The London and Düsseldorf shows were the first opportunity for many visitors to acquaint themselves with two of the newer companies in the funworld group: BET.solutions and fun|select. It was also the first time that the Photo Play core brand took its place alongside the others more clearly under the funworld umbrella. The final funworld strand: Touch Toy offers positive gaming with special educational content for children. “We want to make the focus more on the name and brand of funworld, because in a lot of countries people only know us as Photo Play. Although Photo Play remains at our core, we want to show that there is a lot more to us than that,” said Norbert Langer, funworld’s sales and marketing manager. Indeed, funworld, together with Photo Play has achieved spectacular results over the past two decades. The company has successfully established itself as Europe’s largest touchscreen network. Today, millions of people play with, and against one another online. And based on this strong foundation, funworld has expanded into different areas. The company’s new division, BET-solutions, provides the complete infrastructure required for sports betting operations. Above all, it was the innovative betting terminal, touch2win II, which impressed trade fair visitors. The terminal gained special attention for its diverse betting portfolio and its ergonomic design with new double monitor unit. Under its new brand, fun|select, funworld presented two products with simple gaming concepts and a high fun factor. Stacker from LAI is already well-known and respected in the amusement sector and this is the first time that funworld has entered into a distribution agreement to sell another company’s products. The agreement covers all of Europe with the exception of the UK. “Stacker is an absolute must for every operator who already works with crane grip machines. Our test results show that turnover made with ‘Stacker’ markedly outstrips that of the classic crane grip automat,” explained Langer. Another eye-catcher at the fair was the entertaining ‘Music-Changer’, which not only changes money but also plays music besides throwing out many a motivating surprise. And for the legion of Photo Play fans there was plenty to impress with the System Update 2008, offering twelve new games, reworked graphics and numerous menu guidance novelties. “Pengu Flip”, the most popular net.game to date, and “Kick the Fish”, game of the year 2008, was once again popular with stand visitors and operators alike. “The new contents management system, which we presented in the frame of our ‘Server Based Gaming’ strategy, was a première at both fairs. The system allows us to meet individual markets’ needs online. Instead of launching twelve or more games in the scope of one update, we transmit new games and features on a continuing basis. The 2nd edition of ‘Pengu Flip’ will soon be available to our online-clients,” said Langer. The option of having up to four players linked online to play for credits simultaneously is truly an exciting and innovative development. In addition, the new Multiplayer Cup, which allows players from all over the world to challenge each other live in tournaments, was also a hit with many show visitors. A new ranking list in the multiplayer section makes this possible. “This unique extension allows multi-player meetings to be integrated in the successful Photo Play Masters tournament-system for the first time. Once it was activated on the online terminals, it didn’t take long for Photo Play’s player community to enthusiastically embrace this new option,” added Langer. “Both fairs were a tremendous success for us and the results surpassed our expectations by far. The markedly good performance during both international fairs confirmed that our move to position ourselves as a multi-product enterprise was right. Compared to last year we were able to increase direct sales by 25% at both fairs, not to mention the very satisfactory follow-up sales”, said Josef Öhlinger, funworld ag’s CEO. “We are more than pleased with our appearance at the two first fairs in 2008. They were a strong motivation, which spurs us on to even higher performance at the coming fairs. We are glad to accept this challenge because we regard the very pleasing results as interim and wish to cultivate them in the future,” he concluded.

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