News Of The World feature sees website visits rocket .
10th May 2010
As a result of recent coverage on the ‘GADGiTS’ page of The News of the World, FatSpanner have noticed a massive increase in downloads of the ‘Legends of Darts World Masters’ SWP tournament template. The template is for landlords & players wanting to run their own tournaments on all machines running O∙P∙E∙N All Seasons software.
The News of the World ran a feature on FatSpanner's ‘Legends of Darts World Masters’ iPhone app in addition to running a competition with the prize of an iPhone signed by darts legends Eric Bristow and John Lowe plus a free copy of the game.
This invaluable national press coverage has boosted interest no end, both in the ‘Legends’ branded games and FatSpanner more generally with a huge increase in website hits being noted since it went to press.
Darts Legends Go Mobile.
13th April 2010
Darts fans with iPhones can now enjoy a fantastic new game featuring past masters Eric Bristow and John Lowe in a ‘app’ based on their successful ‘Legends of Darts’ tour.
The game, called ‘Legends of Darts, World Masters 2010’ has been developed in partnership between FatSpanner Ltd and Matchplay Games, the former being a leading UK specialist in touch screen pub games and responsible for the highly successful ‘Bullseye’ pub quiz game as well as a pub version of the ‘Legends’ title.
The App has a two player format allowing players to take on their friends and find out who has the aim of a darts legend. FatSpanner Director Paul Slavin said: “Players will have the choice of a number of different playing formats to suit their individual tastes. They can pit their wits against either the Legends, a host of comical, fictional characters or play head to head against friends via Bluetooth. We’re also working on an update which will enable play across the internet via Wi-Fi.”
The developers believe this app is the first to bring the true darts experience to such a platform, Slavin continues, “We spent a long time trying to develop a control mechanism for our pub games which would give the feel of ‘real darts’. As a result we’ve been able to transfer everything we’ve learned over to the iPhone version which coupled with the fantastic immersive graphics and sound give an experience as close to the real thing as possible.”
John Lowe himself said, “The lads have done a great job with the game, it’s exciting for myself and Eric to get involved with new technology like this, I’m sure darts fans out there will love it.”
The game is available now from the iTunes Store and the developers plan to make it available to other smart phones in the near future.
Click Here To Go To The ‘Legends of Darts, World Masters 2010’ On The App Store.
Click Here For More Information on The ‘Legends of Darts, World Masters 2010’ On iPhone.
It’s ‘Bingo’ for Breast Cancer Campaign.
23rd Nov 2009
SWP terminal and game specialist FatSpanner has teamed up with UK charity Breast Cancer Campaign to launch an exciting new product, ‘Dab For Life’ Bingo. The game is based on the company’s highly successful ‘True Skill Bingo’ SWP game but has been adapted to work as a standalone game, with FatSpanner donating 5 per cent of the net revenue from the price per play to the charity. The donation is entirely from FatSpanner’s share of the revenue and the company have guaranteed a minimum donation of £10,000 over the next two years regardless of the success or failure of the product. “We wanted to make this gesture in advance so the charity weren’t left at the mercy of our speculation, however confident we are in its potential.” Said New Business Director Alfio Monterosso.
The product was exhibited in prototype form at the recent Preview show and generated a huge amount of interest. Monterosso continued “ ’DabForLife’ represents a substantial undertaking over and above the usual development tasks. There’s been a lot of support work in terms of trademarks and associated patent applications as well as the process of establishing a relationship with Breast Cancer Campaign to make the concept a reality. We’ve made a big commitment to what we believe is a great idea, so Preview was a test to see if the concept would be embraced by potential customers with the same enthusiasm. We needn’t have worried.
Test machines are going out this week to a variety of operators. We’ve done our own provisional testing which produced some great performance figures but we’re really excited to see how it performs on premium sites. If it lives up to our expectations it will be great news for everyone, operators are crying out for innovative new products to help cashbox performance and of course Breast Cancer Campaign benefit along the way, helping them with the great work they do.”
Alison Walker, Corporate Partnerships Executive at Breast Cancer Campaign added, “We are delighted to welcome FatSpanner as a corporate partner and are very excited to see how the ‘Dab for Life’ game does. The money raised through the games played will help to fund innovative research into beating breast cancer; making a genuine difference to the lives of the one in nine women diagnosed each year.”
Assuming test figures are as good as early indications suggest FatSpanner expect to be selling ‘Dab for Life’ Bingo in numbers very early in the New Year.
FatSpanner Hoping For Preview Boost.
30th Sep 2009
In the 12 months since last year’s Preview the industry has suffered lean times but SWP specialists FatSpanner have continued to forge ahead with some important product developments. The company are preparing for this year’s Preview with a sense of excitement, believing that better times are round the corner and hoping the show will help to spark things into life.
Director Alfio Monterosso said, “We’ve worked hard this year to position ourselves for 2010, despite difficult times for the wider industry we’ve recruited well in the areas we needed to, like Sales and in particular Games Development. Strengthening our game content offering is an ongoing and critical area for us as it’s the single biggest factor in maintaining cashbox uplift. In that regard we’ve made great progress recently with both our O.P.E.N. system and the version we supply to Barcrest Group for the D.I.C.E. Cabinet, which are consistently out-performing the competition. We’re taking our latest version of the system to the show, O.P.E.N. ‘All Seasons’, which we’ve developed largely in response to operator feedback. It introduces features such as the ability to browse without credit, a second screen with classic 50p games and a general improvement in player access to content. We’ve also got some great games to show off including ‘talkSPORT Quiz’, ‘Tribal Towers’, new release ‘Pop the Question’ and ‘Star Wars’, a product of our relationship with Barcrest Group. ‘Star Wars’ is still in development but will be available for private viewing at the Preview and will be complete and launched on the next D.I.C.E. update.”
Although sales have been hard to come by this year Monterosso believes they’ve put a team and a strategy in-place which should see results in the months ahead. He continued, “We’ve put real focus on the sales team this year and tried to be more creative with our offering. We’ve introduced a range of finance offers for the first time across the range of terminals, including interest free and cash back. We’ve also got a great new pricing structure including the flexibility of part ex’ with a minimum value of £300 on any machine (including AWPs) which is helping to attract new customers. For example we’ve started to sell to customers in Northern Ireland recently which is a territory we’ve not looked into before. We really are doing everything we can to support the operators as we know how tough things are out there”
As well as a suite of their highly successful O.P.E.N. ‘Black’ terminals on their Preview stand, FatSpanner will be showing a D.I.C.E. Cabinet and an exciting new charity game product for the ‘Bingo’ sector. “Over the next few weeks we will be working closely with the Gambling Commission on the final format and structure of the game but we’re excited about applying our skills to a new sector.” Said Monterosso.
Anyone interested to find out more can contact FatSpanner or visit stand no. CH 10/11 at the Novotel where the team will be more than happy to elaborate.
FatSpanner Look Forward To Feeding The 5000.
16th Oct 2009
Having had a highly successful Preview 2010 with machine orders running into 3 figures on the first day of the show alone, SWP specialists FatSpanner are now certain they will be supporting 5000 O.P.E.N. licenses in the field at some point during 2010. O.P.E.N. is the company’s highly successful SWP multigame system which, as well as being supplied in FatSpanner’s own extensive suite of new terminals and rebuild kits, is also the driving force behind the D.I.C.E. SWP cabinet from Barcrest Group.
General Manager Clive Barrett said ”5000 licenses is the next real landmark for us and we are seeing so many encouraging signs now that we’re near certain to reach it during 2010 despite the trading difficulties this year. Cashbox performance across the range of O.P.E.N. powered products is stronger than the competition and our sales offering is better than ever. We’ve got a catalogue of great deals, with finance, part ex’ , cash back and conversion options all available we can pretty much find a deal to suit everyone. There seems to be a real buzz out there about FatSpanner at the moment and we want to make the most of it. We’ve spoken at length to both retailers and operators over the last 6 months and have responded to their input within the product range. Hence the latest version of the system, O.P.E.N. ‘All Seasons’ which we took to the show and will be installed on all new terminals leaving the factory from the end of this month. ‘All Seasons’ has a host of new features including a ‘Free Browse’ facility and other improvements, all a direct result of customer feedback.”
As well as the new menu system the company continues to strengthen its game content both internally and through independent developers. Barrett continued “We’ve continued to recruit to the games team throughout the year as the strength of our own content is essential to us but this doesn’t mean we’re squeezing out the independent developers. There is some great stuff out there still and we believe the strongest offering is the right blend of us and them, so we want to talk to all parties even though we continue to recruit in that area ourselves. Ultimately it’s about supporting the operators and the ever growing number of licenses they hold and the only way to do that is to keep that cashbox going up.”
