Nick Vuchev discusses his new role at Octoplay

Nick Vuchev speaks to Gaming Intelligence about his new role as the first commercial director at slots developer Octoplay

You’ve just joined Carl Ejlertsson’s start-up, Octoplay, as Commercial Director. Please tell us a bit about your previous career at Evolution. 

It all started with Red Tiger, that’s where my passion for slots was ignited. In addition to running the account management team I had the pleasure of working closely with Carl. By the time we joined forces with Evolution we had already created a commercial power house known for really engaging game delivery. The time I spent at Evolution definitely helped me to broaden my horizon as I saw the industry from a different angle and met some like minded people.

What have you been up to since your departure from Evolution about a year ago?

I did some independent consulting, got involved in the creation of a B2B casino platform, then I launched an affiliate start-up which is going really well now. I enjoyed it all tremendously, but it goes without saying that my true passion is slots. I have no doubt that Octoplay is about to establish itself as the new market leader, so I’m incredibly excited to be joining the senior team.

I’m also very much looking forward to catching up with so many old friends from the industry.

How did you come to join Octoplay?

There was no decision to be made for Carl or me. As soon as we thought of it, it was as good as agreed. Having worked together so closely in the past, knowing what we’re capable of as a team and being able to funnel all the knowledge and experience I’ve gained makes my involvement in Octoplay a no-brainer. The industry feels quite stagnant now and we are very excited to return with a fresh approach to launch something totally new.

What will Octoplay bring to the industry?

Carl and I established a very strong reputation during the glory-days of Red Tiger before it was acquired by NetEnt. That was a time of genuine innovation for us, inventing things like Daily Jackpots and our market leading bonus engine. That was the pinnacle of my career to date and it taught me that real innovation is best done by small, close, loyal teams. Octoplay provides that perfect nurturing environment for our work on the next ‘big things’. The team is already extremely strong and will only grow stronger as we cherry-pick more key recruits.

We are conducting a major deep-dive in the market at present to map out just what today’s players love. Octoplay is entirely player-led, providing products that they consistently go back to, rather than getting caught in this incumbent doom cycle of launching and forgetting games.

How would you best describe your role?

As with every start-up, we don’t focus on roles very much – rather we each do whatever needs to be done to deliver the best to the players. As we expand, I’ll increasingly focus on working with every aspect of helping our clients to maximise the success of their businesses by using our products.

Can you give us a sneak-peek of any games?

November 14th!

With the regulatory landscape tightening constantly, what challenges will Octoplay face?

Changes and tightening in regulation are inevitable. At the end of the day, we all want the most entertaining player experience to go hand in hand with safety and responsibility. We have strong backgrounds in regulated markets and our philosophy is to launch in every one of them, big and small. Staying ahead of the curve on that is essential as we need to be available wherever the operators want us, hopefully before they ask.