In our SlotBeats Spotlight finale, we take a look at the medium to long term future of content aggregation and if it has a bigger/competitive impact as the market continues to grow.
How do you see the future of aggregation in the medium to long term?
Dylan Slaney, SG Digital: Content aggregation will become even more competitive as the market grows.
It’s following a similar trajectory to the entertainment industry, where companies like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple are all vying for the best content for their respective streaming platforms.
The model works best when you can offer a huge selection of games to a large audience of players through a single integration.
Boris Chaikin, Soft2Bet: The main benefit of aggregators is that they can offer thousands of games from multiple providers through one quick and easy integration.
This streamlines the technical side of on boarding new suppliers, whilst also presenting operators with a wide variety of games to choose from. For new or smaller companies, using aggregators can save a lot of time and resources, allowing them to build strong portfolios with much less groundwork.
Another useful aspect is the speed at which you can target a new market. By partnering with an aggregator, operators can be up and running much quicker than if they were to arrange deals with suppliers individually. Aggregation is here to stay.
With advantages ranging from the content variety, speed and simplicity, its role in the wider ecosystem is now all but essential. Both operators and suppliers are increasingly turning to aggregators as a means to become more competitive in the iGaming arena, and in their position as a middleman in the supply chain, they allow the industry to progress.
Simon Hammon, Relax Gaming: Towards the end of 2019, the aggregation market experienced a sudden boom. Big-name suppliers looked to muscle their way into the vertical by leveraging existing integrations.
But, as highlighted by those new entrants that have already withdrawn, aggregation is not as easy as bolting on platforms as a perceived ‘nice’ addition to a supplier’s business portfolio.
It takes experience to provide the service level and reliable operation required for long term success and it’s a responsibility to the studios that you service to ensure you’re doing the best for their business, not just seeking an additional revenue stream without adding genuine end-to-end value.
Competition will no doubt continue to increase, but you have to understand the ecosystem on a macroscale to be able to step back, identify areas of improvement, and implement those visions for all parties.
It takes exceptional, robust and reliable platform technology with continual investment. It relies on hassle-free commercial propositions that ease the content delivery process for all parties.
For those that are committed to doing it well, it’s a golden opportunity that won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
Zorica Smallwood, ESA Gaming: Aggregation platforms will continue to play an important part in the igaming eco system for a long time yet.
It is already a highly competitive business which has ensured that the quality of offers on the market today is high and they do solve a number of headaches for many stakeholders.
Where I believe we will start seeing a shift is towards more exclusive content to help operators differentiate in the busy online casino marketplace we have today.
This could drive operators away from aggregators that tend to offer the same content to all their partners.
