What services does your company offer?
Ark One Studios provides iGaming developers with various services that are auxiliary to the development process, but extremely important for making an online casino game stand out from hundreds of other titles. On the one hand, we have the Musical Composition and Sound Design unit, which is in charge of creating original music and sounds for a game (be it slots, cards, bingo, etc.). This begins with the generation of soundtracks for the different scenes (such as Main and Bonus), celebrations (Wins, Big Wins, transitions, etc.), and also includes the creation of generic and specific sounds, mechanical and musical, reaching voices recording in dozens of languages. On the other hand, we have the Marketing and Localization unit. First of all, this unit involves translating the game into different languages; then, it supports the market release of the game in various regions through marketing efforts aimed at improving the engagement and visibility of the game on multiple platforms. In addition to developers, we work together with other companies in the industry in producing audiovisual content, both for social networks, events or digital platforms, always seeking to highlight the IP and products of our clients.
How is your work team structured?
The Ark One Studios’ team is made up of three units: 1) the Music and Sound unit, led by Juan Schweizer, our Audio Director, who defines the sound approach of each game and centralizes and supervises the work of the different composers and sound designers; 2) the Localization unit, headed by Sara Medina, who has more than 20 years of experience in the localization industry, and coordinates translation and localization projects in all languages; and 3) the Marketing and Audiovisual Content Generation units, managed by Pablo Ariznabarreta and Denis Davies, respectively. They produce content and bring the game closer to the different regions through AdWords campaigns, digital marketing, creation of landing pages and trailers for games, among many other tasks. In addition, we select and work with a network of professionals from different disciplines: voice directors, actors, graphic designers, animators, musicians, sound effects specialists, screenwriters, translators and adapters. At Ark One Studios, we centralize all these dissimilar but strongly interconnected disciplines and coordinate the work of these professionals to offer our clients what is called a one-stop-shop, a partner they can rely on for all the other services they are not usually ‘the core’ of the companies in the sector.
What makes AOS different from other similar offerings in the gaming industry?
More than providers, we feel we are partners of our clients. For us, both music and localization, audiovisual content generation and marketing campaigns must be fully integrated into the development process of a game. Treating these services as a separate thing that is only addressed when everything else is ready is a huge mistake that, unfortunately, many developers are still making. In terms of the final product, best experiences we have had over the years have been in cases where we have entered the development process from the beginning, and helped the client determine what they needed in each area in particular, to then build and move forward together for the rest of the project. In addition, we do not limit ourselves specifically to the content of the mentioned services, but we seek to go a little further, providing creative suggestions based on our experience, either from the discovery stage (suggestion of assets to incorporate into a game, such as the case of the generation of a complete audio script), until the implementation of these elements within the game.
How did you get involved in the iGaming world?
We had been developing our original music and sound design for another project profile, when one of our clients asked us to create a few minutes of very specific music and sound effects for a casino game based on a well-known character. The client wanted to focus on the music to differentiate their game from several others of the same style, but to do so without tiring the user aurally. We were really excited about this opportunity. It was a challenge we were expecting, very fun, in a world that we had wanted to know for a long time. The experience was fascinating, and the results were very satisfactory. So the natural thing, then, was to adjust the services that we already were providing for other industries to the needs and particularities of the iGaming segment.
Do you work with a particular type of game or genre?
From a creative perspective, one of the most interesting challenges is, precisely, the diversity in terms of genres, the possibility of jumping from a game based on medieval times, for example, to a futuristic one, set in New York in the XXII century. The same thing happens with the different types of games, slots, roulettes, bingos, card games, etc. Although the workflow is consistent, working on different kinds of games is refreshing. In fact, the wide variety of genres and game types is what makes participating in this industry so rich and interesting.
Why localization is so important in iGaming games?
The answer is very simple. For a long time, we have been trying to communicate this idea to developers, platform operators and publishers around the world. Localizing a game into other languages is opening the doors to new markets in an absolutely exponential way. The great advantage that iGaming games have, compared to other types of games, is that the textual content is usually very limited and is repeated in most games: “free spins”, “bust”, “wild”, “reels”, etc. A minimal investment allows you to reach literally millions of new players. The ROI is astronomical. Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Arabic, Turkish; we are talking about thousands of new players in countries that do not speak English, sometimes not even as a second language. Although the global user enjoys that mix of cosmopolitan elements so characteristic of iGaming, it has been shown that, when interacting with the game, it is a key to be able to offer them an interface that inspires confidence, that speaks with the intimacy that only has a fully localized product in their native language and, above all, when we are talking about games for real money.
What is your analysis of the growing online gaming market in Latin America?
Now that national iGaming legislation is starting to emulate the example of European and other mature markets, Latin America shows fantastic potential for the iGaming industry, both in terms of consumption and development. It has one of the best Internet penetrations in the world, even higher than most countries in Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia. The massive adoption of cell phones has made millions of people adopt their mobile devices as entertainment platforms. This is indicated by the record sales of mobile games and the excellent monetization of F2P games, the enormous gender parity and universality of access regardless of income level, or the influence Latin American communities have in social networks. In parallel, there are socioeconomic characteristics that determine how the market behaves and, consequently, what playing, sound and content strategies must be adopted. For example (and, perhaps, the most obvious one), there is the preference of players for making a lot of small trades, instead of the relatively few but larger ones in other markets. Retaining that player and guaranteeing him/her numerous moments of satisfaction becomes critical, as is adapting the tone and lexicon of the texts. Although iGaming is marked by numerous and accepted anglicisms, it is a statistical fact that a greater number of players are encouraged to spend on a game when the local tone inspires them a sense of trust and closeness. In recent years, we have happily seen two very positive trends among our clients: on the one hand, international companies are interested in the potential of the Latin American market, and have been associating with us so that their efforts are efficient and quickly capture a part of that market. On the other hand, Latin American talents have been developing material for global companies and encouraging themselves to bring their proposals to European, North American and Asian markets. We are proud to be able to accompany both movements.
How do you think the iGaming industry will evolve in the coming years?
It will evolve in a way not very different from that of the rest of the video game industries or genres. We are heading (and, in a certain way, we are already a little there) towards a world full of offers of entertainment experiences, where the difficulty is not so much the initial presentation of an IP, but rather the retention of the user for a period of time enough to make the game profitable. For the future, we see companies presenting experiences that will not be just a casino game, a bingo or a slot, but a product focused on this type of game, accompanied by virtual environments that offer many other audiovisual elements. Like any experience, the most important thing for a player is to feel part of it, through music and the possibility of interacting with the game in their own language. That is exactly what we try to do at Ark One Studios. Recently, we had the opportunity to participate in the musical composition, and textual and auditory localization of a casino game prototype within a virtual reality environment. Results were spectacular. We believe that we are going in that direction: the whole creation process of a game as a total experience, regardless of whether it is a soccer game, a shooter or a casino product.