Saber Interactive

About the Company

Saber Interactive is a game developer that has been making casino products since 2011 and interactive games since 2000.

In 2020 the firm was acquired by Embracer Group of Sweden which already controlled thqNordic, Koch Media, Coffee Stain Studios, and Amplifier Game Invest. This increased Embracer's assets to five operating groups comprising 31 individual studios with over 160 franchises.

Andrey Iones, Matthew Karch, and Anton Krupkin founded Saber with Karch acting as CEO and later joining the Embracer Group board of directors.

The Saber company now has offices in Russia, Spain, Belarus, Sweden, and Portugal. Their U.S. headquarters is located in Ft Lauderdale, FL.

With a staff of over 600 prior to the acquisition, the company rose to the top of game developer echelons as one of the longest-running and largest providers of game studio content in eastern Europe and Russia.

The company has years of experience in developing high-end art and tech that includes considerable contributions to recent blockbusters like Halo: The Master Chief Collection - as well as The Witcher 3, Will Rock, Quake, and Ghostbusters Remastered.

In the realm of land-based casino gaming, they work closely with IGT as well as competitors such as WMS. In the last decade have worked on over 70 floor machines as well as online content for Aristocrat, WMS, IGT/DoubleDown, and MobilityWare.

Some of the following interactive and skill-based games may be familiar to terrestrial casino-goers:

• WMS The Amazing Cashini
• IGT Cleopatra Pinball
• Davinci Diamonds Double Play
• Texas Tea Pinball
• Race Ace
• Samba De Frutas
• Bubble Craze

Many of the games feature a choice between a free games bonus, or the ability to trigger skill-based bonuses. One example is Cleopatra Pinball where pinball skills can influence the amount of money you can win.

Software and Games

A look at how the company approaches console games might tell us a bit about how they approach slot development.

According to former CEO and current director Karch, "At Saber, we have a level-design and level-scripting department. We create a list of events of things we'd like to see happen in a game level, and then we come up with a theme for a particular level, whether it's a story-driven theme or a game-driven theme."

That approach would work well for front-end development based on solid game maths, such as those deployed by IGT and others in their AAA slots.

The company developed or licensed a proprietary remote game server platform to launch its social gaming casino, SlotoTerra. It first appeared on OK.ru, then Mail.ru, and eventually on Facebook.

More than 60 games have been released through the product which has allowed them to hone their craft in creating skill-based bonus rounds for their real money slots.

We do not find a portfolio of online titles on their website but we did find Jukepot at BooCasino and Casinoland.

While the game may be developed and deployed in HTML5 for all web browser play, on certain platforms including the NYX/SciGames/NextGen we needed to allow Flash permissions to activate the game.

Jukepot has a 1950s Diner theme entered around the iconic jukebox of the times. As a five-reel game with 3 positions on each reel, there are 243 ways to win rather than traditional paylines. Three or more matching symbols on adjacent reels from leftmost to the right award a wain.

Wild symbols can appear stacked, opening up possibilities for huge wins. The scatter-triggered bonus spins come with a locking reel feature.

Since the max payout per "line" win is so low, you will need to find big stacks of wilds to go with high paying symbols or get lucky in the bonus game to walk away with a good win.

Fortunately, the bonus triggers often and locked reels will appear at random on every bonus spin and resolve into all participating reels having the same symbols. Any 2, 3, 4, or even 5 adjacent reels can lock up and spin with the same symbols showing.

During the base game, the locking real feature will trigger at random intervals. A hotrod can also speed across the reels and drop a stack of wild symbols. Wilds can appear on any or all five reels.

Bets range from 0.01 to 2.00 multiplied by 25 for a minimum stake of 0.25 and a max bet of 50.00 per spin.

All in all, it's a very well delivered game. The theme is tight and the bonus mechanics are well executed. If the spin/stop button were a little more responsive (immediate stop) it would be better, but that is the only real complaint. I would definitely play this game again.

Further titles

There's some indication that the company has participated in the development of a few IGT and Aristocrat branded online slots. However, we don't currently find many titles we are confident they participated in the development of.

Most of their known contributions to IGT in recent years have focused on skill gaming. Players have a choice of accepting a set number of bonus spins or playing the skill component. "Skill games" are not based on absolute skill, they still need to retain a certain level of random volatility to maintain the theoretical return to player percentage.

Cleopatra or Texas Tea Pinball bonus rounds would translate well for online bonus-feature play. Pinball was one of the first 3D rendered games on PC.

IGT seems to be lagging behind since Nevada and New Jersey codified regulations for skill-based casino games in 2016. In a nutshell, they simply needed to determine how much of the RTP could go into a skill-based bonus round and ban making games easier or harder to win overall based on a player's skill.

Bubble Craze is available online. Saber's precise contributions are unknown but we can confirm they worked on the game's development.

It's an arcade-inspired Match 3 game with transformers, multipliers, and bonus "spins" with increased multipliers.

There are 19 bubbles of 8 different colors of neon light. Simply bet and "spin". Bubbles match up and pop to be replaced by new icons. The game builds excitement by speeding up and the beach music becoming more frenzied as wins accumulate.

It's unclear how skill is involved but the game has an RP range between 92.65% and 96.2%. The game is more like a fidget widget with potential prizes than a traditional slot machine.

The WMS title, The Amazing Cashini was released in 2015 and still hasn't made it to the online lobbies.

However, we might assume the studio worked on other WMS Colossal Reels games online like Spartacus Gladiator of Rome and others that might sometimes be labeled as NYX games since the SG Interactive acquisitions.

The game has 2 reelsets. The main one is 5x4 and the Colossal is 5x12. Players can bet on as many as 100 paylines.

The graphics and sound are world-class and being transported into the bonus game is reality-bending.

The game has stacked wild symbols. Landing wild symbols on the main reelset will transfer them over to the Colossal reels as well creating 12 position high wilds.

Scatters appear on reels 1, 3, and 5 of both reel sets. It only takes 3 scatters to trigger bonus spins, but landing 5 scatters will award 20 bonus spins and a 20x total stake multiplier.

The Final Analysis

With over 60 of their own titles in a social casino and work on more than 70 real money games under their belt, the studio has made a considerable contribution to casino games over the last decade.

While it can be difficult to determine the precise product of some third-party studios, we have identified at least one title online under their banner. It is probably safe to assume that all WMS Colossal Reels games use at least some of their contributions.

It will be interesting to see how the new larger company monetizes real money games and if they will collaborate with an existing provider such as Yggdrasil or Microgaming to become Studio Partners.