It’s a daring move walking away from a top position at one of the most prestigious companies in its respective field to start something new – especially in an arena as competitive as the online gambling industry. However, this is precisely what Bryan Upton, ex-Director of Games at NetEnt, has boldly done, by leaving the relative safety of a major organisation to start up Malta-based studio Lucksome.
The team might be modest in numbers for now but possess decades of experience between them and already have a couple of games under their belt. We were fortunate to spend some time with Bryan to discuss the Blueprint Gaming partnership, their latest release Joker Maxima, which has positioned itself as the 10th most read Bigwinboard slot review this week, and Lucksome’s plans for the future. For insight from someone with their finger firmly on the iGaming pulse, let’s see what Bryan had to say.
Bigwinboard: Hi Bryan, hope all is well and thank you for doing this Q&A with us! Last time we spoke was back in May last year when you were Director of Games at NetEnt. However, you have since moved on to take on a new challenge, which we are very excited to hear more about. You are now involved in the startup and operation of a brand new game studio known as Lucksome. Can you tell us a bit about how that came about and what you’ve been assigned to do?
“We are building games that give players’ more experiences, more action, and more information about our games in order to inform their choice.”
Bryan Upton: Time has flown since then! My time at NetEnt was a great learning experience and I hope to apply a lot of that knowledge along with my team at Lucksome. The guys at Blueprint gave me a call and asked if I would kick up a games studio launching games on their platform and bring a different philosophy toward game design and add even more games diversity to their multi-studio setup. It was a great opportunity for us, so we sat and thought hard about who and what would we want to be as studio and came up with Lucksome. We are building games that give players’ more experiences, more action, and more information about our games in order to inform their choice. As people we are more fun than serious, more playful than macho and care about the player experience deeply as we are all players ourselves.
BWB: Can you tell us anything more about the people involved and their background? The collective experience is quite impressive from my understanding.
Bryan Upton: We’re four people in Malta and a few in the UK, we all have been in Gaming collectively for 45+ years, and we’ve picked up a few things along the way 😊, but as they say, there’s always something new to learn!
BWB: Given the tough competition out there, it must take some guts to start a new studio. You obviously must have confidence in your product. What can Lucksome offer players that isn’t already out there? What are your ambitions?
Bryan Upton: It’s extremely tough and that is why working with the team at Blueprint was a wise decision for us. They have excellent support in every area of games design and provision. That in itself will give us an edge. From a product standpoint, we are looking at building up our capabilities as we go, but starting with strong mathematics and interesting betting options like our Lucksome Locks Bonus respin feature to drive action in our games, high hit frequencies on features that really matter, and features players want to see.
BWB: Where will your games be available? What licenses do you hold?
Bryan Upton: As we use the Blueprint Network, they are licensed in the UKGC, AGCC, MGA and GRA. We would distribute to UK, Alderney, Malta, Gibraltar, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain and Romania – market conditions depending.
BWB: There’s been a lot of focus on high volatility and ultra-high potential in recent years, a combination that seems to be in high demand in the hardcore gambling community as well as with slots streamers. Spectacular wins generate a lot of attention and thus exposure. What are your thoughts on that and what type of players do you think Lucksome will attract mainly?
Bryan Upton: Well this is the age-old question isn’t it! There is still quite a debate over how much of the community truly like very high volatility games. I think people are different and thus like different things and different moments. So it’s wise to look at those desires and serve the most important ones. I think our first game Divine Links served players that don’t like a load of risk and want a rewarding and high hit frequency ride, with features that can pay well. We focused our efforts on the math to deliver more 200x wins than an average game. Of course, the players always have the high volatility Free Spins choice for 8000x potential if they want to go for it!
Our second game, Joker Maxima serves up something different. We got feedback that, although looking for those truly monstrous yet illusive wins is good, people just wanted to know which games pay 1000x+ more often. Joker Maxima is one of those games. Tough job to maintain a decent hit frequency on a game like that but I think we managed it quite nicely. The Mystery Multipliers give it a kick and the Powerbands with those extra special reels keep you going until you get the bonus hit.
BWB: Will there be any focus on developing unique trademarked mechanics? What about bonus buys, will we see any of that?
Bryan Upton: As you’ve seen from Divine Links, we have bonus buys and our Lucksome Locks Bonus Respin mechanic for those who don’t want to pay for a full feature buy at a higher stake but take a punt at lower one instead. In general, we’ll be creating our own trademarks and mechanics where we think we can make a difference to our players’ experience.
“We think it will satisfy those players fed up of waiting for that 100,000x win and want to see some real action.”
BWB: Let’s focus a bit more on the actual product. Your second online slot is titled Joker Maxima. What can you tell us about that one?
Bryan Upton: It’s a modern, clean approach to a traditional Joker game. Simple paytable 5×3 with 10 lines. It’s all about realistic high potential and those Joker Wilds multiplying line wins. The more wilds in the win, the higher the multiplier – up to x16 in the main game. Occasionally the wilds float down on the reels creating some tasty wins. We’ve put a good percentage of the RTP in the Free Spins so the game feels pretty tasty once in there. Free Spins has a retrigger for 5 additional spins and a respin feature on any win combo. Why? To hope to respin in more wilds to get those Multipliers up. Literally one spin can change a Joker Maxima Free Spins round from a low to a massive win with those Joker Streak respins. We added a little something spicy with Maxima Mode in Free Spins – so you can gamble your Wild Multipliers lower in order to get even higher up to x24, which is pretty huge for a line multiplier! We think it will satisfy those players fed up of waiting for that 100,000x win and want to see some real action.
BWB: Is there anything you can say about any of your other upcoming releases?
Bryan Upton: We have something very special coming later in the year. We’ve been working on it since the beginning with the Blueprint guys and we think it will be another change-up in the industry. We can’t say too much for now, but soon!
BWB: Lastly, where do you see Lucksome in 2 years?
Bryan Upton: I would hope that we will have our games starting to appear in the top of players favourites lists – because we do the best we can to communicate how our games work and whether it is right for each player, and because we aim to deliver a fun and exhilarating experience to the right players for our games. We would have a decent sized portfolio with unique and solid features in our games that players respect and enjoy.
BWB: Thanks a lot for talking to us Bryan. Can’t wait to try all your new games!
Bryan Upton: Thank you! It is always a pleasure to speak to you, read the reviews you write and indeed interact with the community you have built.
Lucksome’s second slot, Joker Maxima, is due for release on July 22, 2021.
