Ivo Marinovic, NSoft: The enduring appeal of Lucky Six

Lucky Six - never-fading attraction to the punters #

by Ivo Marinovic, NSoft Product Designer

Lucky Six proved its show-stopper features during COVID-19. NSoft offers unique number-based virtual games Lucky Six, Roulette, Next Six, Lucky X, Keno and Number betting. Number-based games have always been a bridge between the Sportsbook segment and Casino games. Now, more than ever, this comparative advantage of number-based games has been acknowledged by different operators. In order to mitigate the COVID-19 caused lock-down, operators have launched all available content online including esports, different simulated leagues and the virtual games as well. This past month has recorded a tremendous interest in virtuals, such as virtual football, virtual basketball but let’s not forget the number-based virtual games segment that has literally exploded. NSoft has recorded 24% growth of virtuals in 2019, this year’s growth will definitely be surprising due to this virtuals hype. NSoft has put a tremendous effort to help its existing and new clients to bridge the period of retail lock-down. Different offers have been created, one of them that has had a great response is certainly the offering of free virtual games online, for a period of two months.

NSoft’s Product designer, Ivo Marinovic, a creator of Lucky Six and many other NSoft games gave an overview on Lucky Six history, features, and the development of this never-fading attraction to the punters.

Product design - the beginning #

At that time, 12 years ago, NSoft was a small company. I have been interested in art and design from an early age and motion design was just an extension of that. 3D design, modeling, animation, processing followed by after-effects compositing are the things that caught my attention immediately. One thing was leading to another. I found myself in front of a challenge when Igor (CEO of NSoft) gave me a sketch in a few sentences of what now is NSoft’s Lucky Six. There is an interesting story behind it. Immediately after a sketch, we had a client, and a deadline, an impossible one - a month. Of course, nobody believed we would make it - hence the deadline. In the beginning, I could do a couple of keyframes and would get lost. Tommy, our genius but the silent developer was very patient and after a few exhausting and sleepless nights we managed, the client got the MVP and what was even more crazy - he liked it.

Launching the product and market recognition #

Every company is different. Every market is different. But every successful product launch example has one thing in common: a story behind it. Our first trade show participation was a real road trip to ICE London in 2011. We had only heard about it, but four of us packed a couple of PC’s with Lucky Six, created in June 2010, and some other products and off we went. To London, by car, with no marketing materials. We were fascinated with the variety of offered products but managed to gather a few leads. We were in the game.

And suddenly, there were 30+ people in the company. The business extended and income multiplied. Players loved it, but so did the competition. It was necessary to keep the pace in front, to make frequent upgrades. Version after version, Lucky Six has become the industry standard.

The secret of long-lasting hype #

When you’re launching a new product, it’s critical to keep key internal project managers and users in the loop, asking for feedback along the way. Asking a few trusted clients to test your product will give you incredibly valuable insight and will tell you a lot about your product. You’ll get feedback on the product appearance, usability and performance that is better learned before launch than after. Lucky Six was launched before the aforementioned procedures that NSoft now has. Luckily it worked out. However, Lucky Six is indeed a great product. It is optimized to run on almost every low-end machine as well as on the top quality ones. It was an amazing adventure of discovering different components and their improvements, we added specials, introduced a fancy 3D graphic, realistic look and finally extended it to multiple channels. Lucky Six literally runs on everything, mini PC’s, android devices, tablets, notebooks, kiosks, web, every channel and on every device. Lucky Six is constantly undergoing architectural improvements, automation, modularity improvements, design polishing, we are also adding special bets, extending multilanguage offering, the product responsiveness, etc.

Key features of the game #

I’m certain that a game that’s kept is the allure for such a long period of time has to have that x-factor. Lucky Six experience feels simple, natural, not manufactured. It is easy to play, customizable, fast and offers great chances to win. You know, when a player realizes that a computer is behind the interaction, whether due to the bad programming or bad design choices you lose them, the UX becomes crucial. It must be crucial in any industry, especially in ours.

Lucky Six is definitely NSoft’s most popular draw-based game. Find out why more than 840 million Lucky Six tickets were played in 2019. Contact NSoft’s sales team at [email protected].

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