[C O L U M N I S T ]
Are we really
innovating?
Peter Marcus questions whether innovation
in egaming is as strong as it once was
always ?nd going to EiG
in Barcelona informative.
It’s not as large as
ICE or as intimate as
the eGaming Review
Power 50 but I ?nd it the place to really
understand what the software providers
and operators are working on for the next
couple of years. It’s also the place where
the word innovation is in my opinion
most overused.
Two years ago at EiG – and for
that matter on the magazine pages of
eGR – the most important innovation
for the industry was social gaming.
The big question was how could the
real-money operators embrace social
gaming and maximise its pro?t. In fact,
you could not get investment or have a
quarterly shareholder report without
talking all about your social gaming
strategy. While there have been some
acquisitions of social gaming products
by the real-money software providers
and operators and clearly some real
success with a few of the stand alone
social gaming companies I think it’s
fair to say today that social gaming has
not revolutionised the real-money
gaming industry in the way we were told
it would.
So what’s the radical innovation for
this year then? That’s simple: mobile,
mobile and – did I mention mobile? It’s
all about native apps, becoming mobile
centric and – in some cases – relegating
that old web product to second place
or even plain obscurity. Just read the
Future of Gaming articles in eGR’s
September issue, all the top minds in our
industry say that the most important
I
www.egrmagazine.com
innovation for the next ?ve years will
be mobile.
Don’t get me wrong, mobile is clearly
a signi?cant and important part of our
industry – in-play done using a mobile
app is crucial for the continued growth
of betting and as the world goes app mad
we can’t fall behind the curve (any more
than we already are). But can we really
say that mobile is a key innovation?
I remember a few years back when all
casinos were download and the latest
innovation was Flash-based casinos
so Mac users could play. Sure, it grew
the player base – allowing more people
to play more often – but it was not an
innovation, it was providing the same
product in an additional platform and
in my view mobile comes into the same
category. The interface is enhanced,
the user experience is different, but
customers are still making the same
bets, while playing the same game of
poker or the same slot machine.
I would like to see some real innovation
within our industry. Bringing poker or
bingo online was truly innovative, in-play
betting has revolutionised online book
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