ScatterKings Q&A: Steve Cross on Creating Slots Players Return To

Steve Cross, Co-Founder and CCO at ScatterKings, joins CasinoTrackpot to discuss the studio’s approach to slot development. We talk about building familiar game worlds, balancing maths with creative ideas, and developing returning characters such as Cleo and Big Bob. Steve also shares what players can expect from Coins of Cleo 2 and upcoming releases.

1. Thanks for taking the time to sit down with us for this interview today, Steve. Can you start off by introducing yourself and your role at ScatterKings, and can you give us an insight into the studio and what you want to be known for? 

I’m Steve Cross, co-founder and CCO at ScatterKings. My role is to connect our creative ambitions with the commercial opportunities, getting our games into the right markets and bringing operator and player insights back to the product team.  

We founded the studio in June 2023, bringing together complementary experience in product, commercial strategy and technology. That balance matters: a good idea needs strong execution, reliable delivery and a clear reason to exist in an operator’s lobby.  

What I want ScatterKings to be known for is games with personality and substance, set in worlds players look forward to revisiting. Retention is a big part of that, and it’s something we measure. In Coins Forged in Fire 3, around 7% of players played more than 1,000 rounds within their first 30 days of playing the game, which I think is a phenomenal statistic.  

For us, getting someone to try a game is only the beginning. What matters is giving them a reason to keep coming back.  

2. What gap did you believe ScatterKings could fill when you began building the studio, and how has that shaped your long-term vision for the brand? 

It’s a saturated market, with multiple games being released every day. We didn’t feel players simply needed more choice. We saw an opportunity to give them a sense of familiarity and comfort within that choice, games and worlds they could get to know and trust. A player might try something unfamiliar, but if they don’t develop trust in the game, the brand or the provider, there is little reason for them to stay.  

For us, that familiarity goes deeper than recognising a character or a setting. We build our game worlds on solid mathematical foundations with a clear understanding of the experience we want to create. The pacing, the anticipation, the ups and downs and the excitement all matter. As we take players through different games within a world, the mechanics and features can evolve while retaining a familiar underlying feel.  

That shapes our long-term vision: to build worlds players feel comfortable returning to, while giving them something new to discover each time. We’re not trying to make every game the same. We want each release to develop the experience without losing the qualities that made players connect with that world in the first place.  

3. ScatterKing’s positions itself as a boutique developer, focused on quality rather than volume. What does a quality slot look like from your perspective? 

For me, quality starts with understanding what the player experience should feel like mathematically. It’s not just about which features a game has, but how they work together to create that experience. Each feature needs a purpose, and the whole game needs to feel coherent.  

We consider that game by game. A mechanic might look exciting on paper, but it needs to fit the mathematical profile and the world we’re creating. Adding more features doesn’t automatically make a better game. They need to contribute to the experience, rather than compete with one another.  

Then there’s the execution. The details matter: how clearly a game communicates what’s happening, how it responds, and how the presentation supports the gameplay. Quality is when those things come together, not just a game that looks finished but one that feels properly considered when you play it.  

4. You’re still a relatively young studio, but you’ve released a good number of games. Which titles would you point a new player towards first to understand the breadth of the ScatterKings portfolio, and why those? 

I’d start with Coins of Cleo 2, Big Bob’s Gold and Coins Forged in Fire 3. They offer three quite different experiences, and each builds on an existing game world. They’re good examples of how we refine the mathematics and develop a concept over successive releases, rather than simply change the artwork and add a number to the title.  

Coins of Cleo 2 would be my suggestion for players who enjoy seeing features build and develop, with sticky multiplier Wilds in Free Spins and a huge Hold & Spin grid.  

Big Bob’s Gold is a good example of taking familiar mechanics and putting them together in a fresh way. It combines the classic book mechanic with the familiar fishing collection trail in Free Spins, alongside a proven Hold & Spin feature with its own trail. Those familiar starting points come together in a distinctive combination, with the added trails giving players a sense of progression and more potential to work towards.  

Coins Forged in Fire 3 is designed more for power players and VIP players. It combines fast-paced gameplay and high volatility with clear, polished presentation. The Fireball multiplier frames bring short-burst persistence, building anticipation as the multipliers increase.  

Playing them alongside their earlier chapters also gives a clearer picture of our approach. You can recognise the world and its foundations, while seeing how the mathematical experience and feature ideas have evolved. That balance between familiarity and development is something we want players to feel for themselves.  

5. There are already recurring characters in your games, such as Cleo and Big Bob. How important is it to create recognisable characters and create worlds that can grow across multiple games? 

Recognisable characters give players a connection to a world before they’ve even started playing. With Cleo or Big Bob, there’s a sense of returning somewhere familiar. But that recognition doesn’t always need a central character; it can also come from a distinctive theme or style of play. Either way, it gives us a foundation to build on, but each game still needs to offer an experience worth coming back for.  

We want those worlds to have room to grow, without deciding every chapter in advance. We have a clear idea of the experience we want to create, but we don’t assume we’ve answered every question before a game goes live. Once it’s in players’ hands, we look at how they engage with it and feed that insight back into game design. That helps us decide what to build on, what to change and where to take the world next.  

The commercial and product sides need to stay connected throughout that process. What we learn from player behaviour and operator feedback should inform the next creative decisions, not replace creative judgement but give the team a stronger basis for it. That’s how we want to develop our worlds: with a clear identity, but room to respond to what players actually enjoy.  

6. Your latest release is Coins of Cleo 2. What can you tell us about Cleo’s return, and how will the sequel build on the original game? 

Coins of Cleo 2 builds on the mechanics players fell in love with in the original. We wanted returning players to recognise what they enjoyed, while giving them more depth and more potential to unlock.  

The sequel introduces a free spins mode with sticky multiplier wilds. The Hold & Spin retains the larger grid familiar from the original, with a ×10 multiplier at the top of the trail giving players more potential to work towards. It’s about developing what happens within that familiar experience, rather than changing it beyond recognition.  

That’s what a sequel should offer: the foundations that made players connect with the first game, with more to discover as they explore the next chapter.  

7. Looking further ahead, what can CasinoTrackpot readers expect from you going forward? Perhaps you can give us a sneak peek at what’s to come? 

Coins of the Gods 3 Pots is one to look out for, bringing a different setting and feature combination to our portfolio. We also have Coins Forged by Santa coming for Christmas, a festive twist on the Coins Forged series, with Santa and his renegade reindeer taking centre stage.  

Both reflect how we want to keep developing ScatterKings: giving players something new to explore without losing that sense of familiarity. Sometimes that means taking an established series in a different direction; sometimes it means introducing a new world.  

We’ll keep learning from how players respond and feeding that back into the next games. The aim is to give them more reasons to return, and something to look forward to when they do!