Friday view: The challenge of game design
Victor Stinga and James Goode from mfortune look at the difficulties in developing a game idea for the mobile platform
With more than one million apps in iTunes, a similar number in Google Play and over 60 billion downloads in the App Store alone, there are some casino managers asking themselves how they could better leverage the power of mobile.
The first step usually taken is developing apps for their existing products and following the same strategy that paid off online, which means wrapping up third party content and focusing on marketing.
Even though online casinos fall well within the IT sector, many casinos lack the technology part, and behave mostly like online betting shops in which people usually find the same terminals. The success of the business depends a lot on the popularity of the terminal.
Often this strategy seems to work well, with players returning to their favourite games and falling into daily routines, but we shouldnât forget that the human brain is hardwired to get an increase of dopamine when exposed to novelty.
Games that are unique to a casino not only maximise the potential of this psychological trigger, but further work to reinforce loyalty behaviour.
TIME, EFFORT AND CASH
The novelty pattern is clearly shown by apps that go viral and some people in the gambling industry are considering building games to take advantage of the virality of the app stores.
However, despite many stories about apps created by indie developers that have risen to the top, you should keep in mind that these are just restricted cases.
In most cases building a successful app requires a lot of time and resources. When it comes to gambling, these resources need to be increased immediately due to regulations which need to be followed.
The first restriction comes from the different nature of the gambling industry. Unlike play for fun games, where you can implement in a game pretty much every feature they can think of, casino games for real money see every new feature pass through a review process to ensure itâs in line with legal regulations. Frequently, these restrictions make it hard to compete with play for fun games as regulations are strict, and can hinder innovation.
OTHER BARRIERS IN PLACE
The second issue is technical. When designing a game it is very important to have a capable product manager that can make the transitions between the graphic, business and technical departments, as well as address any legal aspects.
Like we know from when the legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto was producing the first mass games, transforming your idea into a finished product is harder when you donât know the technical capabilities beforehand.
Restrictions also come from the marketing department and user behaviour analysis. For instance, you have to be very careful about the size of your apps if you notice most of your users are using 3G connections. Even though you may want a game to include every feature imaginable, it is wise to remember that most of the time, less is good.
You donât want to put your users in difficulty by making things too complicated. Know your audience and start from there, but never forget the novelty aspect. If you have a game that is a hit, you shouldnât focus on copying it because most of the time this is not going to work.
Think of it this way: even though Tetris had widespread success, you canât reproduce that success by copying its engine, mainly due to that trigger: novelty.