20+ years in the gambling industry including 13+ years playing and reviewing slots.
OLBG’s Chris Taylor spoke to Daniel Kalinowski, Affiliate & Social Media Manager at Blueprint Gaming, for a general Questions and Answers interview.
Founded in 2001, Blueprint Gaming is a UK-focused slots provider with more than 200 top-quality slot games. With a big presence in land-based casinos, betting shops and arcades throughout the UK, you’ll find Blueprint Gaming slots at the overwhelming majority of online slot sites.
OLBG’s Q&A with Blueprint Gaming goes into detail about the slot game creation process, the percentage of players who play their games on mobile devices, challenges in the UK, their most popular games, the iconic Fishin’ Frenzy series, branded slots, Megaways, sequels and much more. If you want to try Blueprint games for free, check out our demo slots section.
Q: How are new slot games created? What’s the process?
DK: “The development team will initially brainstorm and discuss what game mechanics and themes they want to work with first. This will often be influenced by player and operator feedback on our earlier games, as well as reviews.
Once we have a concept, the Art and Programming teams start developing the graphics and code for the game. When the game reaches playability it then gets passed on to our Testers for Quality Assurance.
As all these processes are in motion, our Compliance team also works to ensure that the game will be suitable to be released in its intended markets, providing feedback when necessary to keep the product on the right track.
Finally, once the game is completed it will be launched with our operators, and thus the process of collecting data and feedback will be repeated for the next game.”
Q: What % of players play on mobile vs desktop/ tablet devices?
DK: “Our recent data suggests that 92% of our turnover is coming from mobile devices, which is massive! We have been seeing staggering numbers showing that mobile phones are the preferred device for our players and so we believe that this type of player is here to stay.”
Q: What challenges does Blueprint Gaming face with regards to regulation in the UK?
DK: “Although working to regulations can be challenging, we do believe that they are necessary to make sure that our players are safe, and thus we don’t see the Gambling Act as a “challenge” and more like guidelines that help us protect our players.
However, yes, following new regulations can be tricky regardless of which market we are designing games for as there is a lot of information to get through. We are lucky to have amazing Compliance and Legal teams who help us navigate in that space, but also the operators who will communicate with us on any changes in their markets as well.
In terms of the practicality of dealing with regulations and designing games, we have to ensure that our slots include responsible gambling measures such as bet limits and that they do not offer mechanics such as auto-play features and Bonus Buys, which are quite popular with certain players.”
Q: What are Blueprint Gaming’s most popular slot games? Are there any that are particularly popular only in the UK?
DK: “We have a few slot series that are performing well in various markets. For example, the recent Cash Strike games are proving to be a colossal success for us outside of the UK.
However, if we are talking about UK players, they still enjoy games such as The Goonies, Fishin’ Frenzy and Eye of Horus. Recently, our latest Kong games are breaking records with our operators, so we are happy to see our own King of the Jungle reach such a high success, paving the way for more games to come!”
Q: What plans does Blueprint Gaming have for the Fishin’ Frenzy series?
DK: “While I cannot discuss any specifics about the next Fishin’ Frenzies yet, we have to acknowledge its place on the market and the popularity it enjoys. This series of games is not going away any time soon, and we will continue to support this family of games with new features and mechanics for our players to enjoy.”
The Ultimate Guide to Fishin’ Frenzy Slots
Q: With so many branded slots, why do you think players love the ones created by Blueprint Gaming?
DK: “There are a few reasons for the success of our branded games. If we remove the themes from the focus, those games still provide solid gaming experiences as each new licenced game we develop often spearheads a new gameplay mechanic, or a variety of features.
We also provide good quality content in our games for fans of those shows and movies. A lot of effort goes into ensuring that those settings and represented well in our games and that they are coherent with the storylines from these shows.”
Q: With more Megaways slots than any other provider, are there more coming in the future?
DK: “In all honesty, we are surprised by the fact that these games have become such a success for us. If not for player demand, we would have probably moved on to something else by now, so yes, there will be more Megaways slots because quite simply, that is what our audience wants.
You should have seen people’s reactions when they saw us demoing The Goonies Megaways at ICE earlier this year. It was almost as if no other game really mattered!”
Q: Can we expect more sequels to some of your existing slots?
DK: “Absolutely. We love working on slot sequels because they allow us to work in a loop where we get to improve on our games based on the feedback gathered from older titles and apply the changes directly to that series. Plus, trilogies have always been and will forever remain cool.”
Q: Can you tell us a little about your upcoming releases?
DK: “We are currently getting ready to release our Christmas-themed games in the last couple of months of the year.
You might notice that we are releasing Saint Nicked 2 Ho Ho Ho, a theme that was initially developed by Lucksome™. We loved the art and the humour of the original game and so we thought that it’d be cool to see how the sequel will perform with our players.
Our superstar primate Kong will also don the Santa hat this year in King Kong Cash Even Bigger Bananas Power Play, and our players who are fond of angling will be able to catch more fish in Big Catch Bass Fishing Christmas.”
Q: Do you have a particular favourite slot from Blueprint Gaming? If so, why?
DK: “For me personally, it has to be The Flintstones game we released earlier this year. I love the licence having grown up watching the animated show and the films with John Goodman playing Fred, so it’s a classic for me.
It also has a high level of polish that a lot of our more successful games have these days, including Cash Collect features which I think offer a good experience for the players to engage with.”
