Dan Ciobanu Co-Founder & CEO Remote2all chats with Peter White
What can you tell us about the services your Remote2All Solutions provides?
Over the past two years working with top international gaming expert Lucien Wijsman, we have completed the development and patented RemotePlay© Technology, which is a streamlined solution for allowing players to play remotely on electronic gaming and gambling machines. Our solution is changing the market-addressability segments, by increasing the geographical availability of land-based casinos and also the time frames when machines can be operated, regardless of lockdown or any access restrictions. The players have now the possibility of playing their favourite machine from wherever they feel comfortable and they can remotely interact by “pressing” buttons or “touching” the touchpanel of the machine.
Image: Dan Ciobanu Co-Founder & CEO Remote2all
With RemotePlay© Technology operators can switch the availability anytime of any gaming machine from land operation to remote operation. We actually help operators to increase the drop on slot machines and any electronic gaming/gambling machines and the impact of this action is well known in the industry.
There must have been a lot of development since then. Would you say Remote2All Solutions is a totally different company to the one you started with?
Absolutely! We have started with a concept, and ended up with a whole line of products and services that can power up an entire casino/arcade business, and take it to the next level. Our team and partner list increased, the problems we solve increased, and most importantly, we have a broader vision now, covering multiple implementation scenarios over an extended range of machines.
Over the last few years, there has been a significant change in how land-based and online operations have been branded, marketed and operated. Can you summarise for land-based operators who also operate online gaming and for online operators how can Remote2All Solutions assist with increasing their online play?
Over the last 20 years, we have seen a massive shift of players to slot machine-types of games. The attractiveness is generated by very complex rewarding systems, high RTP and certainty of all sort of jackpots (mystery or progressive). With the emergence of online activities including gaming, implicitly, it was easy and mandatory to bring the slot games online, facilitating the access of their players to their favourite games. Now, with RemotePlay© Technology we take the paradigm to the next levels, by allowing players to access remotely their favourite machines. This is one of the “wow-factors” that an online operation can bring to their players and in the same time: a strategic move for land-based operations to facilitate the shift towards an online environment.
What questions are you most frequently asked at exhibitions during your presentations?
That is very easy: legality, availability (by type of machine) and integration process.
The legality of remote play of slot machines varies by jurisdiction, as there are countries where this is legal, is in the process of being legalized or is not yet clear. Always innovation was ahead, so we are happy that we have where to sell now, and in the future, there will be more and more jurisdictions opened.
In terms of availability, RemotePlay© Technology can be used on any electronic gaming machines.
The integration process with legacy systems varies based on machine type. For slot machine integration, our solution is already integrated with two slot-management systems: R/Evolution from Unigens and Rhino of Casino Technology. In the future, we look forward to integrating with other systems as this process is pretty straightforward and very well structured.
In your opinion, what are the most important features and benefits of Remote2All Solutions that those in online casinos should be aware of with this product?
The most important one is facilitating players’ access to their favourite machine. An interesting statistic (well known to any casino) is the ratio between revenues generated by live roulette and online roulette. Extrapolating for slots can be a very good exercise to imagine a potential increase of revenues.
What are the unique factors of RemotePlay© Technology and how does it distinguish from the other systems on the market?
Except the fantastic feature of being able to emulate the touch panel by that allowing players to click on their smartphone, tablet or PC and transferring of that “click” to the corresponding position on the slot machine screen, I believe that our openness for integration with third-party management systems and adaptability to various management scenarios makes us very different than anything else on the market.
What is your view of how technological innovations like virtual and augmented reality can enhance your offering?
We strongly believe that this is the future. Based on our analysis, over the last 25 years the technology followed almost precisely Moore’s Law. I see no reason why it will not keep the same pace (recent global political events may slow it a little bit, but for sure will not stop the evolution of technology). In terms of hardware, we see every capacity almost doubling every two years (for the same monetary units) while the physical characteristics are getting smaller (weight and size) along with power consumption. Major companies are already in this space, developing VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality) and MR (mixed reality) at an incredible speed. For sure, these technologies will impact gaming and gambling.
That is why we already partnered with another company in the process of building the world’s largest entertainment Metaverse – BUGSY World Society – and together we bring a unique proposition for web3 gaming and gambling. We are convinced that future of gaming is in the metaverse, in blockchain technologies, in V/A/M reality technologies but also strongly connected with the real world.
What do you think the secret of good collaboration is?
The most important secrets to any good collaboration (not only in this industry), in our opinion are trust and communication. These are true foundation of any relationship, both in business and in private. These are Layer One “features” (using a crypto slang). On top of these, in the Layer Two secrets category I would include: competence, professionalism and pro-activeness.
What do you see as key benefit of RemotePlay© Technology for player engagement and retention?
The most important factor, (especially for operators who run land-based and online casinos) is the fact that we help them shift players from land to online, by offering them the possibility to interact with machines they love. It’s a win-win situation, because the access to the machine players know is unique – and they can’t find it in another online casino (which is just a click away).
What role will AI play in the development RemotePlay© Technology?
Not every line of code is AI. As a former AI PhD student, I can tell you that there are multiple facets of this, some of them pretty basic, and lately some incredibly advanced, like GPT-3 (Triple Generative Adversarial Networks). At this very moment AI is part of our lives in almost everything what we do, from driving, to health, to reading, to internet searching, to shopping...and for sure, gaming and gambling. We find using AI very beneficial for some well-contained tasks, and we continue to use it and to deploy it in our different partnerships and special projects.
What trends will we see developing in the future?
As mentioned before, we are strong believers in web3: metaverse, blockchain, remote-control and virtual/augmented.mixed-reality technologies. We see a convergence of players from gaming and gambling, and as demographics shows, a new generation is coming which all played in a metaverse sort of game (Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, etc). For them, gambling in that virtual environment etc. is just a tiny new feature compared with the rest of things they do.
All these, combined with the socio, economic and political factors that are shaping our day-by-day activities, contributes with strong arguments to the development of the metaverse.
We see BUGSY World Society contribute as the future of gaming due to its technology, business model and smart integration of the latest trends.
Once slots have been produced and put out into the market, are they marketed correctly by operators?
I am sure each operator has its own unique experience driven by specific market/cultural/social and economic aspects. Our technology can assist in different ways, both operators as well as slot machine manufacturers – by allowing them to introduce (with minimal cost) immediately any machine to their players and clients. The experience generated by a physical machine cannot be replicated by any virtual environment. Gaming and gambling are strongly connected to entertainment and trust concepts, and in the human mind, physical devices are still “eligible providers.”
What are Remote2All Solutions’ main goals for the remainder of the year?
First, we will complete the last installation in Tanzania, we have developed exceptional strategic partnerships in Asia with Global Chain / NYCE, Harmen’s Brenninkmeijer international sales network.
Also, we are working hard on the BUGSY World Society Metaverse, by integrating more and more type of machines. So, I would say, we’re pretty busy and getting crazy busy. Anyhow, already I can say that 2022 exceeded our expectations and next year is looking even better.
***** This interview was originally undertaken in August 2022 and published in Casino Life Magazine Issue 152 ****
