“ICE is indeed the must-attend event and the experience is always positive”

What's been yor overall impression of ICE Totally Gaming 2017 and when do you expect to reap the benefits of your participation in the international exhibition?

ICE is indeed the must attend event and the experience is always positive.

This year's attendance was perhaps slightly smaller but the quality was still there. All of the three days were busy for us and our expectations were completely fulfilled.

The ICE show is truly an event that brings in quality visitors, and the attendance is comprehensive from almost every part of the world.

I believe the attendance would be even bigger if the organizers would consider the Chinese New Year and try to avoid the proximity between the dates. In this case, the attendance from the Asia would be considerably stronger. The benefits of such event are hard to define so specifically, because a gaming company attends many events and does multiple consequent promotions. Being in constant touch with our customers, it's hard to award a benefit of the business just to one single event. Still, ICE is truly important key event for any gaming company.

Do you anticipate any major changes or hope to see any changes to the gaming industry in 2017 that are going to have an effect on the company's operations?

The changes in the gaming industry may be attributed to many different factors, but in our case, the changes have to do with new market opportunities. Currently, we are eyeing Brasil, Thailand, and some others as well.

The games that we do, have been around for centuries and there's nothing that needs to be changed. Many of our competitors are trying to come up with the invention, the twist that will bring them the advantage, yet all of these expeditions ended up to be failures, maybe just good enough for some marketing campaigns. On the other hand, our giant brother, the Slot industry, keeps on progressing, changing, upgrading or downgrading. It has become a rule that a slot manufacturing company has to launch new games and features, even cabinets, every few months. Luckily, this 'crazy race' is not really influencing the field of Electronic Gaming Tables, so we're able to hold our ground and earn our living without having to improve what's already proven to be the best.

What is the industry lacking today and what can companies do to fill that void? Will the industry see a shift in focus from major casino suppliers over the next year?

The industry today is lacking personal touch, flexibility, and a proper relationship between suppliers and operators. For this reason, I believe the shift is already showing first signs. The giant suppliers of today's gaming industry are simply too big, too difficult to deal with, and perhaps even too aggressive. They don't have the time to focus on a specific client, they need to 'make' their numbers and their numbers keep getting higher because they are too big to feed. I could write a separate book about what's wrong about the approach of such companies and how it's negatively influencing the industry, yet I believe this is already a common knowledge so I'll mention how this is helping a company like ours. Alfastreet is a small company, very specifically focused on producing the Electronic Table Games, primarily Roulette. We keep very personal relationship with our customers and basically react to any request we receive. Our response time is direct and immediate and we actually treat our clients in a way they feel appreciated. This is helping us a lot with our business and the marketing we receive from our customers is the one you cannot buy.

You certainly invest a lot of money and effort in R&D. What can both operators and players alike expect to see from you in terms of product development?

Our R&D department is always very busy customizing games for specific markets, sometimes even for specific customers. In addition, we always have new things under way, yet we're being aware of the fact that our bread comes from the products we've been selling for the past 25 years. Our development is still very productive and the products like Royal Derby, Big Wheel, Multi Touch etc., are contributing well enough to our overall success. We choose not to publicize our plans, as we have too many followers that are looking our way to find out what they should do in the future.

What are your aims for the year and how do you intend to achieve them?

We're working very hard to stay ahead of competitors, and maintain our position in the market. Furthermore, we're finding ways to conquer the very few markets where we don't have the dominant position, and this is based more on principal than on anything else. Many brands claim to be the leaders of the market, to be the number one, but I say, everyone can't be number 1, unless everyone's calculator is broken.