Is The New Fortune Factory Studios By Microgaming Any Good?
October 26th, 2018There’s a new gaming studio in town, and their name is Fortune Factory Studios! Brought to you exclusively by Microgaming, we take a look at this new studio and their Romanov Riches slot which came out on 24th of October 2018.
Microgaming slots and games are renowned the world over.
But over the last year, they’ve been collecting smaller gaming studios and buying them out one by one, some so small they only have one or two games in the books.
Which is basically what the Fortune Factory Studios is all about. You currently have two games to play in their portfolio with the latest slot release on 24th of October.
Let’s take a look at this new studio, why Microgaming would be interested and the new slot games coming to your favourite Microgaming casinos online.
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Who is the Fortune Factory Studio?
Every game studio has a tagline that helps describe who they are. NextGen studios are all about “Attract, Entertain and Retain” and Yggdrasil Gaming say that “We are the creators, the innovators, the game changers”.
So what is Fortune Factory all about? Their tagline is “The Product With Personality”.
Which is a bold claim. After all, personality seems to imply that these video slots will stand out, be different, have charm and a unique quality to them.
Or are they just saying that it doesn’t matter that they are not pretty because they have lots of personality?
“Our studios model was established to bring greater diversity and innovation to the market. The talented team at Fortune Factory have years of land-based and traditional video gaming experience behind them, ensuring they are in a strong position to deliver exciting game features and mechanics exclusively for Microgaming customers.” John Coleman, Microgaming CEO, comments
Looking at the Romanov Riches slot machine, we have to admit that it may be a little bit more of the second than the first.
Why are they creating exclusive slots for Microgaming?
In case you hadn’t noticed, there are a million casino software developers that keep popping up every day.
Some slip into the abyss, never to be known, others stand out from the pack, like the Play’n GO casino games or even Thunderkick slots.
Microgaming decided that if you can’t beat them, then you might as well buy them all before they even get big enough to compete for you.
Triple Edge Studio, Stormcraft, Slingshot, Just For The Win, and now Fortune Factory Studios… All small up under the radar studios who are creating content exclusively and only for Microgaming.
Why is this a good move for Microgaming studios?
Microgaming hasn’t exactly been creating stand out games lately. Their greatest hits are still from a decade ago, from the likes of the Agent Jane Blonde slot to Thunderkick II and Immortal Romance, these are old games.
Bringing in fresh blood doesn’t just make commercial sense, it makes artistic sense as well. New perspectives and new ways of creating slots are advantages in a world where there are more casino game studios than online casinos.
Plus, lets not forget, that these are independent studios. They may have a contract with Microgaming meaning all their casino slots only go through them, but they are still their own entities with their own individual flavour.
And, let’s not forget, it means that Microgaming can now release 5 or 8 games to their casino partners in a month, rather than just a couple.
What are the Fortune Factory slot games like?
Well, to be honest, we don’t have a whole load to look at.
And the Fortune Factory site doesn’t really help give us much information on who they are and what will make them stand out.
One intriguing note is this little sentence: “a talented collective of experts from the land-based and video game industries”.
So basically, a whole load of mathematicians who have created slots for Vegas type casinos met a bunch of graphic designers from video games and… decided to create online slots?
We are only guessing here. But you can’t deny that this mix is intriguing. “They” boast that they have 7 years experience creating land-based slot machines, which is a pretty good run when you consider that it’s not an easy industry to compete with the likes of Novomatic and IGT taking the lions share.
What you can expect from the Romanov Riches slot
Knowing this information, we were excited to find out a little more about this Romanov Riches slot game which launched this month.
“Our game design philosophy stems from our belief that marrying exciting and intuitive gambling mechanics with appealing characters, themes and purpose-designed orchestration creates the ideal gaming experiences for players.” Phelan Sykes, Head of Game Production at Fortune Factory Studios, added.
Appealing characters? Whimsy? Mischief? Humour? All traits that this studio lists as their go to for new video slots.
What a shame then that Romanov Riches look like it has none of these things. Literally. None.
No characters, no whimsy. Just stacks of gem-like symbols on reels that could have been created sometime in the 90s.
Like, maybe Crown Gems game by Barcrest, or Giant Gems from NextGen or even Microgaming’s own Reel Gems slot.
So far, so not unique, or even that interesting.
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The official statistic of new Romanov Riches slot
Time to bask in the legendary riches of Russia’s Romanov dynasty.
- 5×3 15 payline slot machine
- Min/Max Bet: 0.20 / 100
- RTP: 96.08%
- Volatility: Medium
- Stacked gem symbols
- Stacked mystery symbols that uncover to one matching symbol
- Find stacks of the same symbol on 2 or more reels, and get a free re-spin of the rest of the reels.
- Find a stack of bonus symbols for a wheel of fortune click me bonus feature where you can win 1,000 times your bet.
- Max win? 1,000 times your bet.
There’s certainly enough here to make a dull slot theme interesting. But no free spins, which already makes our alarm bells ring.
We love free spin bonuses. If you don’t have those, you better make sure you put together something truly magical and special – ie. the original Rainbow Riches for example.
Are we excited about this Romanov Riches game?
Honestly? No.
It might be an ok game, but OK isn’t something to get all that excited about. It’s what you say to your mum when she asks you to come over for lunch.
If you have no other plans, it might make for a good lunch date, but nothing that can’t be cancelled should that new hot date call for your attention.
And do you know what new better game is coming on the exact same day? The rebooted Gunslinger Reloaded by Play’n GO. Now that’s something to get excited about.
However, if you wanted to remember what made Microgaming game once upon a time, there’s no better time than to re-capture your love affair with the Immortal Romance slot at a great mobile casino.
It’s almost Halloween, and this has to be one of the all-time great gambling games of all time. Which means playing at an all-time great casino with an all-time fantastic welcome bonus.
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