GAMBIT MEETING June FORUM RECAP
VENUE: Centaur Academy - 23rd June 2011

- Report compiled by Gareth Wong, sadly our independent reporters for Gambit is away.

The main reason why I founded Gambit back in 2005 was to fulfil our mission:  as thought leader for the converging entertainment sector (of technology, media, brands, gaming, gambling industries).  Thanks to generous support (in time spent, sage advices, to sponsorships) by senior leaderships of the sector, Gambit have done rather well by covering all aspects of (mostly remote) gaming sector, covering wide range of industry critical topics from M&A, marketing, skill gaming, social, mobile to payments & affiliates and even sponsorships etc.

We all recognised that despite being in a FMCG world, it is a fundamentally technical sector (in terms of products & services, other than offline table games/tournaments).  In fact, I would like to assert that technology is the BACKBONE of this sector, from gaming platform, games design/mechanics, distribution, to even payments and CRMs/loyalty, and even electronic communications..

But strangely enough, despite the prominent role technology actually played in gaming, somehow some of the Chief Technology Officers [CTO] & Chief Information Officers [CIOs] of gaming brands are only in names and some are still not part of the company’s board of directors.  Due to the competitive & continuously changing nature of the gaming gambling world, not a lot of top CTOs/CIOs are able to engage with each other, let alone convincing the top guys to discuss critical industry issues in a public forum, as many conference producers have failed in getting traction of decent public conferences off the ground.

Thanks to Gaming Technology Forum [GTF], Gambit had assembled a brilliant panel of speakers, headlined by two top CTOs of the gaming world, with Tom Hillary of Gamesys (Jackpotjoy, Sun Bingo etc.) and Jeremy Longley, Co-founder CTO of PKR.com plus Christien Aaen of Ciklum who comes from Agile development expert’s point of view.

GTF Note: Non profit Gaming Technology Forum (co-founded by Gambit founder based on requests of the CTO/CIOs of the sector & exclusively for senior CTOs/CIOs (email us if you qualify & not yet part of us: GTF@CXOVIP.org , where CTO/CIOs help each other in confidence). [To put it into context, the type of CTO/CIOs we are referring to are of mid-size to major gaming operators, typical turnover into hundreds of millions if not billions. ]

The evening was under Chatham house rules and thus we can only share highlights of the somewhat diverse and at times too in-depth (for me anyway!) discussions (which are not commercially sensitive) of the panel and some well respected industry veteran in the sector (& some outright pitches from the floor which we would not repeat here).  You might wish you could have been there now, right?  Fear not; please do signup to our newsletter to ensure you will not miss a future topic: http://TheGambit.info/re/

The impressive panel above (left to right), Jeremy Longley, Co-founder CTO PKR.com, Christian Aaen, Consulting director, Ciklum, Tom Hillary, CTO Gamesys, and Gareth Wong (Gambit & GamBond® Founder).

Key findings from the evening (mostly by panel members but also from the floor):

·         Software development/hosting is one of strategic or tactical: namely either  “build or Buy” [outsource (agile or not)]

·         There is often business pressure/need for outside help, e.g. needing to hire 50people at high cost onshore vs. Outsourcing the work

·         Quality of skills and experiences of potential hire is critical whether internal or at the outsourced organisation

·         Gaming market typically difficult to outsource due to ‘legacy’ system (despite the nascent nature/history of sector, around 20yrs?)

·         However, even for ‘Agile house’ (adopted at enterprise level process to aid internal software development planning/communication), it maybe easier to ‘outsource’ but some still do not outsource due to perceived danger of losing IP or ‘know how’ of the core system/processes

·         Some operators may prefer to use outsourcing if possible to buy ‘option’ to hire the whole team should they work well as part of the delivery project. (Understandably some of the suppliers/vendors present didn’t like that idea as they are not HR! & likewise some went in & pitch & clarify that they ‘could’!!)

·         Given the opportunity, CTO/CIOs typically try to act strategically, namely create flexible platforms/processes to enable marketers to easily take control of tactical & “day to day” issues [i.e. games development (graphics, offer, mechanics, campaigns etc.)], of course, some may need to get more involved if system more legacy based.

·         To demonstrate point of how Reactive it could get, an example was given that a new brand/products/operations AND developing platform in within 3months!!!

·         Due to being mostly seen as cost centre however, situation usually happens that the CTO/CIOs are at times not given a choice but be “reactive” as the market, regulations and competitions may change one afternoon and put different type of development/platform pressure on the business AND thus they have to literally change the company, product or system’s short/medium/long term... (some veteran could tell you this has happened a few times already!)

·         From Ciklum’s perspective though, many a times, the outsourcing worked very well, and certain newer firms even outsourced their agile developments of critical payment systems, which panel & audience agreed maybe best outsourcing would be well capsulated process like payment which is ripe for outsourcing

·         It was highlighted rightly that by working with suppliers like Ciklum who might be a positive change agent to help and aid the process of operators honing the agile development process within the firm in order to segment the right piece of agile development work in order to deliver good results & deliverables

·         Whole panel & audience recognised outsourcing (or not) is mostly about meeting supply & demand, but most importantly the ease of communications (language, culture) and  different time zone may play a role into whether the partnership would be a success or not

·         There are however, multiple examples of how/whether outsourcing worked in gaming gambling sector, and some that decide it was particularly applicable for legacy system as by the time it was ‘explained’ and educated, it would already have been too costly in time, resources & money

·         Examples were also highlighted that it works out for newer/startup companies to outsource as they can focus on what counts, the marketing/campaigns etc.

·         Building the whole system internally also pose big challenges, just do a search on previous news where certain gaming firms wasted many millions by developing their own platforms..

·         CTO/CIOs of the sector do know their stuff & typically would do another review every 2 to 3 years which means that despite everything that has been said, they are not closing the door for sure, but as long as there is a clear business case and benefit for doing so vs. Internal development/control

·         Much time were spent on discussing around how to manage the ‘multi-channel’ requirements of the moving landscape, it was accepted the importance of IOS & social media of likes of Facebook & others.

·         Preferred methodology was to segment it and have some form of internal API so they can mitigate risks of deployment on certain platform (popularity vanish one day?) and of course, there maybe certain unilaterally changed of mind by major corporations like Apple and Facebook (not like they would ask for your permission!), hence how best to manage that risks were also discussed.

·         Essentially, lifecycle of the gaming operator may be a great indicator of whether or not and how they might outsource their software development process; or working with agile development partners (having identified key portions of their business to be ‘agile developed”).

Final thoughts by Gareth: All in all, brilliant evening, and we covered so much (big thanks to Tom & Jeremy particularly, & Christian for flying in!), kind of glad that we did not have any presentations on the night and we went straight to the panel discussions! We still however did not manage to explore when would the industry leaders be able to get together to develop some common standards so providers can provide solutions that not only efficient but also fit the need of the industry perfectly. 

Guess creating common standards & APIs should be work behind closed doors, best to be done by the Gaming Technology Forum [GTF], but key is not to re-create the wheels. This is definitely a great business to be in for those of us lucky to be involved.  One easy way is to get to the ground floor of Gambit & learn from the top industry leaders, sign up to our newsletter: http://TheGambit.info/re

Networking throughout:

Hosted by:

Evening sponsored by:

Gambit-Special Event media partners:

Speaker Profiles:

Jeff Dunham
CTO, William Hill

Through a stroke of good luck he managed to leave behind 5 years in the Hewlett Packard mothership and 10 years in the ‘burbs in California and move into online gambling and live in UK, Europe and Asia.

Other than a persistent technology theme,  he had two runs at business operations, two at P&L ownership and one at business development in Asia.

For the last few years he own all technology aspects for an internet gambling business.  Production systems operations, product definition, project delivery, software development, office systems, and data centres.  You name a technology area required for an online internet gambling business and there’s a good chance he's familiar with it.

Jeremy Longley
Chief Technology Officer, PKR.com

A first-class honours graduate from Cambridge University, Jeremy co-founded PKR with Jez San, and is responsible for overseeing all of the technical aspects of PKR, including the R&D of PKR’s proprietary software, and the implementation and operation of the IT infrastructure which supports it.

With over ten years in the video games industry, Jeremy worked as Lead Software Engineer at Bullfrog Productions before setting up and running Lost Toys, an independent development studio. Prior to joining PKR, Jeremy was Executive Producer at Kuju Entertainment.

Christian Aaen, Consulting Director, Ciklum

As Director of Ciklum’s Services and Consulting department based in Kiev, Ukraine, Christian is responsible for overseeing development and promoting best practice to over 120 client teams working within the Ciklum nearshore environment. Christian has a strong focus on Agile development and has championed a proprietary ‘Agile Comparative Measurement’ tool which benchmarks comparative Agile productivity across all of Ciklums Agile client teams, utilizing a number of Agile metrics.  His strong analytical skills were acquired by working as project manager at Wunderman Denmark and investment analyst at Siemens Venture Capital in Germany. Christians client base at Ciklum has included a wide variety of online gaming clients including Bettson, BWIN and Playtech.

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