COVER STORY THINK MOBILE FIRST
Juergen Reutter, recently installed director of mobile at William Hill says there are a number of musthave elements that should be ever present in a “great” mobile product including speed, simplicity, usability and stability. “This, next to a strong product and content offering both on smartphones and tablets, is essential,” he adds. One mobile developer, who chose to remain anonymous, told eGR that despite most game creators focusing solely on the game elements to justify a great product such as mathematics model, graphics, controls, theme, sound effects, music, tension and the rewards, what makes a truly “great game” is something altogether different. “You need to look at the entire experience,” he explains. “You have to look at the promotional elements, the bonuses, the hype, the usability, the integration into the rest of the theme or portfolio and site as a whole, the social aspect of sharing, or word of mouth, and the free updates (a must have for any mobile game). “Something the gambling community needs to learn from the best games studios is how to make a complete package and get away from silo development approaches the majority of gambling developers use today due to their archaic product organisational structures,” he adds. Reutter says that at William Hill the main challenge is keeping up with the “velocity” at which mobile develops. “We see more devices coming out in an ever shorter period of time, more ecosystems to be managed, and more screen sizes to be adapted. The real challenge lies in managing this complexity for your mobile client base and translating it into a seamless experience across all devices from an iPhone native app to an Android web app.” The mobile gaming developer says that while mobile is often seen as complex, if you are willing to put in the time and effort and cater for the majority and target the most popular platforms, you can achieve great results. “Mobile has four major operating systems; constantly changing screen sizes and resolutions; constantly changing hardware; different types of hardware, i.e. smartphone and tablets; and multiple browsers. It is complex and highly fragmented but you don’t have to build for everyone and thankfully two mobile platforms stand out – iOS and Android. “With research on your own customer base, many should see the popular handsets in use and endeavour to target those devices, hence keeping development costs on par with, or even below, desktop costs. The average mobile developer carries the same industry cost as a desktop developer and now that mobile has grown up, many desktop developers are converting and learning mobile technologies,” he adds.
PADDY POWER SPORTS iPHONE AND iPAD
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