Light & Wonder addresses Dragon Train mitigation efforts in Q3 results

Q3
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Light & Wonder addressed the mitigation efforts taking place to remove Dragon Train from its operations in its Q3 2024 earnings call. 

Following the studio’s ongoing copyright issue with Aristocrat, which claimed Dragon Train infringed on copyright from its Dragon Link title, Light & Wonder has been forced to take Dragon Train out of its land-based content pipeline. 

Matt Wilson, President and CEO at Light & Wonder, suggested that the provider’s efforts to remove Dragon Train have led to a “great outcome” in North America with less than 100 units having to be removed due to replacing cabinets with other games. 

“I think there’s two universes that we should be talking about when it comes to the Dragon Train mitigation efforts,” he commented.

“The first is the North American premium gaming install base. We said we had about 2,200 units installed in the US – we’ve been able to convert 95% of those games to new titles, titles like Ultimate Fire Link and Invaders from Planet Moolah. 

“And we’ve got some more games to support that base. So we’ve lost less than 100 units in the North American install base which is a great outcome.”

Positive performance for the firm in North America played a key part in it landing a gaming revenue increase to $537m, up 15% compared to the prior year period. This was also fuelled by a global gaming machine sales growth of 38%, whilst igaming revenue increased by 6% to $74m.

“We had a big disruption happen late in the quarter and you can see here the team pulled together and delivered another outstanding set of results with revenue growth. I think it’s a testament to the quality of the team and the culture that we’re building. 

“It’s a testament to the customer support of Light & Wonder, they want a healthy competitive environment and that’s what we’re providing. We want to publicly thank our customer base for supporting us through this.”