The future of game mechanics
Tom Wood, CEO at RAW iGaming, says there is a lot riding on innovation and that studios and developers need to step up to the task at hand
Before discussing the future of game mechanics, it is important to consider where the industry is at today when it comes to the slots that are available to players.
We have been carefully monitoring game releases for a long time now and on average there are more than 200 new video slots launched to operators every month.
Of this number, more than 70% are either 3×5 reel or 4×5 reel sets and the majority of the rest either use Megaways or cluster pay mechanics. The vast majority of these offer free spins as the leading bonus feature in the game.
This data suggest that players are offered a lot of very similar content, and on a scale that neither they nor the operators that stock them could possibly consume.
We call this the sea of sameness. It’s not that these games are lacking in quality – quite frankly, some of them are brilliant. It’s that they simply get lost in the sheer volume of similar content in the market.
Think of it like the cereal aisle in an American grocery store. There are rows and rows of cornflakes and oats sold in rectangle boxes but where named brands win because they have the budget to pay for eye-level placement.
The rest are either on the bottom shelf or at the top where they are hard to reach and might never come into view – really, they are there to just fill the gaps.
For online casino players, this makes for a monotonous experience and in this day and age with so many other entertainment options out there, this could present a significant risk for operators.
Indeed, our industry is locked in a fierce battle with social media and streaming platforms, e-commerce, video games, etc for those few minutes each day that consumers devote to entertainment.
If we are going to compete with this and win, we must come up with daring innovations to attract and engage players and this is why we have moved away from standard 3×5 and 4×5 mechanics.
Time to innovate
This is something that we can do. You just need to look at successes like Megaways and Slingo to see what can be achieved when genuine innovation happens.
The industry should be buoyed by these and others as well as the appetite among players to embrace new game mechanics and formats.
Of course, these things take time – Megaways and Slingo were not overnight successes even though there are many who believe that. This means studios must be patient, make the required resource investment and also leverage the data that is available to them to help find their own secret sauce.
While success can’t be guaranteed, it is important for developers to keep thinking outside the box when coming up with their next concepts.
They should take the time to look at what is out there, dig into the data and really consider what the player is seeking and how they can take the experience their games provide to the next level.
A considered approach is required. Some studios run before they can walk because they are so eager to get their idea out, but slow and steady is the best way forwards.
It is also worth remembering that the more radical the game mechanic, the longer it will take to educate operators and players. Sometimes the greatest innovations are the simplest.
Studios must keep driving ahead with never-seen-before game mechanics because ultimately it is what operators and players will desire.
Players are always seeking fresh and innovative content that provides exciting entertainment, but at the moment it’s not being provided in the sea of sameness.
So long as they are not getting it, they will continue to spend their entertainment minutes elsewhere and that should be a huge concern for the wider industry.
New and exciting game mechanics provide operators with opportunities around acquisition, retention, reactivation and monetisation, so there is a lot riding on innovation.
It is now up to the studios to step up to the task.
Tom Wood is the CEO of RAW iGaming, a unique and distinctly different game studio, which officially launched in Q4 2021. With more than 15 years’ experience within the igaming industry, Wood has previously held key roles at some of the industry’s leading companies such as Betsson, NordicBet, WMS and SG Digital where latterly he held the role of VP and chief creative officer. During this time, Wood has helped launch over 250 games in regulated markets around the world, including online player favourites such as Rainbow Riches, 88 Fortunes, Montezuma and Raging Rhino.