Ainsworth Game Technology – Innovation and Unity

Australian slot supplier Ainsworth Game Technology began spreading its wings in North America eight years ago, when the company opened its new headquarters in Las Vegas. The company quickly established itself as an expert at producing high-denomination video slots that typically perform well above house average.

For the past three years, though, Ainsworth has reinvented itself in the slot market, broadening its horizons with new game styles in all denominations, while retaining its identity in the high-denom space.

Ainsworth games are making more and more appearances near the top of the Eilers-Fantini slot performance reports, and according to Sean Evans, the company’s vice president of marketing, the reason is an increased emphasis on targeted game development with a focus on the player.

“It has been data-driven, player-focused development,” Evans says. “It’s been a rallying cry around our studios; we’ve just become a lot more laser-focused on what’s working.”

Keith Kruczynski, Ainsworth’s vice president of studios for North America, says that laser focus has been on creating quality content for each individual market the company serves.

“One of the things we’re really focused on is developing games in the markets that they’re targeted for,” he says. “Our Australia studios make games for Australia, our North America studios make games for North America, our Latin America studio makes games for Latin America.

“And what we’re seeing is that the carryover between markets isn’t as great as it may have been five or 10 years ago, so we’re really focusing on what works in the markets the games are developed for.”

He adds that this also means keeping an eye on game performance in each market, while remaining open to trying completely new ideas.

“That’s been the big part of our transformation from where we were three years ago to now,” he says. “It’s about understanding the markets, seeing what’s working, and building upon that. There’s been a huge focus on looking at the Eilers report and building on that, saying, ‘Hey, this, this is what works; let’s do that,’ while still taking some swings, some calculated risks.”

It has helped that Ainsworth has spent the past few years building up its studio network. The company now has six game design studios—in Sydney, Australia, Las Vegas, Monterey, Mexico, South Carolina, Reno, and a new facility in Austin, Texas, headed by former Marketing VP Mike Trask.

Sure Things and Big Swings

Ainsworth’s display of games at the Global Gaming Expo will include plenty of what’s working in the market, as well as a few of those “swings.”

What’s working right now, says Kruczynski, is the perceived-persistence pot-style game. “What’s great about the pots is there’s a billion different things you can do with them,” he says. “It’s fun, and it allows so much creativity and possibilities for us game developers from a business standpoint.”

The effectiveness of this particular game mechanic was proven by this summer’s expansion of the San Fa series, in which San Fa Tigers and San Fa Rabbits were added to the original Dragons and Pandas versions of the game. While the animal character serving as the pot changed, the basics of the game remained the same.

The three characters above the reels represent “Sticky Free Games,” “Jackpot Free Games” and “Extra Free Games.” Each is triggered by like-colored coins landing on the reels, and applied to an initial eight free games. In Sticky Free Games, the reels are loaded with wild symbols, and when they land, they remain in place for the remainder of the free-spin feature.

Jackpot Free Games offer the chance to win one or more of five jackpots—three static prizes and two progressives, the top Grand resetting at $10,000. The color-coded jackpot meters display a number of like-colored coins in the free games needed to trigger the jackpot: two orange symbols to win the Mini; three blue coins for the Minor; four purple coins for the Maxi; five green coins to win the Major progressive, resetting at $500; and six red coins to win the top $10,000-plus Grand.

Extra Free Games tacks on a random number of games to extend the feature.

According to Evans, the two new San Fa games are performing at upwards of 2.4 times house average where they’re placed.

At G2E, the company will launch several new games utilizing the popular pot-collection feature. On the A-STAR and the sleek new A-STAR Raptor cabinets is Coin Kingdom, which features a three-pot persistent free-spin bonus and a four-level mystery progressive jackpot. There will be two themes displayed at G2E, Aztec and Egyptian, available for purchase.

One unique adaptation of the pot-collection bonus can be found in a reprise of Ainsworth’s popular QuickSpin theme. QuickSpin Electric Pots, the first release from the new Austin studio, reprises the free-spin feature from the original QuickSpin games and adds an enhanced wheel bonus.

What’s unique about the game—featured on the Raptor cabinet—is that the three pots don’t lead to a free-game feature or a hold-and-re-spin bonus, but to a wheel spin feature with up to three enhancements. “Extra Spins” grants up to four extra spins of the wheel. “Multipliers” multiplies the values on the wheel up to 5X. “Bonus Pointers” increases the winning slices on the wheel, up to a maximum of five pointers.

Of course, the pots are “electric”—they zap with electricity in fun animation throughout the game.

“You can trigger the pots one at a time or up to all three at once,” Kruczynski says. “This is the first big rollout from the Austin studio, and we’re really proud of it—it’s a fun game and it checks a lot of the boxes that we’re seeing for successes in the field.” He says it should be approved for sale by G2E.

Finally, one outrageous adaptation of the three-pot feature can be found in Neon’s Bonus Blast, a three-title game family on the Raptor to be released in Q1 2025. The pots are fuel pods in an alien spacecraft, which burst to trigger an enhanced free-game feature.

The blue pot increases the value of all cash-on-reels symbols. The red pot blasts the reels with high-paying symbols that lock in place for the remainder of the feature. The gold pot is a drone called “DB7” that expands the reels up to six rows high for one 60-line spin.

At the center of it all is “Neon,” a little green alien who curses like a sailor. If Neon lands in the center reel in the primary game, it awards all cash-on-reels credits on the screen. In the free games, Neon is parked in the center, so cash-on-reels symbols pay off on every spin.

Three-Reel Hold-And-Spin

Pot collection features aren’t the only popular game mechanic to which Ainsworth is applying its own twist this year. Super Charged Link—with base games Super Charged 7s and Reel Hot 7s—brings a particular Ainsworth vibe to the hold-and-re-spin bonus.

At first glance, it looks like a classic Ainsworth three-reel, high-denomination video slot. The base game is a three-reel, five- or nine-line game with classic bar and 7 combinations and a four-level jackpot. But lining up three or more orbs on the reels transforms the game into a five-reel slot for the hold-and-re-spin bonus.

The triggering orbs lock in place as cash-on-reels symbols in the center of the five-line array for a three-spin cycle, during which every additional orb returns the spin meter to three. In addition to the cash-on-reels orbs, the player can land any or all of the three lower-level jackpots during the lock-and-spin feature. Filling all 15 spots return the top Grand jackpot, resetting at $10,000.

All the tried-and-true mechanics are accompanied by Kruczynski’s “big swings,” and one of the best of those “calculated risks” is the game Rocket Frenzy.

Available on the A-STAR or Raptor cabinet—base games Diner and Drive-In—Rocket Frenzy offers constant action in the form of blasting rockets. A prize grid of cash symbols sits above the reels. When rockets land on the reels, they shoot up to the prize board to reveal instant credit awards.

There are special “Bunker Buster” rockets that fly up to take out four cash spots on the board. There are bomb symbols that explode to reveal several cash awards at a time. And there is the Rocket Frenzy Bonus, which grants five initial free spins plus extra spins to extend the feature, the object being to send rockets up to the progressive meter to fill coins that will award the Major or Grand jackpots.

Kruczynski says Rocket Frenzy is the 20 percent side of the “80/20 rule”—that 20 percent of games that represent the big swing. “It’s the 20 percent that represents trying new things,” he says. “I’ve been in the industry 20 years, and when I first started it was free games. Then it was the ways game, and then it was hold-and-spin, and now we’re in perceived persistence. What’s going to be the next big thing?”

Rocket Frenzy is the first Ainsworth game to be developed on the Unity platform, the format on which “a ton of video games are developed,” says Kruczynski. “It gives you the ability to do more cool stuff graphically, but with sound, and easier than before. It represents a pretty big investment for the company over the past four years. When you get a new platform like that, you don’t want to jump on there right away with all your games, because it takes time.

“So now we’re doing a really good trickle-down effect where we’re starting to see one or two games (on Unity). Next year you’ll probably see 60/40, where 40 percent of the games are on Unity and 60 percent are on our old platform. But by the time 2026 comes around, 90 percent will be on Unity.”

Evans adds that Ainsworth has worked to perfect the platform for all game styles—notably, Class II and historical horse racing in addition to the Class III games. He says it will speed up the development process in all genres. In fact, Rocket Link is being offered in both Class II and Class III versions. “That speed to market hasn’t happened in the past,” he says. “Formerly, if we had a good (Class III) game we wanted to port to Class II, you’d see the Class II version nine months later.”

Evans says G2E will also will provide a coming-out party for the Raptor cabinet. “We launched Raptor originally in December of last year,” he says. “This year, we’re going to have five themes with 12 unique titles available on the Raptor. Three more themes and seven unique titles will be available by Q1 next year—so, not bad for a rollout when you can get to eight parent themes and 19 unique games in that space of time.”

This year’s Ainsworth display also represents the largest-yet contingent of new titles. “We’ve actually added 20 percent more machines; we’ve gone from 60 to 72,” Evans says.

This year’s display is only the beginning. The roadmap for Class II and HHR—on the system Ainsworth partnered with Churchill Downs to create—stands to accelerate rapidly thanks to the Unity platform. Kruczynski says the company also is experimenting with artificial intelligence as a way to speed up the development process by aiding in the creation of game art.

When considering Ainsworth, it’s safe to say there are still many big swings to come.