IGT says it's committed to the Montana Market
With International Gaming Technology's (IGT) November reduction in Montana-based sales and service personnel, some may have been counting the company out, at least out of the Montana jurisdiction.
New IGT Montana Account Executive Kevin Lintner says that would be a mistake. He cites as proof a new Montana game upgrade making it's way through testing and toward submission to the Gambling Control Division for approval, as well as other tantalizing possibilities IGT is eyeing for potential introduction here.
The
Montana Tavern Times spoke with Lintner and IGT Pacific Region Sales Director Pat Minnix January 13.
Lintner has come up through the business ranks by working first out of Bozeman at the old VLC gaming machine manufacturing firm starting in 1994, then joining IGT in 1997. Minnix has served in various capacities with the company 15 years.
Lintner first acknowledged that former IGT Montana Sales Manager Terry Geurin, released by IGT in November, "did a great job in Montana and built many great relationships here."
But current economic realities have driven the company to restructure, slim-down and streamline, the men say.
"The economy is tough right now," Lintner says, adding that goes for the gaming business as a whole.
"Like everyone else, we have to get our expenses in line with our revenues," Minnix says. "We need to be organized on more of a regional basis."
"We need to make our Montana customers aware and comfortable that IGT is not abandoning Montana," LIntner says. "We're not going anywhere; just reorganizing. We understand that our future actions will need to demonstrate our commitment to the Montana market."
As for the coming upgrade, it will feature two brand new keno game titles featuring bonus screens, and two new poker games for current IGT platforms already in the market. They expect that to be submitted to GCD by February.
Both acknowledge the validity of the current conversation occurring in the gaming business over fewer game titles versus more.
Lintner says the new upgraded chip-sets will feature all the current multi-game offerings found on the Game King series, plus the new games as well. But, he says, operators may want to use the owner-accessed administrative functions to customize the game suite by opting to disable older "non-performing" games in lieu of the newer ones.
"Too many games can overwhelm players," Lintner says, and turning off dated ones could also help boost and highlight the new titles.
He and Minnix say the company is always evaluating other possibilities to enhance games in jurisdictions where it is licensed including, of course, software upgrades, but also potentially introducing entirely new platforms.
Lintner notes that the current-series IGTs in Montana—the 960 Game Kings—are fairly conventional in terms of hardware, but that the company has developed a state-of-the-art platform it calls its AVP (Advanced Video Platform) line that incorporates all the latest bells and whistles featuring a PC based architecture integrating hard-drives, CD drives, USB capabilities, wide-screen displays, new cabinet configurations and so on.
But building the ultimate gaming platform doesn't necessarily come cheaply.
"As always, we'll look at market demand and price considerations to see if this will make sense for Montana," Minnix says. "The balance has got to be right. We're in the middle of looking at it. But we won't bring something that's not going to work for the operator."
Lintner points out the current Game King has an open upgrade path. He says the company is also evaluating using the recently authorized thermal printers and USB memory devices in updated iterations.
"The question," Minnix says, "is how quickly we could transition. It certainly would be no great engineering leap for us in Montana as we have hundreds of thousands of devices (elsewhere) utilizing thermal printers."
Lintner says the company has demonstration capabilities for the new Game King game suite and that operators can call to set up a time to see it at the Bozeman IGT office, or that he can bring the demo right to the operator's location.
Both Lintner and Minnix say their—and IGT's—objective is to not only stop the company's Montana market share decline, but to reverse the trend into a growth mode.
Lintner acknowledges, "Our competitors in Montana who are mostly operating only in Montana have been more nimble (when it comes to quickly rolling out game upgrades), and have offered great support and competitive prices for their brands. It is definitely our objective to grow market share and we think we can turn that around if all the pieces fit."
Minnix adds, "We're going to see if we can develop the best platform at a good price and we believe that will be the case in Montana, but it all must make business sense."
Both cite the Oregon and Washington markets which are similar in size to Montana in terms of the number of devices operating, and where IGT has made substantial gains in market share, from zero up to 20 percent in Washington in three years; in Oregon, the IGT brand "was struggling," but rebounded from 1,500 machines in service to around 5,000 at present.
An IGT "product management team" is currently analyzing the Montana market, Minnix says, adding that IGT spends more on research and development than its major competitors combined, "which could pay dividends for operators in Montana."
Lintner adds that he is confident the group "will be able to put together “an attractively priced product that performs well."