Andrew Pascal: Yeah. No, thanks for the question. We think that the first quarters historically tend to be a stronger quarter. And in light of just still some of the lack of predictability and stability in the casino category or genre. We’re not in a position yet where we’re going to adjust our outlook. So we feel comfortable with where we are at the moment.
Aaron Lee: Okay. Great. That makes sense. Thank you very much.
Andrew Pascal: Thanks a lot, Aaron.
Operator: And our next question comes from David Pang with Stifel. Please state your question.
David Pang: Oh, thanks. So just a follow-up on one of the earlier questions, but in your conversations with potential external game publishers for playAWARDS, what is the biggest source of friction or pushback you’re hearing from them?
Andrew Pascal: Okay, I think that – first of all, I think the universally positive feedback we received was that people recognize how unique the whole value proposition of our loyalty program is. Not only having a tiered loyalty structure with all kinds of digital rewards and benefits, but also the real-world tie-ins that we provide. A lot of the feedback that we received that was constructive was around the effort and time that would be required in order to integrate a program into their product or suite of products. And as you can imagine, games that have meaningful scale and momentum have dedicated teams and roadmaps with features and new content that they plan to introduce. And so to actually find room for and make development capacity available to incorporate something as substantial as a loyalty program is a meaningful commitment.
And so, they push pretty hard and wanted to understand a lot more about our SDKs and kind of the integration approach and tools, and support that we can provide just to ensure that the amount of time and effort that’s required in order to implement the program would be more predictable. And, obviously, then translate to the benefits that we’ve enjoyed and that we believe they, too, can enjoy. So it’s really around the amount of effort and energy that’s required to implement a really well executed loyalty program within their own products. And I can highlight we’ve made really great progress there in terms of making the whole exercise a lot more efficient and creating lots of tools, tons of reference documentation. So all the things that would be typical of productizing something that you would otherwise just use for yourselves.
David Pang: Got it. That’s really helpful. And then just one on the marketing environment. Can you provide an update on the mobile marketing environment and what are the platform policy changes? How is that affecting your thoughts on new game launches?
Andrew Pascal: Well, look, I mean, obviously a lot has been made of all of the privacy policy changes that the platforms have instituted and how that’s translated to the tools they provide and the restrictions that they’ve imposed. And it makes targeting consumers and scaling and building an audience challenging, more challenging than ever. And those policies continue to get, if anything, ever narrower. With that said, I think that if you have a successful game and certainly a franchise brand like we have in Tetris, you generate a tremendous amount of just organic traffic in interest. Our Tetris product generates well over 22 million organic installs a year. So we believe that while the environment is certainly very challenging, that there’s an opportunity with the right types of product and franchise brands to rise above the noise and overcome a lot of these restrictions and build a meaningful audience.
And so, if you’re really look at our portfolio of products, they’re either based on really well-established and beloved brands, whether that’s all of the very popular Las Vegas brands for our casino portfolio, whether it’s Tetris in the casual category, or their games that have at least 10 years of history, and where they demonstrated their durability and the resilience of their audience. So we’re very keen and very clear about the complexities of UA. And so, as we continue to invest in our own products, those are some of the things that we consider.
David Pang: Okay. Thank you.
Operator: And our next question comes from Greg Gibas with Northland Securities. Please state your question.
Greg Gibas: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Curious if you could kind of attribute or what kind of drove the out performance relative to your expectations in the quarter. I imagine Tetris was a key one, but just kind of curious how you’d attribute the out performance.
Andrew Pascal: I mean, I think, generally speaking, I think that portfolio products performed as expected. Tetris definitely was a bit of an outlier and that was driven by some of the residual impact of the Willis Gibson effect, which I alluded to earlier. So for the first time, Tetris was defeated and it just became a bit of a social phenomenon. We saw a pretty meaningful spike in installs and engagement and the level of interest in that product. But we’ve also seen pretty healthy performance momentum with our Brainium suite of casual products. And then within the casino portfolio, we’re pretty happy with some of the momentum that we’re seeing with our myVEGAS product, where a lot of things that we’ve been working on seem to be translating. So those are some of the highlights.
Greg Gibas: Great. That’s helpful. And regarding the kind of spike in Tetris, it makes a lot of sense regarding how much it was in the news, you almost couldn’t avoid it. But is that interest kind of showing momentum beyond when it occurred? Like are you still seeing kind of elevated gameplay there or interest? I’m just curious if that momentum has kind of carried into Q2.
Andrew Pascal: Well, I would say if you look at the current kind of normalized state and pace of that product relative to where it was before Willis Gibson and the resulting kind of social phenomenon, it’s definitely stepped up. But it’s regressed a little bit from its peak, which is to be expected.
Greg Gibas: Yeah, fair enough. Great. And then, I know you provided some just kind of comments on it. But any more that you can provide us on the more of an update on the M&A search? And how that’s maybe been trending this year?
Andrew Pascal: You know what, I think, we’ve got Jason on the call. I’ll let him kind of speak to maybe provide a general update; no, we can’t be too specific. But Jason, do you want to provide some highlights?
