Andrew Tsyganov & Mykola Nikulin

You’re a relatively new studio, but already integrated with major aggregators and operators like Stake. What actually drove that early distribution - product, relationships, or something else? And what didn’t work that people usually don’t talk about?

In May, it will be exactly one year since we went live – and in that time we've launched with over 300 brands, effectively without any prior industry connections. We are integrated with partners such as SoftSwiss and Hub88, and work with operators of the calibre of Stake, Shuffle and Pin-Up. Our games are already live and performing well across our partner network – and we continue to expand this presence, with key metrics growing 30%+ month-on-month.

New launches are expected shortly with EveryMatrix, BetB2B, BroadHub, Zenith and GR8 Tech – we will be announcing some of these partnerships separately. And this is far from the full picture. Our driving force is the product.

We come from the F2P mobile sector that shaped how we think about iGaming from day one – not cloning mechanics, but working with player behaviour – through analytics, engagement and constant iterations. As for what didn't work — I'll be honest. We seriously underestimated the pace of the industry.

Integrations, legal processes and certification took significantly longer than we expected. But that friction forced us to rebuild how we operate. We move faster and more predictably now precisely because of it.

Our approach is simple: completely original mechanics, no clones of existing providers, no lookalike games. And we tie this directly to performance. Once our games get initial exposure, the difference becomes measurable very quickly – we consistently see stronger results and higher profitability per player with our partners.

At the same time, we invest heavily in relationships. We work closely with partners on pre-releases, exclusive content, launch support, full rollout strategies, and dedicated campaigns, including tailored welcome offers — everything designed to help them test faster and scale results with confidence. Here's what people rarely say out: hundreds of new providers enter the market every year, and many believe that having connections is enough to scale quickly and become highly profitable.

But the only thing that truly differentiates providers is product quality. Our role is to close that gap – delivering content that stands out and drives real performance, helping partners generate more profit from the same traffic, while giving players something worth coming back for.

You mention “engagement features”, multipliers, Buy Bonus, character-driven approach. How much of this is real player-driven innovation vs packaging standard mechanics differently? What’s one thing in your games that actually changes player behavior, not just looks different?

Looking at the market, many companies are currently using similar mechanics, and the difference often comes down to how they are presented. For us, the key objective is not just to add features, but to understand how a player experiences a session and what decisions they make within it. We designed our RGS from the outset to integrate social layers directly into the gaming experience.

We have now launched the first version of this system and are continuing to develop it based on data. There are no other providers on the market that shipped a built-in in-game ecosystem – with the ability to switch between games in real time — from day one. We already have the following within it: a cross-game leaderboard system with segmentation by game modes (base game, Buy Bonus, Ante), the ability to view replays of wins, dynamic classification of games into ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ based on time intervals, and a real-time banner system that shows players current events: wins, new releases and active games.We are currently finishing this system based on player behaviour analysis to improve conversion, and we are also developing new modules that we plan to announce in summer 2026.

Separately, our team is working in two directions: reimagining classic mechanics and creating new gaming solutions. Our latest releases – SnakeX Arcade, Wild Bite, Train to Hell, Mayan Apocalypto and Magic Boost – reflect this approach. We are deliberately not following the path of cloning successful formats, looking for our own gameplay patterns and dynamics.

It is a more challenging path, but we believe this is how long-term value and brand recognition are built. That said, we do not claim to have already changed player behaviour at a market level – that requires time and scale. But the growing interest from partners and distributors tells us the direction is right.

In addition to that, we’re already seeing measurable behavioral impact. For some of our top partners, over 20% of total bets is now driven by our unique engagement ecosystem. That's not a vanity metric — that's measurable behavioural impact, and it's only the beginning.

From what I’m seeing, studios are starting to look at affiliates as a distribution layer, not just operators. How does 7Rings think about this? Would you be ready to measure performance on a game level (not just operator-level KPIs), or is the infrastructure still not there on your side?

In the first phase, our key objective was to maximise distribution. Working with affiliates before games have broad availability simply doesn't work – users simply don’t have the opportunity to visit the site and start playing. We are now continuing to expand our distribution network and moving on to the second stage – working with affiliates, ambassadors and content creators.

For us, this is the next logical step, and it connects directly to something we care about deeply: player trust and long-term brand recognition. It is important that our product already generates a significant volume of content within the game system itself – through social mechanics, replays, leaderboards and real-time events. Our task now is to learn how to properly scale and distribute that content through external channels.

At the same time, thanks to our experience in F2P mobile, we are building a robust analytics layer from the outset. We measure player behaviour at the level of individual games, brands, currencies and markets – including retention, gameplay patterns and game “plateaus”. We are currently developing internal dashboards segmented by country and currency, and refining our system for tracking marketing activities so that we can see the actual impact on player behaviour – all within a single analytical environment.

The industry’s infrastructure does not yet always provide full transparency at the affiliate level, but within our system we are already building in the capability to analyse performance at the level of specific games and mechanics. So yes – game-level performance measurement is a key focus for us at this next stage. And we're building towards it now.

Overall, we see that the industry is becoming significantly more competitive: a large number of new games are released every week, whilst player attention and distribution are largely concentrated among a limited number of major studios, and key acquisition channels increasingly operate through long-term partnerships. In that environment, it is not enough to just make games. You need to build a proprietary ecosystem around the product — through content, analytics, social mechanics and direct interaction with the audience.

We believe that is precisely what will define who remains relevant in the long term. And we're building it now.

Affiliates have definitely become a real opportunity for providers to prove themselves. We’re already working with affiliates and streamers through our partners, and we see this as one of the strongest drivers for scaling in the next phase. And there's one angle here that I think is genuinely underappreciated.

We have unique titles like SnakeX Arcade and Snake X-mas. These games combine arcade-style and slot mechanics, which makes them stand out both from a product and distribution perspective. The interesting part is that they are not typically flagged by social media algorithms as gambling content.

That's a real structural advantage in affiliate and creator marketing – and most providers simply don't have it. They’ve also proven effective as a reactivation tool for existing players, since this type of content is genuinely different and attractive for players to try their luck. It's an area we're actively building — and one we expect to talk about a lot more in the coming months.

A quick summary: Early distribution isn’t just about connections — product and execution matter more than people admit. Real innovation shows up in player behavior, not just features. And as competition grows, building around the product — with analytics, content, and new distribution layers like affiliates — is becoming key to long-term growth.

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