In the finale of SlotBeats Spotlight’s series on multiplayer within slots, we asked our experts to predict the advancements in social and multiplayer gaming whilst looking to engage within the slot community.
Over the next five to 10 years, what do you envisage of social/multiplayer gaming within slots and how important is creating a community for players to engage with each other?
David Mann, Swintt: The community aspect within gaming has always been a strong element but content, engagement and eyes-on-screen time is more important than ever so I can only see this becoming more prominent as time goes on.
An ever more connected audience will be positive for the industry to build more player trust, gather feedback and develop products the players want. When it comes to multiplayer games – I’m looking forward to seeing what some of the great product minds will produce but there will be a lot to come here.
Ivan Kravchuk, Evoplay: As it can be seen from the development of the gaming industry, multiplayer gaming services, such as Fortnite or GTA V Online, occupy a separate niche that shows a steady growth from year-to-year.
I think that multiplayer games in the igaming industry will take their own niche and will actively develop – they will become better to play, more interesting to experience and, well, much cooler. Each year, we’ll see this develop and start doing what always happens – incorporating new technologies too.
VR and AR, for example, are in our not-too-distant future. And that will really open up both the competitive and social aspects of multiplayer gaming. But even without such high-end technology implementation, we will soon observe more widespread active application of social mechanics in the slot industry.
Lloyd Purser, FunFair Games: I envisage multiplayer on slots and different styles of content to slots, like crash, or our wheel or pinball games. The key focus will be on community and shared experiences. Community drives engagement, competition and status, so gamification, like chat, tournaments and avatars, will also come centre stage to enhance the playing experience.
Doing this is hugely important. From the casino sector’s point of view, Gen Z and Y players will play a vital role in the future of customer acquisition. Their importance will only grow as the number of years they have spent in the workforce increases and the disposable income they can spend on entertainment rises accordingly.
Those players have grown up with online interactions as a foundational aspect of everyday life, so games that don’t provide it simply won’t be that interesting.
