Q&A: Razmus Svenningson, co-founder, Casumo
Casumo co-founder Razmus Svenningson tells eGaming Review why the company's real-money online casino experience is attracting attention from the industry and loyalty from customers
Amid all the talk of social and RMG conversion, a handful of companies are out there making it happen. Casumo, founded in 2013 by Razmus Svenningson and Oscar Simonsson, falls squarely in that category and is beginning to be recognised as a true innovator bridging the gap between the two sectors. He told eGaming Review how.
eGaming Review (eGR): Can you describe the idea behind Casumo?
Rasmus Svenningson (RS): Casumo is a tech-startup and we’ve set out to create the best player experience there is and in order to do so we use technology as our magic.
Casumo is an entertainment machine and we combine real-money gaming with elements from casual or social gaming. This means that Casumo is not only about playing games as in the casino but also about collecting trophies,
winning valuables, gaining experience reaching new belts and progressing in levels.
We have a depth in our product through storytelling that unveils our universe and provides meaning, direction and context to what our customers are doing. Investing time and energy in Casumo makes sense. It is an advanced, layered product that is extremely easy to use. Casumo is that buddy you love to crack a joke with and it’s about the fun, the excitement and the surprises.
eGR: How unique is what you do and who do you see as competition, if anyone?
RS: We’ve been the odd one out from day one, and we don’t mind. We do what we believe in and we know where we are going. We will continue towards that and we have a sense of what we want to accomplish. We can see that other colleagues in the industry are getting inspired by us, as features pop up here and there. That’s one of the best grades
we can get. I would imagine that we will see more of this, but I can’t see anyone doing exactly what we are doing today.
eGR: Do you feel any other operators have successfully introduced social gaming elements into RMG?
RS: To be honest, I would not know. We’re building what we think is right and need to be really focused on that. You deï¬nitely see that things are moving in that direction, but I cannot think of anyone oï¬ the top of my head. Although I think there are a lot of interesting things happening on the land-based side of things when it comes to community slots and using elements from casual gaming. There are some really innovative features on the slots I saw earlier in Vegas at G2E last year. Funnily enough, it seems to come quicker to land-based than to online.
eGR: What are the features of the Casumo experience you are most proud of?
RS: I wouldn’t really list a speciï¬c feature or thing that I’m proud of. To me what makes Casumo great is that whatever you touch as a player it should feel like something that has been put there by a human being for a reason. That someone has been there already for you to take your hand and help you have a good time and ï¬nd what you’re expecting to ï¬nd. Everything from animations scrolling like butter, the feel of pressing a button, to things being realtime when you expect them to. All these small things put together is what makes the experience. We want to move away from features and talking about technologies and rather look at what the player is doing and if she is having a good time. Sometimes more is more, sometimes more is less, and sometime less is more.
eGR: Have you found customers to be loyal to Casumo, more than other RMG sites?
RS: This is something that we put great pride in. If people stay with us, that’s when we feel that we’ve succeeded. We’re all about keeping our dear ‘casumos’ and treating them well. From all our combined experience and what I know of the industry, yes they are [more loyal].
eGR: How does the Casumo experience ï¬t with mobile and what successes or challenges have you found with this channel?
RS: Mobile is obviously important to us, just as for everyone else. All our players are mobile, so we need to be as well.
We believe in tailoring the experience to suit the device it is experienced through. That said, we also believe that it should be a consistent experience. It’s extremely important for us to create mobile that suits with the desktop. That’s why you can experience gathering valuables, winning trophies, reaching belts and all the other things you can on desktop, also on mobile. We released our ï¬rst mobile product in summer 2013 and we have had a great response and we still think we have a lot to achieve when it comes to mobile. And I really see an opportunity in creating a better mobile experience with our kind of product.
eGR: How do you cross-sell players into new games?
RS: In our casino adventure we have the possibility to hand out valuables depending on either insights handing them out ourselves or based on actions, behaviours that are deï¬ned in our algorithms. We can recommend new games, games that we think a player would want to play and so on, based on any event or data we want pretty much. And we can do so either in real time or to notify the player through email, for example.
eGR: You are currently focusing on casino but could you extend to other verticals in the future?
RS: That doesn’t sound impossible, we do entertainment. But right now, our focus is casino.
eGR: Which markets are you having most success in, and which markets have you got plans to expand into?
RS: Right now our main markets are in Scandinavia, and we’re looking to take on more markets as we go. But we want to do it in the right way, and that requires the right pace.
eGR: What is on Casumo’s agenda for 2014?
RS: Well, that was a big question. We have a lot in store for 2014. It feels like we’ve only begun so far, we’ve only been live for a little more than a year and we’ve released both desktop and mobile versions and grown our organisation from just a couple of people to 35 in that period of time. We will be releasing new products during 2014 and we will continue to focus on creating the best player experience there is, both on desktop and mobile.