The first comments from gaming suppliers who are normally major exhibitors at the Global Gaming Expo indicate that they feel Reed Exhibitions and the American Gaming Association made the right call in canceling October’s Global Gaming Expo.
In a panel at the ICE North America digital gaming conference last week, Thomas Jingoli, chief operating officer, gaming for Konami Gaming, and Scientific Games Chief Revenue Officer Bob Parente both said canceling G2E was the right move.
Konami and Scientific games had already made the decision not to exhibit, had G2E gone on as scheduled in October. “When we look at budgets moving forward, trade shows are very expensive for us, and sometimes that gets lost in the industry of how much collectively we spend on a trade show,” Jingoli said on the panel. “Instead, (we) invest in our team members and people and keep them employed and develop products and move on.
“There’s a place in time for trade shows moving forward. I just don’t think it’s the right time to have those right now.”
“On the slot slide, it’s survival of the fittest and with limited games on the floor you want to have the best producers,” Parente said. “A lot of that has been players going back to the games they are familiar with. As we look at the customers and operators around the world, most of their optimistic perspectives right now is a long recovery period. If you look at 18 months down the road, we expect things to turn back to normal.”
