Aristocrat Leisure will release digital versions of its new gaming machine titles to personal mobile devices before they hit the casino floors next year.
Jamie Odell, chief executive of the Australia-based company, told a press conference that the move is the result of investment in the technology used to develop games.
The company’s social casino platform, Product Madness, is growing rapidly and is likely to be syphoned off from Aristocrat’s online business by the time that next year’s full-year results are known. The company bought Product Madness a year ago and in September of 2013 released a collection of its game titles on to an app which sits within Facebook. It offers free “social casino” play. Users spend cash on extra credits and premium play and Product Madness is reported to have about 500,000 users daily. Annual revenue of about US$20m is the result.
Odell told the press conference that the 2012-2013 full-year profits had been boosted by 16.9 per cent to September 30 to A$107.2m, despite a fall in revenue of 3.5 per cent. Sales were down to A$813.8m mainly because of fewer new games going into Japan. Online revenues, which include Product Madness and sales of games to the European online gaming business, rose 48.6 per cent to A$21.4m.
Aristocrat will distribute the digital versions of its games to online casinos in the US in the three states where it is now legal, Nevada, Delaware and (from Tuesday of this week) New Jersey.
