NuxGame’s read on digital entertainment plans for 2027

For three days in late September, the digital entertainment industry converged on Lisbon to take part in a series of in-person meetings that would help define their plans and strategies for 2027. The SBC Summit served as the platform for many of those meetings and it was during those days that business-to-business platform providerNuxGamereported their schedule was filled with back-to-back meetings. What they reportedly heard from operators during those meetings was a focus on plans to develop and improve systems and platforms as opposed to rebuilding them.

NuxGame booked their meetings at Networking Lounge A326 in Hall 1 and called it their best Lisbon edition to date. What was of particular interest to management was the level of focus exhibited by operators during their meetings. Many, according to management, were looking to launch a particular product by a defined deadline and therefore, did not require a demo of the product.

Instead, the focus of many discussions was what management described as an existing 2027 roadmap and how much of that roadmap could be supported by the existing systems and platforms. What NuxGame reportedly heard was unexpected by operators and surprised them in a positive way. It was management’s contention that having those answers provided operators with a defined deadline as opposed to an open-ended one and therefore a clearer, more concrete pathway as to when the project could be launched.

After the event, NuxGame identified the topics discussed most often and created signals based on what they described as the key trends for the following year. Taken as a whole, these signals suggested an industry that is creating piecemeal solutions rather than purchasing new, standalone systems; and a customer who knows exactly what is missing and comes to fill that gap. The five signals are:

1. Demand for promotional prize experiences is increasing. New brands are looking at turnkey launches for 2027 and existing digital entertainment operators are adding content aggregation and sports data APIs.

2. Multi-brand groups want digital contentntent aggregator has 18,500+ titles

3. Crypto is one of several payment methods, which is operated along with local payment options for the same customer.

4. One of the new trends in promotional offer protection is incorporating it in the product rather than relying on the back office.

5. Content developers are starting to build competitions, missions and rewards into their own products.

Misuse of promotional offers was front and center on the final day of the summit when NuxGame’s Chief Product Officer Denis Kosinsky participated in a panel focusing on the issue from a product standpoint. Most suspected cases of misuse are still reviewed manually Freezing accounts for further verification pushes legitimate customers to competing platforms, he added

The product controls that operators have allow them to identify customers who repeatedly exploit promotional offers instead of closing their accounts, flag high-risk activities before a promotion goes live, and set different participation requirements for each activity. On closing every loophole, Kosinsky argued that “chasing all of them usually costs more than the abuse itself.”

The trade-off is real. Although identifying problematic activity instead of blocking customers outright helps retain regular users and limit attrition, it shifts the problem to the CRM and product teams that must maintain the rules and review the segments, and absorb the losses. For a platform facing organized fraudulent activity, a hard closure is probably the safer call.

The fifth signal indicates a quieter tension. By embedding missions, rewards and competitions within their products, studios provide operators with interactive engagement features with zero additional effort. The challenge for operators is that different studios have different ways of implementing these features. So, a customer moving between providers encounters several reward systems that do not communicate with each other.

NuxGame introduced competitions, leaderboards and interactive challenges across its digital entertainment platform in October, all of which work independently of content providers. Earlier this year, the company was awarded Digital Platform of the Year at the iGaming News Awards. It now has over 100 customers.

The company is following up on the Lisbon conversations with operators that have launches scheduled for 2027. The practical takeaway from the five signals is to document existing strengths of a business, i.e. what works well. Then add only the missing features, whether it be content, payment methods or promotional rules, and be done. A complete rebuild is unlikely to be the fastest route to a launch by early 2027.

This article was written in cooperation with NuxGame