Henry McLean, Co-founder, Commercial and Marketing Director at 4ThePlayer.com, has provided a deep insight into the company’s offers, as well as shared his opinion regarding the best marketing models.
Henry, in your opinion, what are the main factors that stimulate the development of the mobile-first approach in gambling?
The growth in mobile is unprecedented, especially if you look at global emerging markets. This combined with the growth in tech and mobile internet speeds like 5G we do not see it slowing down anytime soon!
When we founded 4ThePlayer.com, we wanted to make sure we were ‘mobile first’, making sure the player has the best possible experience on mobile or desktop. We did not want to be like other game providers that make a ‘desktop game’ and then a ‘mobile game’ – we just see games.
Have you faced any problems connected with the legalization of mobile gambling in your country?
We welcome regulation as it protects players and encourages responsible play. However, with it comes new challenges, being a small agile startup, we can quickly adapt and work within regulation. We are proud to say we work in most markets globally!
Please introduce your brand, its advantages, and tell us something about the team behind the brand.
The brand is 4ThePlayer.com, and we were established in the UK in 2018. Since then, we have been making a name for ourselves thanks partly due to our different approach. As the name suggests, we put the players in front of the mind, always thinking about what they would want and what would make their entertainment experience the best it can be. This includes the best graphics, exciting math, and innovation to improve not just for the sake of it.
The team behind 4ThePlayer has a combined industry experience of over 50 years. We all worked together creating startup Ash Gaming and later at senior roles at Playtech. We are also all players ourselves, so know what works and what doesn’t create that gambling excitement! We have 3 games live now, 2 slots (9k Yeti and 1 Left Alive), and one table/Crypto style game called 100 Bit Dice. 100 Bit Dice bring a Crypto style Dice game into ‘Real money’ casino – something no one has done before. You basically bet on a bit dice and setup your bet exactly as you want, controlling odds and even setting autoplay strategies if you want too! We have seen some players create interesting strategies on this one.
This game has been so popular we are about to release our second game in this genre, 1000X BUSTA – this game brings ‘Crash/Bust’ games into ‘Real money’ casinos. Players bet on a multiplier, shown on a graph, and hope it will hit the target before it busts. To make it even more exciting, we also have a cash-out option, it really is the edge of seat excitement!
Speaking about 4ThePlayer and its games, what are the features that distinguish them from other products in the gambling market?
Our games stand out for a few reasons, one of the reasons is the attention to detail that goes into each release. We make a smaller number of games each year compared to a lot of game providers, this is so each game can have the right focus and love it and you the players deserve! It is not about creating endless games hoping one will be a hit.
We also have very good value RPT’s, our slots are 97% and our innovative table/Crypto style games are between 97-99% RTP!
Finally, we also have lots of innovation, as we mentioned earlier its innovation to improve the experience not just for the sake of it. For example, one innovation you might have seen in our slots is BIG REEL PORTRAIT MODE ® This makes portrait play fun again rather than a tiny box on the screen.
As far as we know Yeti was a great success for you. Tell us more about the game?
Yes, you are right. 9k Yeti has been a big success for us! It is now live at over 400 Casinos worldwide. The game takes the player on an adventure up Mount Everest to try and find the illusive Yeti. The Yeti is WILD and can pay out some big wins – up to 9,000x. The bonus round sees the player swept into a snowstorm where loosing spins can be swept around into guaranteed wins. It is a very volatile experience and not for players looking for small and regular wins but players than enjoy the excitement of waiting for big wins! We have had some streamers really hit big on this game.
It is needless to say that nowadays the majority of gaming solutions developers try to create such games that have a user-friendly and intuitive interface. Did your company take this principle into consideration while working on its products?
Yes, we spent a lot of time looking at our interface and how players interact with our games. Going back to what I said about us being players, we all knew exactly what we did not like and what we did, so we used all this experience as well as UI and design experts to make it simple and intuitive. This is also what makes us invent our BIG REEL PORTRAIT MODE® as we hated how bad the UI and interface normally is on portrait play.
Your company focuses on players much to deliver the best gambling solutions for them. Could you mention the most customer-oriented features in your games?
Good question! We would say everything we do is customer orientated, for me probably the most customer-orientated thing we do is transparency and communication about the math. We are very open about the experience inside the game and on our splash screen show a diagram to illustrate the math and how volatile it is. We do not hide things away on help files but show you as the game loads! This allows the player to see if they think it is the right game for them and if they will enjoy it.
We want players to have fun and play the right game for them, not many people have this approach but we think it is very important.
4ThePlayer is a relatively young company. If it isn’t a secret, what marketing models are you going to use to promote and introduce it to new markets?
We have a wide mix of marketing methods, but the most important for us are players – talking directly to them and using affiliates and websites like yours to talk directly to them. We are also trying to make sure as much as possible players have fun playing out games so tell their friends. Word-of-mouth is the best marketing you can get and hopefully we achieve it.
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