ASEAN Gaming Summit 2018

One of my favorite events of the year, the 2nd ASEAN Gaming Summit was held at the Conrad Manila.

Taking part in the Game Design and R&D panel for the 2nd straight year, it was another great talk with Chris Rowe from Aristocrat, Clinton Long from Scientific Games, and Tony Plaskow from Black Cow Gaming. Vin Narayanan from Vinistic Gaming also was a great moderator. This year’s main theme was about how each company goes about bringing player and operator feedback into the development process.

I really enjoyed hearing about how the bigger suppliers go about their internal communication, in that the R&D and Sales teams usually do not directly communicate. This makes sense as having a secure and responsible window of communication between teams is very important in a big company.

This year’s highlights includes the PAGCOR Chairman and CEO Andrea Domingo giving an emotional speech on the recent tragedies in a gaming venue. She also touched upon President Duterte’s moratorium on the integrated-resorts in the country to the number of POGO licences and the positive direction of iGaming the new regulations have brought.

The blockchain panel was also a well-attended one, and I found Jimmy Nguyen to be quite the speaker on the topic.

There was also an expo area this year, a possible pre-cursor to a future game-show in Manila?

The post-event party at the Cove in Okada Manila was a blast! That place is amazing, and to think just 1 year back, we were still working on getting the casino floor up to par.