Interview with Lida Shelestova, CBDO at Gamzix: Building a Slot Studio in a Pandemic

Gamzix is a young slot developer founded in early 2020 with offices in Tallinn and Kyiv. CasinoBonusTips author Daniel Velasquez spoke with Lida Shelestova, Chief Business Development Officer (CBDO) at Gamzix, about starting a games studio during the pandemic and what makes its slots stand out.

Key takeaways:

• Gamzix started with 5 people and 5 slots in 2020 and grew to around 20 people and 20 games in about a year and a half.
• Its operator toolkit includes branded games, free spins via API, tournaments, progressive jackpots and daily bonuses.
• Top titles at the time included Really Hot Flaming Edition, 40 Chilli Fruits Flaming Edition and Sunny Coin: Hold the Spin.
• Parimatch was the first operator to launch Gamzix games.

The interview was conducted in August 2021; plans and dates reflect that time.

Interviewer: Daniel Velasquez (DV). Respondent: Lida Shelestova (LS).

DV: Ms Shelestova, thank you for your time. First of all, please tell our readers a bit about Gamzix!

LS: Hi! Thank you for the questions and your time. Gamzix is my favourite topic to talk about!

DV: How big is the Gamzix team? How many people work on creating slots, and where is the headquarters?

LS: Gamzix is quite a young company, established in early 2020. We started with 5 people and 5 slots, and today we have offices in Tallinn and Kyiv, 20 people in our team and 20 games in our portfolio.

DV: What competitive advantage does your software have?

LS: As CBDO, I always look for the latest demand on the market, and our team is there to create the best slots.

We offer a wide range of marketing tools:

• Branded games
• Free spins by API
• Local and network tournaments
• Progressive jackpot
• Achievement free spins – local and network
• Daily bonus – Money Roll

Our new games have bonus games, free spins buy features, retriggers and many more features to make them attractive to players.

DV: What are the top three Gamzix slots, and why do you like them?

LS: I would say that Really Hot Flaming Edition, 40 Chilli Fruits Flaming Edition and our latest release, Sunny Coin: Hold the Spin, are the top slots for Gamzix. I like these games because they give a lot of excitement while playing, and the mechanics are great. In Sunny Coin we created a very interesting bonus game, which allows a player to win the jackpot by collecting 15 coins.

We pay attention to graphics and sound – our goal is to create games that give players more emotions.

DV: When will Gamzix be among the top three slot providers? And who do you think are the top three today?

LS: I truly believe that Gamzix will reach the top in a few years. Everyone on our team works hard to get us there faster. We all understand that in this kind of business, hard work has to go together with luck and fortune. We are on our way!

In my humble opinion, today's top providers are Pragmatic Play, Wazdan, Play'n GO and Yggdrasil – all of them create awesome games.

DV: What plans does Gamzix have for this year? What should players and operators look out for?

LS: We started our business in very tough conditions with Covid-19, but it encouraged us to be more effective in taking our position on the market. At the start, we decided to create classic fruit slots and offer players original games with simple mechanics. Now we understand that during the quarantine the market changed completely, and many players want slots to be more interesting – not just spinning reels, but bonus games with levels, free spins buy features and so on.

On 1 September we plan to release a new slot, GG Coin, and on 15 September a new game called GOGO Spinner, which is a kind of instant game.

On 29–30 September we plan to attend iGB in Amsterdam to meet colleagues, and on 15–18 November we plan to exhibit at SiGMA in Malta. We will be glad to meet everyone in person – hopefully there will be no more quarantines.

DV: Gamzix is a new game supplier. Could you share some of the difficulties you have experienced and overcome?

LS: Oh! As I mentioned, we started in January 2020, and just a couple of months later the pandemic began and everyone went into quarantine. Trade shows, fairs and events were all closed or postponed, and there was very little chance for us to get the business live. In June, the first batch of 5 games was ready and we launched with Parimatch. This giant believed in us, and we are very proud to have been among their providers from the very beginning.

Gamzix is a private company – we don't belong to any big corporation, and sometimes we feel like a tiny fish in a big ocean full of sharks. But in a year and a half, we have become a provider in the top positions at the biggest casinos in the CIS, and I think that is a good start.

DV: Which partners were the first to introduce your games this summer, and is wider availability expected before the end of the year?

LS: When we release a new slot, it is usually available to all of our clients at once. We will do a pre-release of the GG Coin slot exclusively for Parimatch in September. By the end of 2021 we plan to release five more games, and not only slots.

Learn more about the studio in our Gamzix provider review.