Two years ago Larry DeMar, President of Leading Edge Design, predicted that the game industry would soon be seeing more and more convergence, certainly with console, PC and mobile, but also in the slots arena between brick and mortar, online and free-to-play. And today, given the regulatory market in real money gaming, that convergence may be more important than ever. At Casual Connect USA, Larry was part of a panel discussing how social casino may be the answer to the restrictions on real money gaming and how social casino studios can work with land-based casinos and other real money gaming companies.
Innovation with Pinball
Larry DeMar is an industry veteran who has been making a variety of games on different platforms for all kinds of industries for more than 35 years. Shortly after graduating from MIT, Larry began working for Williams as part of the team that created Defender, Stargate, Robotron 2084 and Blaster as well as innovating and developing pinball machines, dominating the industry in the 1990s.
The Insecurity that Results in Greatness
During this time, Larry was fortunate to work on some incredibly successful projects with outstanding developers. For example, Defender was one of the best-selling games ever, created by a small team in what seemed an impossibly short timeframe. And Larry discovered what makes the best developers the best: they all share a high level of insecurity that keeps them tuning and refining and piling on feature after feature that often results in greatness.
Leading Edge Design
In 1999 Larry and brother Steven DeMar decided to co-found Leading Edge Design. Their company focuses on the casino environment and creating innovative concepts there. Their work has been a true team effort and includes Scott Slomiany, Duncan Brown and Bill Grupp from Larry’s time working with pinball at Williams, as well as Mark Molitar and Brian Jared. Larry emphasizes, “Everyone on our team contributes to our games, and you never know who will have the next great idea. This was the philosophy that the best at Williams/Midway always followed.”
Collaborating in the Free-To-Play Space
Leading Edge Design has recently collaborated with Ruby Seven Studios and 2 by 2 Gaming on three apps. These contain their hit casino games, Multi-Strike Poker and Gems Wild Tiles. They have also collaborated with original new games in Ruby Seven Video Poker, Tropworld Casino and Lucky North Casino in the free-to-play space. Their current projects include expanding these products and working with Ruby Seven Studios on other apps in the social casino category.
Be sure to watch this video of Casual Connect session “From Real Money to Social B2B” and learn more on Larry’s vast experience creating innovative gaming concepts, and how real money gaming can work in conjunction with social casino.
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