Something To Bragg Gaming About

Comparasino chats with Aleksandar Dašić, Head of Affiliate Marketing at Bragg Gaming Group, to learn more about the provider’s content and how it’s making a name for itself through unique and innovative mechanics 

With online casinos now offering thousands of slots to players, provider needs to come up with themes and mechanics that ensure their games stand out. 

Bragg Gaming Group is a provider that has done this with great success, with its three in-house studios, Atomic Slot Lab, Indigo Magic and Wild Streak Gaming responsible for breakthrough mechanics like Connect & Collect™ and Cash Towers. 

But in addition to its own content, Bragg supplies online casinos with thousands of games from other studios via its powerful Bragg HUB. 

To learn more about the provider, its unique mechanics and its wider approach to slot game development, we spoke with Aleksandar Dašić, Head of Affiliate Marketing at Bragg Gaming Group.

Bragg Gaming – who are you and what do you do within the online casino ecosystem?

Bragg Gaming is a supplier of online casino content and technology to the global online gambling industry. Within the online casino space, this includes providing our operator partners a full suite of more than 10,000 games from our in-house studios and an ever-increasing number of third-party partners. What we also do is provide all the technology required to operate an online casino, be it player account management (PAM) technology, an aggregated platform where our operator partners can access the latest casino titles and new titles can be added (the Bragg HUB), as well as sophisticated player engagement technology that provides operators with the tools to ensure a fantastic player journey in the online casino space that is compliant, safe and memorable, so that the players come back time and time again.

Why do you have different studios operating under the Bragg Gaming umbrella?

We have several in-house game development studios, including Atomic Slot Lab, Indigo Magic and Wild Streak Gaming, all developing online casino content. At the same time, we also provide aggregated online casino content from a number of third-party partner studios through the Bragg HUB. The primary purpose of having so many different studios is to ensure we can respond effectively to the needs of individual players in our 30+ operating markets. Player preferences and tastes vary in many jurisdictions, and many of our studios specialise in developing what we call ‘localised’ content, which is geared to specific jurisdictions. In that way, we can appeal to a wider number of players and provide content to a larger number of operators than we would if we had just one studio under the Bragg Gaming umbrella. 

How do you choose the themes and styles for your games? To what extent do market trends and player feedback influence those choices?

Player feedback is probably the biggest factor influencing how we choose our themes and styles. However, there are lots of other factors at play when it comes to the themes and styles of our online casino content. One is compliance, as each of the regulated markets we operate in comes with its own set of rules, and these aren’t always the same when it comes to things like game design, layouts and mechanics that we can include. We also don’t want to create games that players don’t like, so we look at market trends and solicit player feedback at all levels of the player journey. Data influences a lot of what we do when it comes to game development, and we collect data both to understand players and operators as well as for regulatory reporting, as required in many jurisdictions. Players’ habits are always changing, so by collecting data, we can anticipate those trends and respond accordingly faster, better and with more success.

Your studios seem to be focused on developing innovative mechanics. Why is this important to you?

Innovation is something we’ve always championed at Bragg Gaming: innovative titles, innovative technology and innovative mechanics. From a mechanics perspective, we’ve developed game-changing slot mechanics that are geared around those individual player preferences that exist in our various operational markets. In a way, we are building a coherent universe in which games can thrive and benefit both online casino operators and players. 

However, we’re not limiting ourselves to innovating just in content. Our Fuze™ player engagement toolset includes many innovative tools such as an AI-powered games recommendation system, flash jackpots, sophisticated bonusing software, quests, tournaments and an increasing list of other features which are being added to all the time.

The online casino industry is a hugely competitive environment, with many suppliers looking to partner with operators, and to be successful, you must be ahead of the game. In this environment, the company that grows and innovates will be successful, while the one that does not will ultimately flounder. For our part, Bragg has been and will continue to be successful in the online casino space because of this focus on consistent and constant innovation, which delivers those engaging player journeys that I spoke about earlier.

Tell us more about Connect & Collect™. What makes this such a thrilling mechanic?

We originally released this mechanic back in 2023 with Cai Fu Emperor Ways, an Asian-themed game developed by Atomic Slot Lab. It quickly rose to prominence and became our top-performing game of 2023, so it was soon followed by 7 Shields of Fortune. The success of these two titles motivated us to turn this mechanic into an entire series. The next in line from this series is Fire Stampede by Wild Streak Gaming, Bragg’s most successful chart-topper in North America.

Cai Fu Emperor Ways from Atomic Slot Lab

The feature started at Atomic Slot Lab as a basic idea that grew into a veritable super-feature after lots of testing, rethinking and redesigning of the original concept. The main idea resembles the main mechanic of pipeline-style games, in which the player tries to assemble a working pipeline through which a fluid can flow from start to finish. Similarly, the player’s goal is to land Connect & Collect symbols to create a continuous path from reel one to special positions on reels three and/or six. Those on reel six carry major bonuses such as Jackpots, Bet Multipliers, and Free Games, while those on reel three have basic bonuses such as Respins, added Wilds and, in some games, special symbols that instantly create a connection to reel six.  

The mechanic relies on the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment we experience when we see something completed and carried through to the end, and on the joy of anticipation of landing that last one symbol that would deliver a nice win. Players take great pleasure in watching things fall into place, especially when they can visually follow their feature progress, and Connect & Collect™ delivers precisely that. 

This mechanic is also quite flexible: we can swap certain subfeatures and bonuses in and out to make each game different, bespoke and customised to the specifics of local markets or operator wishes. Almighty Pegasus is the perfect example of this. It is a bit different from the two previously mentioned games as it offers two ways to start the Free Games feature, by making connections and with Scatters, while top-paying symbols, connection symbols and Wilds may be added to spin results in any phase of the game. On top of that, Connect & Collect symbols carry cash values and the Grand Jackpot may be won randomly on any base game spin. These tempting opportunities create additional suspense and greatly contribute to player retention. The overwhelming success of Almighty Pegasus, by far the best performer in the series, testifies to the robust and reliable entertaining power of the Connect & Collect™ feature.

At the same time, Connect & Collect™ is flexible for players, too, since the rewards aren’t fixed to a single outcome, and they may win anything from Free Spins to a massive Jackpot, sometimes even both, all in a single spin. This keeps the experience fresh and gameplay attractive for a long time, considerably extending the lifetime of all Connect & Collect™ games.

Your Cash Towers games are also popular. How does this mechanic work, and what do players enjoy most about it?

If Connect & Collect™ is a complex mechanic that you sometimes have to introduce to players first, then Cash Towers games with their simplicity are its polar opposite. This game type and its eponymous series, developed by Indigo Magic, was inspired by the popularity of this style of games in Italy, but quickly gained recognition in a variety of markets Bragg serves.

The premise is simple: there is one single symbol position and three “towers”, i.e. ladders with five steps of increasingly bigger wins. The goal is to climb the towers by landing their corresponding symbols to reach the top, where the bonus prize is. The cashpot shows the sum of all current wins and can be collected at any time, but it resets your tower progress in the process. On the other hand, the stopper symbol will reset all tower progress and the cashpot value as well. Luckily, there’s also a Wild symbol that moves you one step higher on each ladder. 

This setup creates endless suspense, especially when a player is pretty high up any tower, as the right symbol will award them with an even bigger prize, while the wrong symbol will make them start from scratch. The trick is in correctly guessing how far to go and when to collect, lest the current cashpot value be lost if the stopper symbol lands suddenly. Metaphorically speaking, this has players playing against themselves, in a way, and it’s lots of fun, much like the crash games, of which we also have an entire series. Each spin creates excitement, and players can enjoy the freedom of making impactful choices rarely seen in luck-based games. The easy-to-grasp reward system of Cash Towers games makes them simple to take on and allows for a fully active and dynamic gaming experience.

Are players looking for more control over the outcome of the game? If so, why do you think that is?

We do see that desire from people more and more. As a game maker, giving them that is a difficult task as you need to balance what the people want and what the regulator allows. The unfortunate part of the business is also that skill-based or semi-skill-based games in the online market are exploitable, and even if we make those, online casinos would not launch them.

Our mission is to find ways to craft games that are RNG-based, but offer the impression of control, or, better yet, give players the option to test their skill and might. We do this through our Fuze™ products, which can often be skill-based in terms of knowing the games and style in which you need to play to win. 

Let’s not forget that the modern world is quite complex, and individuals rightfully yearn for a simpler environment where they can feel in charge and in control of what they are doing. Games are often escapism from the hectic and complicated everyday life we lead. The more you feel powerless in life, the more you crave control elsewhere. Games can offer that, and they are good at it. That’s why we love them. 

If players were to play just one of your games, which would it be and why?

Right now, all eyes are still on Almighty Pegasus, a very strong performer thanks to its powerful and flexible Connect & Collect™ super-feature. Another unique line of games that is showing high potential is the so-called triple pots games, such as Panda Pots, Puff Puff Puffer, Gold Gobblers, and Mighty Mountain. They represent our interpretation of the strong L&W Huff & Puff mechanic, and we think this could be the next big thing in slot gaming.

Almighty Pegasus from Atomic Slot Lab

What is your vision for the future of online casino games? What will Bragg Games be focusing on in the coming years?

The online casino games space will certainly change, just as players and their preferences do, and Bragg, as a content developer and supplier to the industry, will change to suit this shifting environment. We’re laser-focused on anticipating and responding to these changes because they are what will make Bragg, an agile and flexible content supplier, successful in the long term. We want to continue to develop our proprietary content as well as add new content and third-party partners to the Bragg HUB. We’re also integrating new technologies like AI into our game development efforts, as well as continuing to innovate across our content and technology suite. For my part, I’m looking forward to being a part of this process and seeing what the future holds for Bragg.