iGB Affiliate iGB Affiliate 59 | Page 70

INSIGHT continuing to rely more on gut feelings and luck than on hard facts and research. 4. Social slots use gamification that increases retention and virality Social slot gamification includes: XP advancement, unlocking new slot games, a daily bonus, an hourly bonus, inviting friends for rewards, gifting friends, etc. The effect of all these things has been proven to lose his/her job; and/or 3) the fact that no one has realized it can be done differently and quickly, based on research or expertise rather than calculated guesswork. Once a decision has been made, the process repeats: Creating art, animations, sound, math, and developing the games for a big video slots company can take 4-6 months on average. While the top social slots companies do all that in six weeks. “Video slot companies can use math models that have been A/B tested to improve monetization to social players and test them out on their own games. Simply take existing games that fit the bill and get the rights to use them” increase retention and virality on a massive scale. The slots have to be good – but without those things, players eventually leave the game. Video slots companies have also failed to adapt all the knowledge that has been gained about gamification over the last few years to create gamification specific to their games. Failing to adapt and partake in formulas that have been proven to increase retention means you stay behind and lose opportunities for profit. 5. Social slot companies make fast decisions, work fast, and adapt fast Not only do many of the top social slot companies make research-based decisions on which slot games to make (themes, symbols, features, math), but they have to churn out a new game every 2-3 weeks. This means that the decision time has to be very short, and the team that makes the decisions has to be very small. In fact, it’s often one person, and the CEO above them, and that’s it. Compare that to the bureaucratic way some of the top video slot companies work: endless meetings, going back and forth, sometimes for months, before a decision about a single slot game is made. This stems from, at times, 1) the sluggish nature of a big company; and/or 2) the fear of the person making the decision to 66 iGB Affiliate Issue 59 OCT/NOV 2016 6. Social slot virality is easier People who bet for real money online don’t tend to spread the word and boast about it. It’s a secret. It’s private. But that’s with real money. When played for fun for ‘fake money’, players are happy to spread the word through viral messaging, recommending the game to their friends, and even adding friends on purpose in order to get more betting money. faster simply by eliminating many of the decision processes that make most of their work so slow and by implementing new procedures. The shortcut Changes are possible, but changes take time. And so, here’s a shortcut: video slot companies can use math models that have been A/B tested to improve monetization to social players and test them out on their own games. Simply take existing games that fit the bill and get the rights to use them. Or get similar models from experts that have created some of these models. Perhaps I’ll talk about those models in a future article. For now, just know that in the same way social slots first used realmoney slots knowledge to create games, that direction can be reversed. Now video slots can use social slot knowledge to create more retentive games that monetize better. Good luck! In conclusion That last item is a fact that probably can’t be changed: the secrecy is part of the nature of a real-money gambling game. However, all the other items mentioned above can be changed: Some of the new video slots can become ‘fun’, in the way the social slot audience sees social slots as fun, with the big video slots companies benefiting from doing some research into why some of their games are popular and why some are not, which would help them make better decisions, faster. New types of gamification can be implemented to make the games more retentive and therefore pay more. In fact, even a version of a malleable RTP gamification can be added, if done right, and taken into account within a game’s RTP. Those sluggish video slot companies I identified earlier can learn to work 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: www.hassonslots.com