iGaming Business magazine iGB 111 July/Aug | Page 111

Social Gaming
FIVE TIPS for
creating successful
social slots
Guy Hasson gives casinos wanting to also engage their players away
from their physical locations some useful advice on getting started
in the world of social slots
Social slots are cropping up all over the place.
Real-money casinos with real-money games are
creating social games to increase their players’ loyalty,
time on machine (even if it’s just a virtual machine),
monetisation and more.
And yet it’s a tricky path to walk. The social world
plays by different rules, real money casino players like
different things when playing online and sometimes
you don’t even have permission to use your actual
games in your app.
You want to focus on your loyal players, those
who live nearby and visit your establishment once
or twice a week. And you want to give them an extra
experience of your casino while they are at home.
Here are five tips that should help you create an app
that does exactly that:
Guy Hasson worked for Playtech for three years before
becoming Playtika’s content manager, responsible for the
content of Slotomania and Caesars Casino. He is now
a social-slot consultant, specializing in game popularity.
His website: hassonslots.com.
Tip #2: learn how to adapt if you can’t use
your casino’s games
You will surely have legal permission to allow players
to play your games in your casino but you don’t
necessarily have the permission to use those games
in your app.
That puts you in a bind. You want to give your
loyal players the opportunity to play the games
they like at home. If they can’t play them, what’s
the point, right? Wrong.
Tip #1: realise why your KPIs are going to
be skewed
Your KPIs are going to be skewed. If you take a look at
monetisation and retention numbers from across the
social-slot world, it is basically guaranteed you won’t
get the same numbers. Working by those standards
will lead to bad decisions.
The important thing is to understand why your
KPIs are skewed. The truth is actually good for you:
your audience already likes you.
Any other new social game has to get players to
learn to trust the new game, a process which may take
months. But you are aiming at your existing players,
players who are loyal to you and who like your games.
Therefore, if you market to your audience, your
open rate should be much higher than a social game’s
open rate. Your retention rates should also be higher.
Your monetisation rates will vary from the norm –
although which way they will vary depends on what
you do in the game.
“The social world plays
by different rules ,
real money casino players
like different things when
playing online,
and sometimes you don’t
even have permission
to use your actual games
in your app”
Here’s how you adapt: look at the stats for which
games are hottest in your casinos and find games you
are allowed to use that fit the patterns that you see.
iGamingBusiness | Issue 111 | July/August 2018
109