viking Clash and now it is probably Big Bamboo although currently my most played is Generous Jack so maybe there will be a new one soon!
We have previously heard rumours about how the Swedish player's mega-hit (85 475,4x) on Razor Shark took you somehow by surprise. Is this something you can confirm, and did you amend anything to your slot mechanics afterwards?
Well, it definitely happened. A lot of the games in the marketplace have no capped Max Win so in those cases a 'Highest Observed' win number is used in order to provide as much insight as possible as to what could be 'expected'. During the testing and certification period billions of round simulations are carried out so any win over and above the highest seen is unlikely, but it can happen.
What can we expect from Push Gaming in 2023? Do you have something special up your sleeve, or is your focus solely to continue the path of just making better and better slots as we are used to?
The Product team is always surprising us with new ideas and I'm sure they'll continue to do so with brand new concepts and mechanics but also continuing to dip into our growing list of features and tools to see where we can play around and create new experiences for our players. We will continue with our 'players first' approach, our number one focus is always to create games that the players enjoy.
