What do you think about this edition of SiGMA Malta and how has been the performance of your company?
Let’s start with the event itself. This place is substantially bigger than the previous venue. I’ve been attending this show for the last seven or eight years, so I’ve seen it grow. Now, it’s becoming more and more interesting since there are not just European or Western companies, but a lot of Asian companies as well. The same goes for the visitors, with a more diverse crowd. About Mancala Gaming, we are very happy to be here, meeting our partners, closing lots of business deals, and starting to come up with new plans and ideas going into 2024.
You’re talking about ideas. I have always admired how Mancala Gaming has proven to be innovative in terms of technology, and creative with its content. How do you combine these two essential themes with the values of your company to continue evolving with each new product you launch?
It’s a difficult endeavor, but let’s be honest. With the oversaturation in the markets within our industry, I think if you don’t concentrate on those two things, you basically won’t stand out. We truly have a phenomenal team that is able to come up with some really crazy, wonderful ideas. One thing is certain: our products are the consequence of a group effort. Whenever we come up with something difficult, unique and different, I can tell you for sure our developers are not always very happy, but, at the end of the day, we persevere and we create content and products that shine, perform well, and generate great results for operators.
You have certainly had so far a very busy year. How successful this 2023 has been for Mancala?
It has been definitely our best year. We have seen more than 600% growth across all metrics. We have closed an insane amount of deals, and added new phenomenal clients. But we are not going to stop. We are planning for the next year to do things even better. Mancala Gaming certainly has the potential to become one of the greatest online games providers of the whole industry.
As the CEO of the company, I want to ask you what ‘leadership’ means to you? What’s your leadership style in terms of sharing your ideas with the team, and showing them the way to achieve their goals?
Well, I think this goes back to one of the previous questions you asked. As I said, this is very much a group effort. From my perspective, giving people freedom to be creative, to try new things is what makes Mancala great. Showing the right direction is listening. With that in mind, we’re able to become something much bigger than ourselves.
Everyone out there is talking about artificial intelligence, new trends and technologies. What comes next for you in terms of the way of creating new games that attract younger generations of players? How to engage them, how to respond to that challenge?
It’s a very interesting question. We have been asking that since the very first day that we started this business. If there’s anybody out there that will tell you that they know exactly what the answer is, they’re probably lying because, with the new generation, nobody knows how they are going to react to a new product. The worst part is I don’t think new generations even know what they want. Our task is to experiment and to try. We have already been fairly successful trying out games that are based on skill elements. Moving forward, we will incorporate some mechanics from video games and putting them into concepts for online slots. I also believe that slots in general are going to change and will incorporate additional social elements. From our perspective, looking into 2024, we are going to be releasing a few unique titles; some of them even taking inspiration from mobile games. The only answer to your question is to keep on trying. At some point, there is going to be one innovator out there that will come up with a game that will be loved and will be played by new generations. Mancala Gaming wants to be that innovator, so we will give all the effort, creativity and ability of our team to achieve it.