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Enhancing the fun of gaming

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Raymond Chan, TGG Takara Gaming Product’s CEO, travels about 48 times per year around the globe for business, meeting with partners and clients. Born and raised, and now based in Hong Kong, when the time is right, he says he would like to settle in Macau to be closer to all the gaming action.

“I spent a couple of years in Macau before, between 2007 to 2009,” he says. “I’ve seen the growth – that’s how I built up my network there.”

Even so, he believes Macau is still lacking the infrastructure to build up the economy, which is why TGG is still based in Hong Kong.

“The bridge [connecting Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau] will be finished soon, which will definitely help to bring resources, people and money into Macau,” he says, adding, “The Airport has been extending and getting more international routes connecting to Macau, which will also definitely help.”

Chan was educated in Canada, where he got his Engineering and Management Science degree from the University of Waterloo. Later, he moved to Silicon Valley in California, USA, and worked there for 10 years.

“I moved back to Hong Kong in 2007 to get into the gaming industry,” he mentions. Then three years ago, TGG was born.

TGG Takara Gaming Product combines interactive entertainment with the casino gaming experience. The company has business partners across the globe, including Canada, Australia, Holland, Italy, Serbia, Peru, Mexico, Kenya, Macau, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines and Cambodia.

Raymond believes Macau’s market, given that it is a gaming hub for Asia and the world, is “definitely very important for anybody who is in this industry”. And even though there has been a downturn in gaming revenues in the past years, he highlights that revenues are picking up again.

“I’m very confident the future in Macau is still very bright,” he says.

Nonetheless, he believes Macau does need to change. In the next few years, the gaming and business style should become “more tailored towards entertainment, instead of counting on gaming revenue”. More money and resources should be put into hotels and general entertainment, concerts and conventions, which Macau “has promised in the past 10 years,” but is only likely to be able to execute in the coming decade.

Online gaming in the territory is still illegal and that doesn’t seem to be about to change, but Chan says that is not a problem, as TGG is “trying to make revolutionary changes for the gaming industry, in terms of content, trying to open up the market for everybody and not just the gaming company”. Hence, the company is launching “open platforms that will take care of all regulations and certifications”, so as to allow any game studio to build games on it.

“Our company is actually positioning itself to help other people to get into the market and create innovations for the market, which is exactly what I see Macau will need in the future – a variety of products,” he explains.

One of the highlights of the company’s line of products is the 3-in-1 “Landbased iGaming & Social-Media” cross-channel gaming platform.

“The whole idea is to open the market, and let social and online gaming and also land-based gaming enjoy the rewards that they got in the online world and the social world, and get into the land based,” he says.

Moreover, he believes it “is a way to stay connected to people after they leave Macau and the casino,” with customers being able to “still enjoy some fun, and stay tied to the gaming circle”.


And he says, Internet games are not just about gaming. “It can be related to land-based gaming, there’s nothing stopping you from playing social gaming, which is not about real money. It can be like any other game you play on your mobile phone or on your pc, even on Facebook or your Playstation,” he notes.

The company is working with 12 to 15 game studios in different locations around the world, “to continue to bring the best games available on the market” to the local market. At the same time, TGG is “also working on innovation in gaming products”, spending resources on research and development, “to bring those products into Macau when they are available”.

IN BRIEF

Fines for smoking

In the first 11 months of 2016, 585 people were fined in Macau for smoking inside the city’s casinos, according to official figures. This corresponds to an increase of 35.7 percent compared to the same period last year. A total of 455 site inspections were conducted inside casinos between January and end-November.

Legend by January

starting operations. The Hong Kong-listed casino services firm Macau Legend Development Ltd says it is “cautiously optimistic” about opening the property in January. Trial operations are expected by mid-January, according to statements from the company’s chairman, David Chow Kam Fai, to the Chinese-language newspaper Macao Daily News.

13 on track

The 13 Hotel is “nearing completion and now undergoing the process of various government inspections and we expect to open in the first quarter of 2017,” said Stephen Hung and Peter Lee Coker Jr, co-chairmen of The 13 Holdings Ltd, in a statement included in the company’s interim report.  The firm, previously known as Louis XIII Holdings Ltd, had said earlier it was scheduled to open in late summer 2016. In the past, the company had announced plans for a casino, but in more recent releases there has been no mention of this.

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