Pallavi Deshmukh: “Our ethos at NetGaming is to create unique content every year”

A seasoned iGaming veteran with two decades of experience under her belt, Pallavi Deshmukh leads NetGaming as the innovative studio’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Under her leadership, Pallavi has established NetGaming as a transformative and intuitive company in the gambling industry.

NetGaming has set out to buck trends and create experiences that defy expectations with the company’s first AI-driven slot, Wild Buffalo Bonanza, and the signature Mutant Ape Yacht Club just some of the string of paradigm-changing achievements over the years.

With a strong focus on customer and player bases, NetGaming defines the gaming experience the way that everyone wants to see it and mixes player-favorite mechanics with innovative concepts that truly bring something new to the sector.

Q: Pallavi, can we start by introducing NetGaming, where the studio is today, and what particular angle it brings to the vibrant iGaming market?

NetGaming is a casino content provider founded in 2019. We launched under MGA and UK jurisdictions in 2021. 2 years later, we are live in many regulated markets including Greece, Belgium, Georgia, and one of the key igaming markets, Michigan, USA.

We pride ourselves on the uniqueness of the content in our portfolio of over 40 games. We launched the first Mutant Ape Yacht Club themed slot (Aped), the first AI driven art slot (Wild Buffalo Bonanza) and the first mash-up of arcade and slot in the igaming industry (Dragon Fortress – Battle of the Castle).

We have a very close relationship with our customers: taking on board their feedback and adjusting our roadmap to meet their strategic objectives.

Q: NetGaming has come up with many intriguing concepts - your Dragon Fortress Battle of the Castle, Casino Punks, and Aped games have shown some outside of the box thinking a refreshing approach. Are these games just thematically innovative or is there also a gameplay shift in the paradigm?

NetGaming’s ethos is to dedicate a significant part of our development efforts towards delivering unique content every year. Although there is also an appetite for classic and traditional slots, creating something distinct that appeals to our customers and their players is a key objective for NetGaming.

In September 2023, we will release our first Halloween themed game: Wicked Wins – Fortune Pick. It is the first of its kind game featuring 3 different bet levels that players can choose. Players can reveal quirky bonuses - Spooky, Creepy and Scary by tapping on the pumpkins.

Similarly, the games we released last year, such as Dragon Fortress – Battle of the Castle and Aped, have included innovative features like a boss fight, arcade style gameplay and a #WAGMI multiplier (a crypto themed multiplier of up to 100x). These features reference current trends and provide a fresh take on slot games.

Q: What are the games that NetGaming is the most proud to date, and why?

NetGaming puts a lot of thought in designing our roadmap. Every game on our roadmap fulfils a certain purpose: it could be introducing a popular theme, mechanics, localisation, showcasing a unique concept or meeting the seasonal requirements.

Choosing just a handful of games from our entire portfolio is a difficult exercise. Some of our recent games have resonated especially well with our players, so they definitely make the cut. Wild Buffalo Bonanza is our first AI driven art game. The realism of the symbols and the animation of stacked buffalos offer a great experience to players. Our August release, Zeus’s Thunderbolt has been our top performing game to date, with numbers of active players off the chart. It is a beautiful game with a Thunderbolt Re-spins feature that players have loved. We also released Winfinitum Reels in March which is a unique game with a mathematical steampunk theme and a great soundtrack. 3 Wild Jokers is another gem that has been a hit since it launched in Q1’22. It is a simple 3x3 slot with potential to win free spins with 1 joker landing and guaranteed free spins with 3 jokers landing.

Q: Has it been a difficult journey for NetGaming to position itself on the market?

The igaming industry landscape has changed significantly over the past 5 years. The competition has increased exponentially, both in terms of the number of providers, and the license fees being charged. While the resources needed to enter regulated markets has increased, there are still many suppliers who are continuing to invest to have as wide a jurisdictional footprint as possible. And tighter compliance requirements and gambling taxes are shrinking profit margins. NetGaming is not shielded from these macro challenges.

We launched the business at a time when the igaming market a period of significant change: a number of smaller studios had begun to mature into large, successful companies (spurring on other start-ups); M&A activity was at its peak and the US online gambling began to boom after PASPA was overturned in 2018. Launching a new casino content company amidst this was a challenge and we were aware of it. However, we launched with a clear strategy, have kept our costs low, experimented with content while leveraging player favourite mechanics and targeted as many regulated market launches as possible, including the US.

Q: What's the next big project NetGaming has in the works or do we have to wait and see?

We are working hard on finalising our H1’24 roadmap. As NetGaming has always done, there is some fresh content that we will be introducing to the igaming world. The bigger project continues to remain our expansion in North America. We launched in Michigan in June’23, have submitted licence applications in more states and we will continue to pursue more regulated markets across the globe.

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