PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND (US) – September 7, 2012 – GTECH Corporation has launched the Lottery Developer Network (LDN), an entirely new game development program which lays the foundation for significant advancement within the lottery industry. As the industry’s first open development platform, the LDN enables casual and social game developers to develop games that can then be offered for real-money gaming on government regulated lottery platforms.
“The most powerful aspect of the LDN is that it will open up interactive game development to a much wider group, including other lottery vendors and commercial content providers, to offer truly new opportunities and attract light, lapsed, and new players to lottery eInstants,” said GTECH Product Marketing Vice President Paul Riley.
In the past, casual and social game developers were not able to distribute their content to lotteries, due to closed platforms and strict regulations. The LDN solves this issue for game developers by including everything that a developer needs to create innovative games including documentation, design templates, user forums, and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
“Anyone who owns a smart TV, or a media streaming box, or even a modern game console will have numerous applications that are available to the consumer. The applications are available because the providers of these services published APIs that allowed developers to embed that functionality in these net-enabled appliances,” continued Mr. Riley. “The LDN will bring that same level of presence to lottery products through significantly increased volume and new content variety.”
Once a developer completes the design of a game on the LDN, GTECH puts the game through rigorous quality assurance testing, certifying compliance with industry and lottery requirements, including strict adherence to lottery security standards. Qualified games are then added to the game market, a centralized game content library, which will house all the games. This game market is similar to today’s popular app stores. With the game market, lotteries will now be able to “check out” a game – its odds, price structure, prize payouts, etc. – and then quickly get the game launched for live cash wagering.
“The LDN lets GTECH do what it does best in terms of guaranteeing uncompromising system integration, geo-filtering, and geo-location, while opening the previously locked doors of game development to the full spectrum of game content providers.” said GTECH President and CEO Jaymin B. Patel. “The launch of the LDN is yet another example of how GTECH is providing innovative solutions to the lottery industry and increasing collaboration both within and outside of our industry.”
“This initiative is a manifestation that fosters lottery industry collaboration in order to create fun and exciting games that will attract new, different, and potentially younger adult players,” said GTECH Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Connie Laverty O’Connor.
eInstants is an exciting new product, and the LDN is a revolutionary game development and distribution platform. The opportunity to diversify game portfolios, broaden player bases, and generate increased revenues for lotteries’ good causes will be driven by contributions from diverse content developers.
The LDN is operational now and will be fully live at the NASPL/WLA conference in Montreal from September 9 – 12. To learn more, please visit www.lotterydevelopernetwork.com.
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