‘What we lack in numbers we make up for in creative and unique games’ - interview with Thierry Semoff, CEO at PearFiction Studios.

We’ve spoken to Thierry Semoff, CEO and founder of PearFiction Studios, who shared the company’s plans for the future, as well as gave us an insight into what it is like working with a team of PearFictionists. We’ve also had the opportunity to hear about what key indicators can lead to success in our industry.

02.07.2021
Interview with Thierry Semoff, CEO at PearFiction Studios

Interview with Thierry Semoff, CEO at PearFiction Studios

Welcome, Thierry. Thanks for taking the time and joining us for the SlotCatalog interview series. Before we dive in, could you please introduce yourself to our readers and give us a background and a brief history of PearFiction?

Thank you very much for inviting me! I’m Thierry Semoff, CEO and founder of PearFiction Studios. I’ve been in the industry for just over five years, starting in 2016 when our studio made the transition from mobile games to online casino games. I wear many hats as CEO, but my main responsibilities are to lead the game design and the studio’s pipeline/direction. I had a busy journal of business ventures before founding PearFiction Studios. I started my career as an aerospace technician and turned multimedia entrepreneur in the mid 90’s to shepherd the development of a few multimedia companies, then helmed the production and design of a small army of educational programs, applications, and mobile games.

PearFiction Studios was founded in 2014 with a focus on developing casual mobile games for iOS and Android devices. We originally published around a dozen small to mid-sized casual games such as Blitz Racer, Blocks Quiz, Tiny Necromancer, Alien Road Rage, and later PowerUp Slots™.

Mobile casual games were fun to develop but ROI was hard to achieve. Some of our most successful games were casino games; their popularity led us to make the switch to online casino games in mid-2016.

We showed up at G2E that fall with a paper flip-book of slot designs and landed a game deal with Leander to host our first licensed games, Gustavo El Luchador and OuterSpace Invaders.

At ICE the following year, we signed The Smashing Biscuit as a licensed game with Microgaming and Goblins Go Wild as a bespoke deal with Casumo. These games and exposure led to additional bespoke game contracts from late 2018 to mid-2019.

Then in November 2019, we signed an exclusive game development agreement with Microgaming. It’s been the best thing that could have happened to us. The agreement has allowed us to focus on developing the best quality games we can while benefiting from Microgaming’s extensive distribution.

Is it necessary to be a perfectionist just like you to apply to PearFiction?:) Jokes aside, does the team share your passion for perfection and what is it like working at PearFiction Studios?

Ha, ha! Good one! Perfectionism is definitely one of my own traits and part of the inspiration for the studio name. All of our employees are PearFictionists in their own way. Honestly, it’s incredible to work at PearFiction with such a talented and passionate team. It’s really gratifying to work with people who share your passion and strive for creative and technical excellence. They never settle for anything but the very best for our games, players, and fans.

We’ve been working remotely for more than a year now due to COVID and I think that we all truly miss the family atmosphere, the weekly brunches, the water-cooler gossip, and the ability to work closely with each other.

PearFiction's portfolio looks far more humble compared to leading slot developers, yet you've already managed to win the hearts of many gamblers all over the globe. Can you give us an insight into the development process and how you achieve such splendid results?

It’s true that we are a relatively new studio with a smaller portfolio. I think that what we lack in numbers we make up for in creative and unique games.

We try to develop games that have a personality, games that tell a story, that have that PearFiction signature. They’re a mix of humor, amazing art, depth of features, high survivability, and high potential bonuses.

We often talk about the players and the road leading to the bonus game. We want to make that journey as varied and as exciting as possible for players. The bonus is just one part of the game; players should be entertained and engaged while spinning and waiting for that big potential bonus to hit.

It might sound cliché, but it’s with a great team that you make great games. Kudos to our phenomenal team of mathematicians, developers, artists, and managers that are trying to make each game perfect. We take the time to playtest, playtest, and playtest our games some more to make sure that the math, hit rates, and feature balances are just spot on.

With so many games coming out each month it’s important to develop unique games that have a high production value and quality. Both the market and operators are demanding this and we’re delivering on that demand.

Your previous slot, Chicago Gold, was quite a successful game for the studio reaching the #10 position of our UK SlotRank in February 2021. Why do you think the game did so well, in particular, which feature players have appreciated the most?

It’s our first exclusive game for Microgaming and it’s been quite a success to say the least! Four months have passed by since the launch of Chicago Gold and the game is still going strong today.

Showing some of the best KPIs (retention, spins, and net wins per player per day) on the Microgaming game portfolio. I think the look of the game is what draws players in at first. The team did an amazing job with the 1920s Chicago game look. The thug, the crooked cop, the femme fatale, and the big boss characters are simply awesome.

But good looks are just skin deep! I think that the main reason for the game’s success is balance. The math is just right in Chicago Gold. The collect feature has a hit rate of ~1 in 32 spins and with a nice max win potential of 129x your bet makes for a fun and entertaining base game. The whooping 5,626x max win and the average win of 61x in the Free Spins game provide an exciting chase and a healthy win potential for players. The Respin Collect seems to be every player’s favorite. Once you land a Jackpot symbol on that respin reel you become a fan for life.

On June 30th, Blazing Mammoth will go live globally. Can you tell us a bit more about the game and what makes it so special?

We are so happy to see Blazing Mammoth™ go live to all Microgaming customers at the end of the month.

We were given the opportunity to develop Blazing Mammoth using the popular EpicStrike™ engine first seen in 9 Masks of Fire. Enhancing existing game engines, is not our cup of tea and not what we want to be known for but that engine and game from our colleagues at Gameburger Studios is now such a classic and doing so well for all operators and players that we couldn’t pass up the chance to work with it.

Our goal was to pimp the EpicStrike™ engine as much as we could and give it the PearFiction signature treatment. The Ice Age theme we picked for the game could have ended up a bit cold with all that snow and ice so we wanted to give that game theme a warmer look. By adding classic symbols, a lot of bling, gold, and saturated colors we were able to give the game an inviting Ice-Age meets California look!

The Mammoth Scatter Jackpots are the core feature in this game - landing Golden Mammoth scatters can reward you with up to 2,000 times your bet. We made sure to celebrate those Scatter Jackpots in a grand way by launching a Mammoth Stampede for each Jackpot. The more Mammoth Scatter Jackpot symbols you match, the more Mammoths are part of the stampede.

The stampede inspiration came from the land-based casino world. We wanted to create that classic, over-the-top casino feeling of landing bigger and bigger wins with a whole cohort of massive mammoths blazing across the screen. We wanted to make these win celebrations epic, thus was born the loud “BLAAZING MAMMMOOOTH” scream.

You can see the Mammoth Scatter Jackpots scale on the left-hand side. Landing 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 Mammoth Scatters will enable you to win 1x, 5x, 15x, 40x, 100x, 500x or 2,000x your stake, respectively. This feature is available in both the base game and the free spins game.

The other main feature of Blazing Mammoth is the Free Spins game. Landing three Free Spins symbols on reels 2, 3 and 4 will trigger the Free Spins feature and activate the Blazing Free Spins Wheel. The wheel will allow you to spin and win between 10 and 30 spins at either a 2x or 3x multiplier. The Free Spins game can be retriggered with the same number of spins you initially got from the wheel.

The Blazing Mammoth features are straightforward, satisfying gameplay. There’s no need to study the paytable for hours on end. That simplicity and the whopping survivability rate of the EpicStrike™ engine is what will make this game a success!

Let's delve into the future as we're craving to know what PearFiction's plans for 2021 are. What will be the next game from PearFiction?

We are truly excited about our next game. As its name suggests, Squealin’ Riches™ features a charming golden piggy as the game host.

Piggy will spice things up by jumping on the reels to add random game modifiers such as an additional Free Spins symbol to trigger the feature, adding Gold Piggy Coins to trigger the LockNWin™ game, upgrading the Jackpot values, and a few other special interventions that we’ll leave for you to discover.

One of the main feature of Squealin’ Riches is the LockNWin™ game, our mechanic that puts a twist on the classic Links and Hold & Respin features. In Squelin’ Riches, you need at least 6 Gold Piggy Coins from one spin to trigger the feature as 3 respins are awarded. All Gold Piggy Coins become sticky, along with the Mini, Minor, Major, Grand, and Epic Jackpots. Filling the reels with 20 Gold Piggy Coins triggers the Epic Jackpot worth up to 10,000 times your stake!

We have designed a few unique features in our LockNWin™ mechanic that make it far more than a simple Hold & Respin game. Coin Multipliers and Jackpot Upgrades can land in the feature to make it even more exciting. Multiplier symbols, as their names indicate, multiply the value of any Gold Piggy Coin symbol present on the reels by up to 10x times their value.

The Jackpot Upgrade symbol is even more exciting. When they land they increase the value of all five Jackpot levels, upgrading each of them to the value of the tier above and potentially making the Epic Jackpot worth double its initial value! For example, the default value of the Epic Jackpot is 5,000x your stake. A single upgrade symbol will increase the Epic Jackpot value to 6,000x your stake. Upgrades can land frequently; landing five Jackpot Upgrades during a LockNWin™ game would surge that Epic Jackpot all the way up to 10,000x your stake.

There’s more than one more way to land jackpots in this game as well. The Squealin’ Riches Bonus Wheel has the potential to award and of the available Jackpot prizes, in addition to other instant cash prizes and a chance to trigger the Free Spins game. Every Gold Piggy Coin that lands on the reels, whether it triggers LockNWin™ or not, is collected and added to the Bonus Wheel progress bar. Once the progress bar is completely filled (on average this takes about 300 spins), the Bonus Wheel feature is triggered.

The other big feature of our action packed Squealin’ Riches slot is the Free Spins game. Upon entering the feature you’ll spin a wheel to determine how many free spins you can play and will then have the opportunity to gamble those spins on another wheel for the chance to win an even greater number of spins. For example, if you land 10 free spins you can choose to gamble them for the chance at 15 free spins. You can continue gambling until you’ve won 30 free spins – the maximum possible amount. There’s always a chance that you might lose your free spins by gambling, but rest assured that even if you lose the gamble you still get a chance to land a mystery prize worth on average 22x your bet.

There are more Gold Piggy Coins, more chances to land the LockNWin™ game and more chances to land a Jackpot prize during the Free Spins game. The fun can also keep going since landing 3 scatter symbols will retrigger the Free Spins feature.

Squealin’ Riches is set to go live in September.

Are there any specific game mechanics that you've been impressed by recently and will you give them a shot in your future titles?

We are constantly observing industry trends, playing new games, and exploring the potential of new mechanics. So much to love and experiment! This is what makes us tick, it’s one of the reasons why our industry is so amazing.

In the short term, you will see PearFiction pushing the edge of instant jackpots/prizes and EpicSrike™ mechanics with 15 Tridents™ coming out in November of this year. We will also dive deeper and enhance our LockNWin™ mechanics with the launch of Congo Gold™ by the end of the year.

What current trends in the iGaming sector you find interesting and do you have any predictions for our industry for the next few years?

High Production Value Games

With so many games and so few spots at the top of the lobby to fill each month, I would not be surprised to see higher production value games being developed--it’s what operators are asking for-- diverse gameplay and features, more feature rich games that players will keep coming back to.

Players want to play games that are fresh, that offer something new, something that will draw their attention and keep them entertained.

Game Survivability or the Survivability Rate

The appetite for high-variance slots is still present, driven by streamers and tenured players chasing those epic wins. That aside, there is something to be said about the popularity and commercial success of low volatility games (Starburst™, 9 Mask of Fire™, Blazing Mammoth™, etc.). Their low volatility, wide appeal, and high survivability rate (SR) are making them extremely popular amongst the general/casual online slot player audience.

That Survivability, or Survivability Rate (SR), is also something high on our trend radar. It’s not a golden rule or an immediate guarantee of success, but games that allow players to spin longer for their set bankroll/budget have a better chance of success at extending their shelf/lobby life.

As an example, Blazing Mammoth (same for 9 Masks of Fire) with a bankroll/budget of €50 and a bet of €1 per spin, will allow players to play an average of 303 spins. When running bankroll simulations it’s not uncommon to reach 1,000+ spins with that same bankroll/budget of €50. If the game is entertaining and the win potential present, it gives players a lot more entertainment and bang for their buck!

Both from the player and revenue perspective, Survivability is another KPI to monitor closely.

Before switching to producing real-money slots, PearFiction originated as a mobile games developer. Is there any chance for the studio to return to the roots and release a casual game?

At the moment, that answer would be no. That said, we don’t know what the future holds. There is so much to be done in the online sphere; sharpen our skills, and improve the studio output and game quality. That said, with the availability of Native Mobile gambling games, I could see us bundling our games for Native Casino Games/Apps.

We’re reaching the end of this interview. It's been a pleasure to chat with you Thierry! Is there anything you would like to add and share with our readers?

Thank you so much for this opportunity and interview SlotCatalog! It means a lot to us and it’s truly appreciated.

If I may, I would like to thank the PearFiction Studios team first. They are an amazing bunch of talented, driven, and creative individuals. Even working remotely, we have been able to work together and deliver amazing games this year. I’m so proud of what we have been able to accomplish.

Watch out for PearFiction! We have a lot of exciting games coming out exclusively on the Microgaming platform in the coming months. We are truly looking forward to seeing players enjoying our games throughout 2021 and beyond!

We hope to exceed your expectations.

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