iGB Live panel: Helen Walton on slot innovation
Whether you’re a big gaming fan or not, you’ll be aware that Super Mario 64 and Call of Duty Black Ops 6 are bridged by several generational leaps in innovation. Not only with the graphics evolving from 2D to 3D, but also the rich environments that support a variety of player actions. Some modern games on the market can react to sound or movement detected around the controller while it’s in the players’ hands; others ask the player to make decisions that guide them through deep, branching storylines. But what about games with a smaller gameplay loop? This restriction hasn’t stopped developers – instead, they’ve risen to the occasion. Minit, an indie game, puts a time limit of 60 seconds per run of the game. This creates a unique experience, where the player learns more about the story and the environment with each interaction. It’s a hook for casual, yet rewarding play.
As for slots… While Reel ‘Em In by WMS Industries was the first ever slot to include a second-screen video, it seems like the innovation stopped there. If you look at pictures of the two, you’ll see some glaring similarities between the standard slot reel layout, the symbols, the act of pulling a lever or pressing a button… even the imagery of a man in a bucket hat catching a fish in the same. So why haven’t slot games changed over the decades? Well, there seems to be an opinion in the industry that if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. After all, slots create eye-watering levels of revenue each year across the globe, so why meddle with something that is clearly working? Not all innovation is good either, especially when it’s change just for the sake of it – look at Coca-Cola’s $34m mistake when it tried to launch a New Coke product in 1985. Although the product saw initial success after market launch, many felt it was an “intrusion on tradition” and after months of widespread unrest, Coca-Cola finally reverted back to the same formula – thus, a cautionary tale about change was born.
Innovation is rarely a straight line, too, and it’s certainly easier said than done. Kodak was extremely successful and continued to innovate the camera, but when the phone market evolved to include cameras, it could no longer compete with the ease of having everything in one. No longer would you have to carry a phone, a camera and a pager whenever you went out! A similar thing happened with Blockbuster and Netflix. While the first was beloved and established, the latter offered an easier service. Neither Kodak nor Blockbuster offered bad products, and both companies had a loyal customer base – the market simply evolved beyond them. Technology and strategy are rarely the problem, it’s often the lack of speed and internal processes within companies that cause them to be left behind. As for railways, they were a great idea and everyone was pushing for them to be built, but they simply did not return financial success to investors. They were considered a societal success, but a financial disaster.
Innovation is often only great in hindsight.
However, if you only focus on what’s popular in the market, this can create a funnel effect. Say you like Big Bass Bonanza –and it’s successful. You want to make a successful slot, so you inadvertently create a similar game. It performs well. You repeat the process over and over until the idea becomes so concentrated it no longer works. By this point, you haven’t created anything new; you’ve just followed a rabbithole of successful features that may not be relevant within a few months. This is not an innovative process; it is more like a spiral downwards as the market continues to cannibalise anything that becomes popular. By doing this, you also ignore those customers who do not like this slot and begin to isolate them from your products. While you’ve been chasing the number one slot, the rest of your customers have moved on.
Innovation often comes from desperation. But the slot industry isn’t desperate – it’s performing better than ever. We do know there is a gap for disruptive innovation, though, just look at the adjacent entertainment markets. Sweepstakes are worth $6.2bn, while skin gambling is worth $50bn; not to mention Spribe and the spring of crash games. Even if slot providers don’t think they have to offer anything new to the audience, it’s clear slots are no longer the be-all and end-all of iGaming. Live show games have proved popular in recent years, with the emergence of game show titles, virtuals and even marble racing made possible.
Walton finished up her panel with a poignant confession. She revealed to the audience that G.Games is spending £15m ($20.2m) trying to innovate the slot game genre. She didn’t go into detail about what to expect, but Walton did seem excited that the team were even trying. Will the final product fail to move the market, or could it become the next iGaming innovation?
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