INTERVIEW SEPTEMBER 2026

Interview Richard Ganster: Why Greentube asks about game two before building game one

The games strategy director on the brief that decides whether a game is worth building at all, how one addition to that brief has already killed concepts that would once have gone into development, and why he treats regulatory constraint as a source of distinctive features rather than an obstacle to them.

Two titles that prove the point

Ganster's clearest recent example is Rumble Riches™ Haulin' Gold™. The Lock & Spin core, he says, was already proven before the team touched it; what took the time was the layering, truck modifiers, each with a distinct function, and a Golden Garage that unlocks the Gold Convoy Bonus as a genuine climax to the feature. Any of those elements could have been simplified or cut to accelerate delivery. They were not, because, in his words, they were “load-bearing.” “Remove the climax and the feature loses its shape,” he says. “A faster version of that game would have been a Lock & Spin slot with a trucking skin. What shipped is a franchise foundation.”

Starlight Jackpots™ makes the same point from a different angle. The jackpot mechanic, Ganster says, is one of the most established and trusted formats in iGaming, which creates its own temptation: lean on that familiarity and ship quickly, since the format will carry the game regardless. Instead, each title in the family has to justify its place by adding something the previous instalment did not have, a new environment, a new modifier, or a new way of building toward the jackpot moment.

What changed in the brief

The bar itself moved about a year ago, deliberately. "We added another question to the brief," Ganster says. "What does game two look like? If we can't sketch a credible sequel while we're discussing the first title, that's usually a warning sign. It may be a good standalone game, but it probably isn't the foundation of a franchise."

It sounds like a small addition. In practice, it has killed concepts that would previously have made it through, good ideas for a single game, weak foundations for a series. “The market will not remember what you shipped in a given quarter,” Ganster says. “It will remember which of your games are still performing in year three.”

Where AI is allowed, and where it isn't

"AI is most useful to us at the beginning of the process," Ganster says. "It helps designers visualise ideas quickly and explore concepts faster than they could otherwise. We also use it in areas like QA and regression testing, where it can help automate repetitive work."

Two areas stay deliberately outside it. "Where we draw a very clear line is around mathematics and RNG design," he says. "The moment you're talking about game outcomes, you're talking about trust, regulation and integrity. That's not an area where we're looking for shortcuts.

"The graphics players actually see in the finished product are also created by our artists. AI can help us create an early visual reference point, but the final creative work remains human-made."

Regulation as a creative discipline

"Regulation, Ganster says, enters Greentube's production process earlier than most people assume. By the time a game reaches development, the regulatory requirements of its target markets, maximum win limits, feature restrictions, stake controls, responsible gambling mechanics, are already built into the brief.

"We don't want to build a game and then discover we need to redesign major parts of it for a key market," Ganster says. "It's slower upfront, but it's a much cleaner process in the long run."

In practice, he treats regulation as a creative discipline rather than a compliance cost. “The restriction forces specificity,” he says. “If you cannot use a certain mechanic in a key market, you have to find something that achieves the same player motivation through a different route. Some of our most distinctive features exist because a regulatory constraint closed the obvious path and we had to find a better one.”

Local knowledge that cannot be written into a brief

Asked about the strategic case for running studios with such different skillsets across such different locations, Ganster's answer comes down to something that cannot be centralised. “The honest answer is local knowledge that cannot be acquired from Vienna,” he says. “You can analyse a market, you can study the numbers, but you can't fully replicate the experience of people who grew up as part of that market and understand its gaming culture instinctively."

"When our team in the Netherlands builds content inspired by Dutch player experiences, they're bringing something authentic to the process that can't simply be transferred through a document or a briefing session.;The result, in his framing, is genuinely local content rather than content that has simply been localised, a distinction he believes is visible to players even when they cannot articulate it. “The portfolio holds together because of the shared standards and the shared franchise logic,” he says. “It is distinctive because of the differences between the studios. Both things are necessary. Neither works without the other.”

Article written by Elisabet Johansson