Zhanna Tarakanova

Many games benefit from major sporting events, but only a few manage to remain relevant long after the tournament ends. Evoplay's Penalty Shoot-Out series has grown from a single instant game into a five-title franchise spanning multiple formats and releases.

Every major football tournament creates a wave of "football fever" across the industry. From a PR perspective, how do you decide whether a global event like the World Cup is just a short-term marketing opportunity or something worth building a long-term product strategy around?

For us, the difference is in whether the event connects only to a campaign or to real player behaviour. If the interest disappears right after the final whistle, it's a short-term PR moment. But football is different because it has year-round emotional value, strong cultural relevance, and a massive global audience.

That's why we don't treat the World Cup only as a seasonal hook. It gives us a reason to activate communication, but the product strategy has to live longer than the tournament itself. With the Penalty Shoot-Out franchise, we built around a format players already understand: pressure, quick decisions, and one clear emotional moment. That makes the franchise useful not only during major football events, but also between them.

Evoplay has been developing the Penalty Shoot-Out franchise for six years now, from the original 2020 release to multiple follow-ups. At what point did you realize this wasn't just a successful game, but an actual franchise that deserved long-term investment and expansion?

I think that became clear when the game kept proving its relevance beyond the first release. The original Penalty Shoot-Out had a very simple idea, and that simplicity gave us room to grow. It was one of the first instant games with this type of penalty shootout mechanic, and the format quickly found its audience.

The game also started appearing outside the usual casino context. For example, it inspired one of our partners to promote it during a major football match. It was also featured in a music video by a Brazilian artist.

When we saw that the format could work across different markets, visual styles, and tournament moments, it stopped being just one successful title. Penalty Shoot-Out: Street showed its local potential, Super Cup proved the event-driven angle, and ahead of the World Cup we released two new games – Penalty Shoot-Out: Cup Mania and Penalty Shoot-Out: Super Spin, which is the first slot of the series.

That was the key signal for us: the franchise had enough flexibility to stay familiar to players while still offering something new with each release.

Today, Penalty Shoot-Out includes five different titles, which is quite rare in iGaming. What do you think makes players keep coming back to this franchise specifically?

I think it is the combination of all three. Football gives players instant recognition, the penalty format creates pressure from the first second, and the mechanics keep the experience simple enough to understand immediately.

A player does not need a long onboarding journey to understand the game. They know the situation, they understand the stakes, and every round gives them a quick emotional moment.

At the same time, each new title in the franchise adds something different: a new setting, a new event context, a new mechanic, or a new format. So players get something familiar, but not identical. That balance is what keeps the franchise alive.