INSIGHT
percent and the player motivations
are different. This is potentially why Bonza
Gaming had the right skillset, market and
consumer understanding
that allowed it to accomplish what the
others apparently couldn’t.
That being said, nobody knows what
To this end, Facebook is simply an
affiliate, not an enabler.
When it comes to the game, lookand-feel needs to be appropriate for the
medium, while recognising that the actual
gambler is the same as one acquired via
traditional marketing means. The real
“Facebook Home, Deals, Places, Online Offers, Questions,
Subscribe, even Credits are among the company’s failed
endeavours. Retailers large and small abandoned their
“storefronts” as the consumer conversion wasn’t there
either - so it’s not just a gambling thing.”
the future holds and all we can do is judge
what’s happening today. In the past four
years, a staggering $1.2 - $1.5 billion has
been spent on M&A activity between the
social and the real money sectors. Twelve
percent of the global population play social
games of some sorts, and of these there
are over 170 million players of casinostyle social games. That’s more than three
times as many real money gamblers in the
world. But unlike real money gambling,
social games – be they leisure or casino
style – have no higher purpose other than
to please the players while they are playing
and only approximately two percent ever
spend any money on the gameplay.
The social gamer and the traditional
gambler have different product
requirements. In the social sphere, gameflow needs to be intuitive and simplified
and contain extensive social hooks and
inherently incorporate the social graph.
Simply adding in elements such as
refer-a-friend, or the ability to post to a
Facebook timeline doesn’t turn a realmoney gambling game into a social game.
While there is real money gambling
and social gaming, the existence on a
large-scale of the middle-ground that is
social gambling is yet to be established.
84
iGB Affiliate Issue 48 DEC/JAN 2014/2015
money gamblers are the same, whether
acquired internally or externally from the
newsfeed. Yet, it could be argued that the
Facebook real money bingo sites were
dumbed down in an effort to compete
with the freemium social games, which
have subsequently been proved as
useless in being a funnel for customer
acquisition. At launch, Bingo Friendzy
also suffered the wrath of Christian
groups and the print/online media
being accused of using imagery of furry
animals that resemble Moshi Monsters,
a children’s toy and game. While Bingo
Appy was more “adult”, the si te was still
quite a departure from the company’s
core and traditional offerings.
Not everything can be attributed to
factors that the operators could control.
Firstly, to meet jurisdiction requirements
and regulations, the registration and
payment process for the real money
gambling sites took place as normal outside of the Facebook login and in-built
payment system. This unfortunately is the
nature of the beast and is vastly different
to social games themselves where the
players find a seamless process with no
added steps or inconveniences.
In addition, while Facebook is holds
the customer acquisition hopes and
dreams of many B2C corporations, the
reality is that the network has never
been successful at anything other than,
well, being Facebook. Despite the fact
that in a global population of 7 billion
where the site has 1.3 billion monthly
active users, the company has a long list
of failed endeavours. Facebook Home,
Deals, Places, Online Offers, Questions,
Subscribe, even Credits are all among
the innovations that have been attempted
and subsequently abandoned. The only
picture-based product that has succeeded
is Instagram, and that was a very pricey
purchase that continues to operate
separately, and the two efforts to
compete with Snapchat, Poke and
Slingshot never got traction.
Retailers large and small abandoned
their Facebook “storefronts” as the
consumer conversion wasn’t there either
– so it’s not just a gambling thing. The
network is experiencing record revenues;
however the predominant inflow of
money is coming from advertising and
social gaming as consumers mainly use
the actual site for its original purpose – a
place to virtually hang out with friends.
Maybe real money gambling on the
network never had a chance and we need
to go back to viewing the site as merely
another media outlet.
AIDEEN SHORTT is an
independent consultant in
the gambling industry with
expertise in mobile, social
gaming and marketing. Aideen.
[email protected] or follow her on
Twitter @aideenshortt.