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THE FUTURE OF SLOT MACHINES
Slots have been around for longer than any of us can remember, and technology has moved on leaps and bounds since they were transported online 15 years ago. David Newstead, owner of slotsonline.co.uk, examines what we can expect to see in the future.
he ?rst slot machine was created by San Francisco car mechanic Charles Fey more than 100 years ago. Since then, there have been a few minor developments, such as the virtual reel created by Inge Telnaes in the 1980s, and the multi-payline system brought in by Australian game design company Aristocrat in the 1990s, but the basic reel system has remained the same. In the last 15 years, however, slot machines have moved online and can now take advantage of the massive processing power on offer from PCs and more recently tablets. As a result, we've seen some great new slot machine concepts. Today, there are slots that mimic popular puzzle games. The Rubik's Cube slot twists and turns the well-known puzzle cube at random, paying out for completed lines and faces. Slotblox is a casino version of the well known video game Tetris, which drops tetrominoes into the famous “well” and pays out prizes for singles, doubles and triples with a jackpot for scoring the four line combination. This concept has been expanded to include slot machine versions of Jenga, Bejewelled and Cubis. One of the latest slot machines that has taken this idea to the next level is Microgaming's Max Damage and the Alien Attack. This is a casino conversion of a 2D space invaders style “shoot ’em up” game where players actually get to control a space ship, shooting aliens out of the sky. They pay for shots , and win prizes for hitting aliens. Bonuses take the form of more powerful guns, additional damage multipliers and laser beams. You can upgrade your ship and ?ght bosses. To all intents and purposes, this looks like a
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standard video game, but what you're actually playing is a very clever slot machine. Microgaming claims that this new type of video slot will bring players who have been turned off by conventional machines into online casinos. It says that although the industry will initially resist such games, the rise of the video poker cabinet in the 1980s (which paved the way for video slots) proves that new gaming concepts are not only accepted, but often sometimes positively embraced by the gambling community. So, with such a massive palette of possibility out there, the future for slot machines is only going to be limited by one thing and that is the developer's imagination, although Max Damage and the Alien Attack has set a very high standard. Some of the ideas we've come up with for new style slots in the office include a chess machine, where you pay and pick either white or black, then watch as a randomised game takes place. If your side wins, you receive a payout based on how many moves it took to achieve check-mate as well as a bonus for the pieces your side captured, with deductions for the pieces it lost. This might not appeal to everyone, but we're sure there are plenty of chess players out there who might have a dabble in such a game. Another concept we like is the idea of a World War slot machine. Before every spin you have to allocate resources (which you'd pay for with
The future for slot machines is only going to be limited by one thing and that is the developer's imagination
credits) to your troops, who then attempt to take over various global locations. You get bonuses for taking over certain areas, countries and continents as well as for wiping out enemy forces with the jackpot available for taking over the world. You could even create a special slot machine based around casino banking practices where you bet on different derivatives and ?ctional companies stocks and shares. We're sure this would go down a storm and would give the public a taste of what it is like to be one of the fortunate few. Whatever new games the industry comes out with this year or the next, one thing is certain; the conventional slot machine, which is currently the most popular form of gambling online, is de?nitely here to stay. The only thing we’re left wondering is how far the industry will push the new style of slot games.
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