Based in Valencia, Spain, Red Rake Gaming has built quite a collection of social and real money games. Going beyond slots and into video poker and video bingo games, the variety has resulted in a well-rounded portfolio.
The company has been at the center of a couple of new contracts already this year and they’ve also got new games scheduled for release soon. You may have heard about Wildcano, an interesting take on the modern slot game. The industry was given an advanced look at ICE in February and we caught up with Carlos Fernández Aguilar, the company’s Head of Business Development, to learn more.
1. Let’s start by going back to 2011. Tell us how the company got its start. Was your first game for real money or the social gaming sector?
Back in 2011, after some years making casual multiplayer games (table games and card games mainly), we started creating social casino games. We had experience operating social games and a good base of users, so they monetized very well from the beginning and we focused on social casino since then. In 2015, after the regulation of the online slots by the Spanish gaming authority, we entered the real money business as suppliers.
2. Is the majority of your current portfolio geared for social casinos or online gambling with real cash?
When we entered the real money sector, we took our best performing social games and adapted them into real money, and all the games created from that moment have social and real money versions. So right now we have 50+ slots and 9 video bingos for social and 27 slots and 9 video bingos for real money, in terms of quantity our portfolio for social is bigger, but in terms of quality, they are about equal.
3. The company has been involved in some content deals this year. How did your partnerships with 1xbet and BetConstruct come to be and what does this mean in terms of the availability of the games?
Yes, there have been some more deals in the last months, but these two have got probably the most exposure. With 1xbet and BetConstruct it was easy to come to terms because we are looking for partners that give great importance to the product that they offer to their players that don't settle, and that are always looking for ways to improve their users' experience and the size of their business. I think that we provide exactly this, a great product in terms of technical excellence, math, features and general user experience, so we are a good match.
Obviously, for us, it has been great to put our content in 1xbet and in Betconstruct's operators and white label customers.
In the case of 1xbet, they are one of the biggest Russian-speaking operators in the market. Our games have been Russian localized for years as we have them accessible in the social networks Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte, so we are delighted to release them in a real money operator like 1xbet.
BetConstruct has also their own brands and is one of the leading white-label providers in the market, and we believe they are going to keep growing in that regard, so this partnership has been huge for us as well.
4. Based on the map of users, you’ve attracted a lot of players in the North and South American market. Did you target this region?
About North America, not really. I the social casino, USA is the biggest country in terms of a number of players and revenue, and Canada is also pretty big, so if you have a good product, properly localized and good virality tools, you are going to get a lot of users from these countries. But it was organical growth, not paid acquisition nor a specific target for us.
In terms of South America, it was a bit different because we created video bingos aiming at the Brazilian and Mexican market. We had a lot of users there playing our games, so we thought to give them the most successful casino product in these countries, the video bingo, was a logical move.
5. Now, moving on to new releases. You guys revealed Wildcano at this year’s ICE Expo in London. The slot is anything but traditional, so apart from the April 2017 launch, what else can you tell us about the game in terms of concept, design, and features?
Wildcano has drawn a lot of interest before its release and it's easy to understand why. It's the first ever slot game that has circular reels, or at least we don't have news about anything like that. And it's great in terms of graphics and animations, so everyone who has seen the teaser has said the same thing to us: "I want to play this!".
Personally, I love everything about this game, even the name itself. But the thing I like the most is that it is a very fun game. Playing it is a lot of fun because, apart from the visuals, the music, and the general design, which is very appealing, it's very rewarding and gives the player a great time for his money.
It has a great free spins phase which can give the user really big prizes and it also has four special features during regular play. They're called "The Earthquake", "The sacrifice", "Pyroclasts" and "Magma" and make the regular play very interesting.
To be honest, we have great expectations for Wildcano. This has been our most ambitious development so far and we really think it can make a big impact in the industry. It's the kind of innovative idea then appears once ever many years. Our staff really think all game providers in the business will be developing some Wildcano-like slots in the next years... who knows!
6. The Greek Gods video bingo game is out soon too, isn’t it?
Yes, it's already released in our social casino apps, and it will be available soon for our real money operators.
7. Can you share any details about projects or plans for the rest of the year?
Of course.
Our main goals are to keep making great games and to keep growing in terms of making our games available to as many users as possible. Being more specific, I would say that we hope to close some content distribution deals that are already in advanced negotiations, to obtain the Maltese and UK supplier license in the next months and to grow our already existing HTML5 games portfolio.
