How studios are arranged within holding structures

In iGaming, holding is not a "superstructure," but a factory: a common platform, certification processes and distribution, on which brand studios work. Their task is to regularly release hits, and the holding's task is to turn hits into scale and predictable cash flow. Below is how it works from the inside.

1) Basic orgmodel: labels, pods and shared services

Holding level structure

Portfolio Board: Approves roadmap, budget and targets by market/vertical (RNG, live, jackpots).

Shared Services: RGS/infra, DevOps/SRE, Compliance & Legal, BI/DWH, Promotools, User Acquisition & Brand, Payments & Risk, LQA/Localization, Art Outsource.

Publishing/Go-to-Market (GTM): storefronts, features, tournament networks, jackpot pools, partnerships and affiliates.

Studio level

Label (brand studio): own creative, art DNA and IP series.

Pod teams: autonomous mini-units 10-25 FTE for 1-2 games (PD/PM, GD, Math, Client, Server, QA, Tech Artist).

Producer/GM studios: Owner of P&L, quality and timing.

Why so: studios are responsible for the product and taste, holding - for the speed of output, certification, scale of promo and stability.

2) Finmodel: P&L studios and transfer pricing

Studio revenues: internal "revenue" according to the transfer price formula for NetWin/optional spins of its games (as if the studio was an external provider), bonus - for over-performance (retention/NetWin against the benchmark).

Costs: salaries/outsourcing, allocating common services (RGS, certification, hosting, BI), marketing for releases.

Studio ETR: "the share that reached the studio" after the platform/aggregator commission and internal deductions (brand royalties/IP).

Bonus KPIs: hit rate, share of revenue of the top 3 games, "long tail" (6-12 months), expected spin NetWin/1000, CTR cards on the showcase, SLA defects.

Why transfer pricing: equalizes incentives - the studio competes for the attention of players as if it were in the foreign market.

3) Portfolio Management: Greenlight and Stage

Development funnel

1. Pitch (2-3 pages) - hero feature, mathematics in theses, visual reference board, volatility hypothesis.

2. Concept (2-4 weeks) - fast prototypes, paper math, risk analysis mechanics and compliance.

3. Vertical Slice (6-8 weeks) - "playable piece": rhythm, win-bands, feature frequencies, KPIs of the first 10 minutes.

4. Production (3-6 months) - full implementation, localization, market builds.

5. Soft-launch/AB-market - 1-2 operators, telemetry, frequency/payout edits (within the framework of certified mathematics).

6. Global Launch - promo calendar, tournaments/jackpots, cross-promo.

The Greenlight Committee looks: uniqueness of features, "cost of cert," NetWin/DAU forecast, live/jackpot ports, series potential.

4) Common technology stack

RGS/Game Platform: single SDKs, wallet (debit/credit, sometimes transfer), idempotency, batch-events.

Market Builds: matrix of'game_id × country × rtp_profile × build_hash', reference and age-labels, auto-validator of compliance to certificates.

Promotools: tournaments, missions, drops, free spins, jackpot framework; API for operators.

Observability/SRE: p95/p99 spin-latency, error-budget, RTP/bonus-freq alerts, WORM logs and controversial spin replays.

BI/DWH: event scheme'stake, win, spin_type, game_id, build_hash, ts_utc, operator_id', NetWin/ETR/retenshn dashborda.

Plus: general art pool of assets, localization pipeline and assembly automation.

5) Compliance and certification "on the conveyor"

Foreheads and RTS: a single package (RNG, mathematics, logs, UI rules), repeated build assemblies; all changes in mathematics → recertification.

Jurisdiction matrix: prioritization of markets (UKGC/MGA/Ontario/NA and local), plan of recounts for the quarter.

RG functions: timeouts, limits, self-exclusion, local warnings and links to help.

The goal: to reduce time-to-market to new markets through industrialized market builds.

6) Live vs RNG: Different factories under one umbrella

RNG studios - fast production, long tail of catalog income, high dependence on showcases/promos.

Live studios - TV + casino: studios, dealers, backhoe, streaming, SLA.

Synergy: RNG brands become live shows, and live IP get RNG responses (cross-promo and fannel).

7) Careers and teams: how people are raised

Треки: Game Design (math/feature design), Engineering (client/server), Art (concept/2D/3D/TA), Production, Live-Ops/PM, Compliance/QA, Data/BI.

Stairs: IC (Senior/Principal) and Management (Lead/Head/GM).

Mobilization: internal exchange for 3-6-month missions (accelerates releases, removes bottlenecks).

Rating: mix of grocery (hit rate, NetWin, CTR) and engineering KPIs (latency, bug rate, predictability of terms).

8) Anti-bureaucratic practices ("speed without chaos")

Pod autonomy: up to $ X budget - studio-level solution; above, the Portfolio Board.

One-pager instead of "novels": solutions for key forks - in the format of 1-2 pages with clear hypotheses and metrics.

Shadow builds & canary: roll out to markets/operators in small shares.

Post-mortems without punishment: focus on cause and effect, checklist of updates.

9) How holding raises the chance of a "hit"

1. Series/franchises: visual and mechanical continuity (easier to feature; above CTR).

2. Promo calendar: slot rhythm (weekly releases), networking tournaments, jackpot events.

3. Cross-studio "crossovers": shared events/missions, shared jackpot pools.

4. Data in the development cycle: correction of frequencies and UX (without changing certified mathematics).

5. Regional publishers: local operators/affiliates, showcase collections (holidays/themes/mechanics).

10) M&A: how to "land" a purchased studio (90-day plan)

0-30 days

Audit: code/builds/specs, IP licenses, contracts, backlog, features in sales.

Security: access, secrets, hosting, log audit.

Finance: reconciliation of reports, royalties/ETR, pending invoices.

31-60 days

Integration into RGS, Event Bus and market builds; unification of event diagrams.

Connection to promo framework (tournaments/jackpots), DWH, QA/certification pipeline.

First-party series plan: 1-2 titles, joint GTM, locales.

61-90 days

Consolidated promotional calendar and display shelves by market.

Revision of transfer pricing, team bonus scheme.

12 Month Roadmap: Batch, Live Response (if relevant), Markets, Restated.

11) Holding model risks and how to hedge them

Portfolio inertia - incubators of experimental builds and "green corridors" save 1-2 releases per quarter.

Overheating of shared services - quotas, capacity planning, "ban on blocking dependencies" in production.

IP cannibalization - series editorial policy and feature rotation.

Compliance technical debt - automatic validators market builds and a strict build-hash registry.

Single point of failure - multi-region RGS/CDN, DR plans, manual folbacks at operators.

12) Control metrics (C-level dashboard)

Portfolio: share of the top 10 games, NetWin tail 6-12 months, hit rate, release cycles.

Quality: p95/p99 latency, error-rate, proportion of "optional spins," RTP/bonus-freq anomalies.

Monetization: ETR by channel (aggregators/direct), ROI promo (tournaments/jackpots), live share of total revenue.

Geo: certification coverage, time-to-market by market, LQA defects.

People: fluidity in roles, hiring speed, backlog burndown, outsource futprint.

13) Checklists

For the studio manager

Is there a "hero feature" and a 12-month series plan?
Is the transfer price and KPI bonus matrix aligned?
Are promo modules (tournaments/jackpots/missions) connected out of the box?
Are all market builds automatically validated?
Are RTP/frequency and replay alerts configured for disputed spins?

For SRO/Portfolio Director

Balance of volatility and mechanic per quarter.
Two "showcase" series + 1 experiment per quarter.
Plan of recounts and geo-inputs.
Transparent allocation of shared resources.
Coordinated grid of promo and display shelves with operators.

14) What to do an independent studio after joining the holding

1. Preserve creative autonomy: fix your own greenlight to N budget in the contract.

2. Transfer code and processes to general RGS/BI/certification - without rewriting the DNA of the game.

3. Pack IP in a series and joint GTM: network tournaments, cross-promo, jackpots.

4. Go to the event analytics of the holding, set up alerts and retention dashboards.

5. Rebuild team bonuses for transfer pricing - to "hit" common goals.

15) Looking Ahead (2025-2027)

"Optional spins" standards for per-spin billing and tournament telemetry.

WebGPU/client optimization as access to mobile calling.

Convergence live and RNG: show formats with RNG mechanics in the backend.

Open publishing programs (Powered By/Publisher) as a framework for indie studios within holdings.

Transparency of RTP versions on the game card - regulators increase requirements.

Studios within the holding win when they remain the authors of the product, and the holding is an accelerator of scale: platform, compliance, promo and data. The key to a healthy model is transparent transfer pricing, autonomous pod teams, industrialized market builds and green corridors for bold experiments. This design gives both the speed of hits and the predictability of the portfolio - this is exactly what the iGaming market needs today.