Two worlds collide
Brazil-based slot developer Caleta Gaming has just combined the hugely popular worlds of slot gaming and esports through the launch of Imperial Operation Rio. Created in partnership with Sportsbet.io, the game features Brazilian CS:GO stars such as Gabriel Toledo and Vinicius Figueiredo – all encompassed in a first-person shooter theme.
The slot has five reels with 243 ways to win and, much like any good video game, bonus boxes offering the chance for cash prizes. The VegasSlotsOnline News office enjoyed these features and the overarching theme so much, the game recently made it into our Slots of the Week for the first week of October.
Junior Goncalves, product lead at Caleta Gaming, kindly agreed to speak with VSO News about the inspiration for the esports slot, also touching on the background of the company and the Latin American market.
Can you tell us a little bit about the history of Caleta Gaming and your role in the company?
Caleta Gaming was founded in 2013 by Fabíola Jaeger and Paulo Nova, our current CEO and CTO, respectively. They decided to start their own business because they believe in the huge potential of the industry, had experience with gaming in complementary skills, and were both passionate about games.
achieving the greatest possible synergy
As the product lead at Caleta Gaming, it is my responsibility to assist the teams working on the development of our games in achieving the greatest possible synergy so that our games can continue to get better.
Your headquarters are in Brazil. Was it difficult as a South American company to form partnerships in other areas of the world? Or do you find that adds to your appeal?
When you have a great product, strong technology, and a talented team there are no frontiers. Of course, we need to be prepared to seize the opportunities we have, and right now the LatAm market has huge growth potential.
Our office is located in Florianopolis, the second largest city in the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil. Aside from being a beautiful city with over 40 beaches, it has become a strong and mature technology hub to the point of being known as “the Brazilian Silicon Valley.” Knowing that, in 2018, Yolo Investments, a company focused on investment opportunities across gaming and fintech, became an investor in Caleta. They have been advising us since, which is very helpful to accelerate our growth worldwide, especially in Europe and Asia.
What is your tactic for attempting to stand out in such a competitive industry?
We are known for our agility, efficiency, and innovation in creating gaming content focused on the LatAm Market. In this region, Brazil has the greatest potential, so we’re very well positioned to be competitive here.
we can create games with much more flexibility and agility
Besides that, we developed our most important tool: our game engine, the GP5. It was built in-house so that we can create games with much more flexibility and agility. This is our most important advantage to compete worldwide. Building this engine from the ground up allowed us to mold our tools to our needs, delivering a unique game feel to our games. The GP5 still has a lot of room to grow, and it will keep improving, but it’s the base of our robust and agile development.
What makes Imperial Operation Rio different from other games in the space?
Definitely the community behind it. Imperial Sportsbet has a great line-up of players that are well known in the gaming community. A game built around a team that has a huge fanbase can ease its way into the market by already having an audience. By engaging with the game the community has yet another product to engage with the players, the team, and other community members. Besides that, the game itself is fast paced and action packed. With a bonus that mimics mechanics players of the most influential first-person shooter around the world are familiar with and payouts upwards of 3100 times the bet.
You partnered with Imperial Sportsbet.io to launch this game. How did this partnership come about?
Caleta and Sportsbet.io are are part of the YOLO ecosystem, so we were already in close collaboration with them. Gamdom, which is one of our top partners, is also sponsoring the Imperial team. During the event YOLO Partners 2022 the idea came out and made a lot of sense because there is a lot of synergy between the four companies. When we got the green light to start the project, the next step was understanding the project’s needs, matching the interest of all stakeholders, and moving on with the development process.
Other than these partnerships, why did you choose esports as the theme?
Esports is the biggest it ever was. An ever-growing industry with huge potential. Imperial Sportsbet is a team with a large community with strong branding and marketability. Also, we are excellent at creating custom games in close collaboration with key partners. It is a no-brainer for us, really. This is a type of project we excel at.
What’s next in the pipeline for Caleta Gaming?
At the beginning of 2022, we had a challenging roadmap planned, which included not only new games full of innovation, but also engagement tools, integrations, and certifications. We’re entering the last quarter and everything looks excellent. Caleta has been growing exponentially for the last few years, so there’s a lot of new and exciting content coming out before the end of the year.
one of the most stylish games on the market
Right now, we’re working on a game called World Wild Cup, scheduled to come out right before the biggest sporting event of the year, the FIFA World Cup. This game is very action-packed and has a unique art style that I believe will be one of the most stylish games on the market. But not just the visuals, it will have exclusive features developed specifically for this game, aiming to bring the immersion and excitement of a good soccer match. It will be fire!
Also, looking to engage our players more and more every day, we’re planning to develop a proprietary tournaments tool in the near future. On the business side, we continue to integrate our platform with more operators and we’re also applying for more licenses and certifications to increase our presence in the regulated markets.