As one of the industry’s leading game developers, Play’n GO is always under pressure to bring out new and innovative games. But for chief commercial officer Magnus Olsson, it’s not only award-winning games that are key to the studio’s success, but the ethos that sits at the very heart of the company – responsible gambling.

Over the past five years, Play’n GO has seen impressive commercial success. From its top-rated slot games like the popular Toonz series with its latest instalment Gargantoonz, to securing certifications across the US in Michigan, New Jersey and West Virginia, the games developer is continuing to expand and grow.

For Olsson, these successes are down, in part, to Play’n GO putting responsible gambling at the crux of everything it does. So much so that the supplier doesn’t offer any bonus buy games, something its competitors cannot claim.

“I’m very happy about our strategy working so well because we get some bad press from multiple sources about not doing bonus buy games,” he says. “They ask us why we don’t do it constantly, but we stick to our guns and it pays off.

“We are actually happy if the bet per round goes down a bit because that means more responsible gaming, it means longer session types and it means that players can play for entertainment and not to fix a financial problem.”

Play’n GO’s take on bonus buy games seems to go hand-in-hand with the direction that the industry is taking to tackle potential problem gambling behaviours. With a year that has seen a harsher spotlight shone on operators’ and suppliers’ safer gambling initiatives, sign-up and in-game bonuses have been thrust centre stage.

Take the UK Gambling Act review white paper, released in June 2023, as an example. It highlighted sign-up bonuses as something that needs to change, alongside more in-depth KYC (know your customer) and affordability strategies.

Though coming under scrutiny from industry peers, Play’n GO’s determination to only develop games that promote responsible gambling behaviour seems to be paying off.

“I’m so focused on rounds and players instead of the turnover,” says Olsson. “Looking at 2023, so far we have more than 50% year-on-year growth on rounds and players in regulated markets and that’s way above our plan.”

Play’n GO’s biggest challenges of the year

Operating in an ever-changing landscape, the igaming industry is hard to keep up with, even for the most established companies. For Play’n GO, the biggest challenge of the year has been the complexities of working and operating in the German market, where regulations make it incredibly difficult for legal operators to roll out new titles. Each game must be certified, and each operator needs a licence to offer slots then additional permissions for every game.

Setting aside the competition: The key differentiators

Getting into every regulated market is an aspirational goal, and one that requires the game developer to do something different to its competitors. For Play’n GO, not offering things like

bonus buy games is a risky policy, especially since there’s a huge amount of money to be made off the back of them. But Olsson doesn’t believe that revenue should be the only driver behind the commercial decisions at Play’n GO. Instead, he believes in asking one question: “What is our key differentiator?”