As the influence of slots streamers continues to soar, the igaming developer is aiming to build on the past successes of the likes of Beast Mode, Sloth Tumble and Epic Dreams, as well as looking to bridge the gap to players through such a strategic alliance.

In addition to touching on how a streaming link-up can heighten a sense of community and lead to considerable success, Leah Neutel, Head of Studio at Relax Gaming, elaborates on the creative plus point of such a relationship, the process behind Immortal 5, what’s next on the horizon and much more.

CasinoBeats: Relax and CasinoDaddy have enjoyed several successful collaborations in the past with the releases of Slot Tumble and Epic Dreams. What is it about your partnership that keeps you both coming back for more?

Leah Neutel: At Relax, we thrive on partnerships that challenge us creatively and push boundaries. CasinoDaddy are a perfect example of a successful collaboration with their deep understanding of player preferences, dynamic presence in the streaming sphere and ability to help us shape games that resonate with players.

What keeps us coming back is the synergy we’ve developed over the years. CasinoDaddy bring a unique player-focused perspective, while our internal team of incredibly skilled developers, mathematicians, audio designers, QA specialists, artists, and animators, ensure world class execution. 

An exceptional collaboration in game development thrives on clear communication, shared creative vision, mutual trust, and well-defined roles, bringing teams together to craft something extraordinary.

This combination of creative direction from both our internal game product owners and CasinoDaddy allows us to consistently deliver innovative games.

CB: Can you talk us through the ideation process as you and CasinoDaddy worked together to decide what Immortal 5 would look and feel like?

LN: It is games like Immortal 5 that demonstrate the power of effective collaboration, ensuring no stone is left unturned from ideation to launch.

Our internal product owners at Relax, Andy Payne and Gabe Pisani, set the direction for the game’s mechanics and overall vision alongside CasinoDaddy. This strong foundation is then passed onto the games studio to address the feasibility, both creatively and technically.

What makes these collaborations successful is the ability to transform creative ideas into a finished product that exceed expectations. They take the ideas from CasinoDaddy and their audience and turn them into features that are not only innovative, but visually and technically seamless. 

While our mathematicians, game product owners and CasinoDaddy carefully flushed out the idea, the concept was brought to life by our talented studio team. Their creative and technical expertise ensured every detail was executed to the highest standard from the richly detailed characters, intricate mechanics and immersive feel.

Our studio team, audio designers, artists, animators, developers and QA specialists, then brought these ideas to life. It is their passion and ability to translate creative concepts into a visually stunning, immersive experience that sets our games apart. 

I’m incredibly proud of my studio team, as they were able to take feedback and ideas from all sides throughout the production and create an epic game which is both visually and mechanically advanced. 

The result is a game that’s not only innovative but also deeply aligned with what players want, thanks to the input from CasinoDaddy and their community. 

CB: Do you feel that players gravitate towards these collaborative games more so due to the fact they’ve had a hand in the creation process through their favourite streamers?

LN: Absolutely. Collaboration with streamers like CasinoDaddy create a sense of ownership and connection for their audience. Players feel like their voices are heard, and  their preferences directly influence the game’s development. However, collaboration is only one part of the equation. 

The execution, thanks to our incredible studio team, is equally critical. The complex mechanics and polished design of Immortal 5 wouldn’t have been possible without my team’s hard work and expertise. 

It’s this blend of community-driven inspiration and professional craftsmanship that creates a game players truly gravitate towards.

CB: Are there requests that players and streamers want to be added to a game that simply aren’t possible, or do releases such as Immortal 5 offer the perfect opportunities for Relax to give players exactly what they want in a custom game?

LN: Player and streamer requests can sometimes push the boundaries of what’s technically or creatively feasible, but we always see these as opportunities rather than limitations. 

For Immortal 5, our goal was to balance the ambition of CasinoDaddy’s input with our  expertise to create something that felt both unique and achievable. 

That said, some requests do require creative problem-solving, particularly when balancing complex mechanics with a seamless player experience. This is where my team’s adaptability and expertise come into play. We can often take ambitious ideas and shape them into something even better. In that sense, our collaboration works hand in hand.

CasinoDaddy collaborations give us the perfect platform to innovate, push the boundaries and deliver a game that feels tailor-made for its audience.

CB: What’s next in terms of your collab with CasinoDaddy? Could it be a sequel, or can we expect something new entirely?

LN: Our collaborations with CasinoDaddy are only getting started. We’re constantly exploring new ideas that challenge the status quo and excite players in new ways.

Whether it’s a sequel that builds on the success of Immortal 5 or a completely new concept, what’s certain is that we’ll continue leveraging the incredible synergy between our internal teams and CasinoDaddy’s insights. 

Together, we aim to create more unforgettable gaming experiences that keep players coming back for more.

The post Relax Gaming: the art of collaboration – an overview of creating Immortal 5 alongside CasinoDaddy appeared first on CasinoBeats.

Concluding the final day of the highly successful CasinoBeats Summit, the illustrious awards ceremony, which took place at the Hilton Malta, was a night dedicated to honouring the remarkable achievements of the iGaming industry. 

The evening witnessed the return of veteran host Trudy Kerr, alongside award-winning game developer John Romero, as they handed out 28 awards to accomplished operators, game studios and individuals. Award categories included Game Performance, Streamers, Game Creation, Game People, SlotCatalog, Casino Platform, and Best Game Release. 

Rasmus Sojmark, Founder and CEO of SBC, said: “The Game Developer Awards offers a pivotal opportunity to honour the remarkable accomplishments of the industry, celebrating both regional and global brands as well as individual talent. This year’s shortlist was by far the most competitive we have seen, and I would like to congratulate all our esteemed winners.”

It was a good night for Play’n GO, who secured the prestigious SlotCatalog’s Game Studio of the Year (Large) award for the second consecutive year, whilst also picking up the Game Music / Soundtrack accolade for their title Hugo Legacy. 

The game creation categories saw Playtech once again take home the Game Licensed Content award for their work on Breaking Bad: Cash Collect & Link. Hacksaw Gaming was awarded Game Feature of the Year for their title Chaos Crew 2, Relax Gaming was honoured with the Game Design & Art Direction award for Money Train 4, and GAMOMAT was named winner of the Game Retro-Style award for Fancy Fruits Deluxe. 

Pragmatic Play notably took home two awards on the night, winning both the Game Mechanic of the Year award for their MultiHold mechanic and Slot Legacy Title for Gates of Olympus.

The SlotCatalog categories saw GAMOMAT return to the stage to pick up their second award of the night for Best Game Development Company Central Europe, while Playson was awarded Best Game Studio In Development Countries. Reel Kingdom secured the SlotCatalog’s Game Studio of the Year (Medium) award, Fortune Factory Studios was named SlotCatalog’s Game Studio of the Year (Small) and IGT claimed SlotCatalog’s Best Game Development Company North America. 

The coveted SlotCatalog’s Rookie of the Year accolade was presented to industry newcomers Area Vegas.

In honour of the individual achievements in the industry, the Game People categories saw Andrei Filipovich of Aviatrix awarded Game Designer of the Year, Julia Aliakseyeva from BGaming named Product Manager of the Year and PearFiction Studios’ Jean-Pierre Larouche presented with the Game Composer of the Year award. 

EveryMatrix won the Aggregator of the Year award, The Mill Adventure was awarded Platform Innovation of the Year, while the Best Game Release award went to Lambda Gaming for 8Bit Football Twinko. 

This year’s edition saw the introduction of two new awards, the FTN Game of the Year award which was sponsored by BetConstruct and presented to Rubyplay for Mad Hit Olympic First, and the CasinoBeats Annual Community Recognition Award which was awarded to SoftConstruct for its work on BFTH Arena.

It was a big night for CasinoDaddy who took home the esteemed Streamer of the Year award, while The Slot Beasts and Haddzy were recipients of two new Streamer awards, Responsible Streamer of the Year and Next-Gen Streamer of the Year, respectively.

In the Game Performance categories, PowderKeg Studios claimed the Slot Debut award for their title Munition Mines, Stormcraft Studios won Slot to Watch for their work on  Immortal Romance 2, while Light & Wonder and Netflix took home Slot Collaboration of the Year for Squid Game. The illustrious Slot of the Year award went to Elk Studios for Pirots 2.

“Last night’s ceremony was a tremendous success and proved to be a truly memorable night. I would like to thank our official partner Gaming Malta, alongside all our supporting sponsors for their help in honouring the incredible achievements of the industry” Sojmark added.

The awards ceremony concluded the final day of the CasinoBeats Summit, which saw 4,500 industry professionals convene at the InterContinental Hotel in Malta, the hub of iGaming.

The post Introducing the Winners of the 2024 Game Developer Awards appeared first on CasinoBeats.

Scheduled to launch in July of this year, the custom-built slot will be developed in collaboration with the supplier and affiliate’s team and said to be “geared towards players” .

Simon Hammon, CEO at Relax Gaming, said: “We are incredibly excited about partnering with the AboutSlots team to create an exciting new release. 

“Listening to players and engaging with the streamer community has been a firm part of our strategy at Relax Gaming for years and we are proud to be building upon that with the announcement of this collaboration. 

“AboutSlots’ entertainment value within the community is well known, and we are eager to see what we can build together.”

As part of the collaboration, Relax will also utilise the experience of CasinoDaddy that makes up a part of the AboutSlots brand. Since launching in 2016, CasinoDaddy has amassed over 181,000 followers on Twitch and 86,000 subscribers on YouTube, amassing more than 60,000,000 views.

Anton Joelsson, Co-Founder of Joelsson Media Group AB/Aboutslots.com, added: “Relax has always been the obvious choice for us as the provider we wanted to create a game with, as their games have been very much appreciated by us and our community.

“Players can expect a lot of action from our upcoming release in the form of an attractive base game, lovely music & design, feature buys that suit all playing styles and a max win that is in the top segment of all games from Relax. 

“We’re confident our viewers will appreciate the little details that we put into the game that connect us as streamers and our community. I very much look forward to seeing our viewers’ reactions when it’s released!”

The post Relax and AboutSlots combine to develop ‘player-led’ slot appeared first on CasinoBeats.

That was an opinion shared by Yggdrasil Gaming CEO, Fredrik Elmqvist, in the latest instalment of the company’s podcast series, What’s up Ygg.

The Yggdrasil leader was joined by guests from streaming partner CasinoDaddy to discuss how they approach working with the streamer community and how this impacts the industry.

The podcast began with a conversation between Elmqvist, Erik Joelsson, streamer at CasinoDaddy; and Kristian Egede Nielsen, key account manager at CasinoDaddy – alongside the podcast host Stewart Darkin.

Initiating the discussion with a question on how streamers are picked, Joelsson explained the risks of choosing a streamer to put in charge of managing money and keeping the channel safe from being banned, as well as taking care of the stream and its community. 

He said: “For us, we need people we can trust. We’re more on a personal level with the viewers than a business level.” 

Pressed on how to engage viewers, Joelsson revealed that there are different types of viewers with varied preferences which he mainly put down to two categories: the loyal viewers who stick around interacting with a stream, and the ones who jump between different hosts looking for the biggest bets and stakes. 

He concluded: “I can say for sure that if you’re doing bigger bets, you’re going to get more viewers.”  

Delving deeper into how streamers are often seen as the face of a brand to the player market, Elmqvist commented: “They can put demands on new operators coming in, in terms of having the right service levels catering for the players. 

“They can also align expectations for suppliers and tell us what we can do better for the players, bringing value to their community and also to the operators – so I think that they can take a really important role here and bring a lot of value for the industry.

It was at this stage that he highlighted: “For us as a provider we need to tread carefully and see who we partner with. We’d rather partner with the ones that we know are doing it right instead of taking the risk of working with everyone.”

Elmqvist continued: “The model of the streamer is also an enabler of creativity and that, as our publishing model, is enabling creative studios to come to market and launch quickly. 

“At the same time, they’re enabling new creative B2C operators to come to market quickly as well and I think that could also keep the market dynamic – so they can take the role of the ombudsman, they can take the role of the enabler, and they can also go down a darker route but as we know, the good guys always win.”

Joelsson added: “We are ten thousand or twenty thousand players within one player. Let’s say we play a new game before release, we build up the hype for the game and on the release date our viewers are going to play it because they’ve seen us play it, they’ve seen us talk good about it, we’ve shown the game, the possibilities and everything – so I think we can be the ombudsman for sure.”

Discussing how real-time feedback can bring value to the company, Elmqvist noted: “There’s nothing better than to test it with a real audience in a real environment, and not only here can we see the streamers play, but I think what’s key here is to see their community and their reactions.

“We see streamers wanting higher max wins, we see the operator saying ‘yeah that’s good but take it down a notch’ so we’re sitting there listening and taking in feedback from various industry players.” 

He concluded by explaining that with game development, the user experience needs to be aligned with the industry’s best players, the streamers. 

However, he stressed that we can’t let the streamers dictate how the roadmap is going to be created because that “may not be completely aligned with what the actual operators want and what gets the player’s money in”.

To watch the full episode of the podcast, click here.

For the first episode of the series on how innovation has been at the heart of the journey for Yggdrasil, click here.

And click here for the second on how the YG Masters programme has brought new flavours of game content. 

The post What’s up YGG: Partner with the streamers you know are doing it right appeared first on CasinoBeats.

The exclusive live stream took place on Casumo for one hour, before releasing the game on site, with Push Gaming aiming to demonstrate the “huge potential” of Wheel of Wonders. 

Darren Stephenson, marketing director at Push Gaming, said of the launch: “Streamers are now a key part to the wider slots marketing community, and they don’t come much bigger than CasinoDaddy. They continue to engage and excite players with their enjoyable, insightful streams and it was a pleasure to partner with them in this exclusive launch.” 

Throughout the live stream, CasinoDaddy also offered their viewers the opportunity to take part in a giveaway which saw those selected get the chance to take a spin on a custom-made wheel that Push Gaming prepared for the event. All parties also praised the “record numbers” brought about as a result of the launch and tournament.

Mathias Joelsson from CasinoDaddy, added: “Wheel of Wonders is truly a unique game in its own league, and once again, Push Gaming have successfully managed to bring together both potential and innovative gameplay into one single release.

“We had a blast playing this game and are extremely pleased with the record-breaking interest that came about on our forum. We got more than 1,800 participants, and over 14,200 visits on a single thread. It’s safe to say that our community was just as hyped as us, and the event went beyond expectations.”

The post Push Gaming & CasinoDaddy launch Wheel of Wonders via Casumo appeared first on CasinoBeats.