In the penultimate episode of SlotBeats Spotlight’s investigation in multiplayer with slots, we delved into another aspect of multiplayer… social. We pressed our experts on why the slot industry has been resilient in enhancing its social gaming aspect at risk of negatively impacting an established cash cow, and what could be done to improve this.
Another aspect of multiplayer comes in the form of social interaction. Why has the slot sector not enhanced the social side of gaming and could we see more games incorporate this in the near future?
Lloyd Purser, FunFair Games: For operators, distributors and slot studios, it’s risky to rework what’s been a cash cow for years. In my mind, there’s no choice now.
Single-player slots are so saturated that the margins for many are not enough to continue down that road. We’ve seen Evolution create and execute innovation with their game show genre, which is community-driven and offers shared winning experiences.
Given the market share that’s now being taken by live casinos through this new genre of games, operators, distributors, and studios are waking up. They will be looking at how to bring community-led play into the casino tab. FunFair Games aims to be at the forefront of this innovation.
Ivan Kravchuk, Evoplay: At the moment, we are witnessing a wide development of mechanics related to socialisation across the majority of markets. For example, game tournaments are currently one of the top promotional mechanics for games. Why?
Because we give a feeling of a game inside the game, and where you compete with others in short sessions. Players can not only win the money, but also enjoy getting ahead of their opponents.
During the time of transition when gambling started to move from offline clubs to online, a player received the opportunity to play from a desktop computer or a mobile phone. This meant that play could happen at any time, and anywhere.
Compared to offline clubs, the element of communication among players and the social component became lost. Nowadays, we see active work to improve the social component in igaming. As technology advances and user trends form for general, everyday technologies, these naturally start crossing over into igaming, too.
A lot of mechanics are added to the games, and these develop and evolve, they cultivate and expand the opportunity for social and competitive components. That’s why we’re also seeing tournaments, ratings, achievements, and much more being added to the mix. Social interaction, gamification, etc., is now something that can be incorporated into the games now being developed.
David Mann, Swintt: The advent of online gaming, and especially mobile play, opened a new dynamic to the gambling industry by allowing players to play from anywhere.
Without needing to visit dark gaming arcades to play some low RTP games players could enjoy it from home, and with gaming being taboo in some cultures the social side holds little draw for a bulk of players.
We should look at what other entertainment products are offering and see where we can grow the slot products – even just from Live Casino where there is interaction with the dealer but not always interaction between players.
There will be more social, multiplayer type games to come along but I can’t see the classic solo slot games fading quickly.
