Studio Spotlight: Creating winners with AreaVegas Games

With three hugely successful releases under their belt, and many more in the making, AreaVegas Games have certainly had a strong start to their Games Global tenure.

We caught up with one of the newest studios to join our exclusive studio cohort, getting the lowdown on all things AreaVegas from Founder Anton Kuhlmann.

Q: Tell us a about the studio and your team.

A. Our team's heart is in Las Vegas, Nevada. Several of us are Vegas natives that grew up here, so we like to say that gaming is in our blood.

AreaVegas is a sister studio of SpinPlay Games. We brought some new talent into the team in 2022 and paired them with game production veterans. All of the AreaVegas members trained in the SpinPlay way of game development, which allowed us to move quickly and get our first games out this year.

Q: What makes your studio different to others?

A. AreaVegas is committed to delivering a premium gaming experience. Our core belief centers around putting gameplay first, coupled with an unwavering commitment to quality. We strive to create winners; both in our games and players.

Q: What are your standout titles and what made them successful?

A. Our first two game releases were Area Link™ Phoenix and Gold Rush Express™. We wanted to come out strong as a new studio brand, so we put a lot of effort into creating the most entertaining player experiences that we could.

Both games offer very different player experiences. Area Link™ Phoenix is all about triggering the Area Link™ feature with your favorite combination of upgrades. Gold Rush Express™ is all about landing the colored trains on reels 1 through 4, with a Gold Train on reel 5.

We have two more feature brands this year with Area Blast™ and Area Cash™, and we think players are going to really enjoy them both as well.

Q: What is your personal favourite title from your studio?

A. Each game has a small piece of my soul in it, and on top of that I’m always the most excited about games in our test kitchen.

AreaVegas has two games releasing this Q4, Area Link™ Piggy Bank and Area Cash™ Thor. I think that they are tied as my favorite games to play so far.

Q: What is your favourite part of the game development process?

A. I have the privilege of being involved in the entire game development process, which is something that not many people get the opportunity to experience.

We start with a new blend of game mechanics that we believe will create a good dynamic. Then we’ll play very basic prototypes of the game where we are only focusing on the gameplay. From there we move to theme development, art development and the final game software development. It’s all wonderful.

So I suppose it’s taking that small seed of an idea and nurturing it over the course of several months with an amazing team of passionate creatives, until it blossoms into something beautiful, complete and ready for thousands of players worldwide to experience.

Q: What trends do you see for the future of our industry?

A. I think that for the next couple of years we will continue to see variation and expansion of the prevalent game mechanics that are in demand now. That said, compelling and novel player experiences will always be in demand, and I’m excited to see which new game mechanics gain traction in the coming years to usurp the current player favorites.

More broadly, as online gaming continues to expand globally I think we’ll continue to see even more unification across the markets when it comes to player preference and game performance.

Q: What can we expect from studio roadmap?

A. We have some more fantastic games coming this year with Area Link™ Piggy Bank releasing in October and Area Cash™ Thor releasing in November.

Then fasten your seatbelts for 2024—we've got a game dropping every month! Expect some exciting variations of the brands that players have enjoyed from 2023, as well as several new branded features that we’ll be introducing to the market throughout the year.

To stay in the loop on all things AreaVegas, follow them on LinkedIn here.