Innovation I’d Like To See In Online Gaming
I’ve been inspired to write this post after listening to PKR-founder, Jez San’s wonderful talk on Innovation in Gaming at the London Affiliate Conference.
I love when individuals have the balls to shake up an industry and it works out for them.
Whether I know the individuals or not, I often feel a strange sense of pride for them. It’s a weird feeling. I’m not a father, but it’s like how I’d imagine a dad feels when his son has just scored a 40-yard screamer for his country and sent everyone nuts. Only I’m not the dad of the individuals I’m proud of; I’ve never even met most of them!
I’m proud of Sacha Baron Cohen and how he’s created a new style of comedy that the whole world has embraced. Never met him, can’t really relate to him in any way, but I’m proud of him. Strange.
I’m proud to work for my company. I believe we’ve added something innovative to the world of online gaming and we’ve also opened up new revenue channels for the television industry. We’ve been perfecting a product that takes a simple idea – one that’s over two centuries old – and changes the way it reaches the audience (for those of you who don’t know, my company was a pioneer in live casino gaming, where instead of a user playing software-based roulette or blackjack, we offer a *real* roulette wheel or blackjack table, add a presenter/croupier and stream it live into their home. Much more like a real, city-centre casino).
I’m also proud of what Jez and his team have done at PKR. I’m a PKR player and in my opinion, it’s streets ahead of the opposition. I’m proud that they’re a British company who’ve managed to remain independent and take on the big American players – who no-doubt have bigger pockets. They’ve been able to do this solely through having an amazingly innovative product.
I’m a fan of the Seth Godin school of thought. He intimates that if he had 3 months of marketing budget to invest, he’d much rather spend it on the best designers or developers and make something innovative, than spend the money on marketing a product that doesn’t deserve to be successful.
The Online Gaming industry needs to keep evolving and we need to push the boundaries of what we create. Additionally, a relatively innovative company like mine cannot afford to take their foot of the gas and rest on their laurels. If that happens, they’ll find themselves as just another provider of the same-old products, needing massive marketing budgets to differentiate ourselves to our customers.
It’s social, stupid.
One of the innovations I’d like to see in our industry is a tighter integration with the phenomenon that is social networking.
Users spend more time on Facebook than any other website. The main reasons for Facebook’s popularity are:
- People can easily partake in that most natural of human functions – socialising with their friends.
- The amount of activities for visitors to actually spend their time on is increasing. No longer is Facebook just a destination for viewing friend’s photos.
- Users can use the network as a one-stop-shop to discover where their friends are traversing ar0und the web and what they are finding on their way.
We know people love to spend time gambling, whether it be playing bingo, poker or roulette. As proven, we also know that consumers love the always on nature of social networking. Yet partnering these two activities together has never been properly done.
Yes, companies can build us Facebook widgets so we can show off how many fans we have. Yes, agencies can manage (or teach us how to manage) our Twitter feeds and properly use social media to communicate with our players. But where are the innovators who are looking to weave this marketing tsunami into the fabric of their gaming products?
How many bingo players love the social aspect of their chosen bingo website? Probably quite a few. How many are *on* Facebook, while also playing bingo at aforementioned bingo website? Again, I’d recon there is a good percentage. But where are the bingo operators who are incorporating Facebook friend feeds into their flash bingo client? Using Facebook Connect, this is a relatively straight-forward procedure for a company who churns out best-of-breed igaming software for the world’s leading brands.
Want to play bingo and meet new friends? Want to keep in touch with your Facebook friends at the same time? In fact, want to do 90% of the cool stuff you do on Facebook, all from the revenue-generating comfort comfort of our flash bingo client? Well here you are – we offer all that! And we’ll still throw in the same-old welcome bonuses as all our competitors are doing!
This isn’t even ground-breaking. It’s just putting together two areas of technology to give a user the things they do anyway, but in the one place. Facebook is opening up it’s doors to allow individuals to share more of their private information with whomever they wish. A user would only agree to this if, in exchange, they received a much better user-experience for doing so. Let’s use the technology available to us to give the users the best experience possible.
I’d love for my own company to do something like this. I imagine us being able to link a player’s casino account with their Facebook account (with their permission of course)? We’d be able to show their pictures live on TV, instead of unidentifiable handles. Our presenters, who have celebrity-like prowess for many of our players, would be able to communicate with them on a one-to-one basis, recognising *regulars* when they stopped by. We could open up our roulette tournaments to the web, pitching free-players and cash players together in a massive game to see who could make the best return from their initial roulette stake. And it could be streamed through Facebook to anyone who had our widget. And our players could invite their friends for a super-easy refer-a-friend reward scheme. There is so much that could be done.
Instead, all anyone seems to be doing to differentiate is in tweaing their sign-up bonuses. Yes, perhaps Costa Bingo has better customer service than the rest, and perhaps Gala Bingo give out 10% more prize money than their nearest competitor, but these are hardly world-beating USPs.
Having the biggest jackpots will only get you so far. The size of the jackpot will only ever benefit the one individual who wins it; what is the user experience for the other 99.99% of your player base? If you use a big jackpot-shaped lasso to get your players in through the door, don’t be surprised to lose them to your nifty little competitor who has introduced something so ground-breaking (with smaller budgets) that they are the buzz of the whole industry.
Come on everyone, let’s break free from the constant bonus wars and spend some real cash building the future for our companies, and our industry.
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As I see the developing technology, I desire gaming to become so personal and multi dimensional, I could actually be the part of the game, not just play it.
Nice blog, by the way. Stumble upon from Neil’s blog