p30-38 community gaming.qxd:Layout 1 24/03/2009 08:29 Page 38
COMMUNITY GAMING
start to get more of a networked floor. Networked digital display.
floors are going to allow us to do more community- This opens the path to tailor-made offers to groups
style products, and that’s something for which we and allows operators to set up ‘virtual groups’ at will
have a lot of development effort going on in – the constraint of a physical bank of machines is
anticipation…we are developing a let of concepts removed, as Quartier explains: “You could have a
there…next year, you will see a lot more networked BMW conference, say, come in over the weekend.
gaming technologies using community gaming.” There might be 500 people on the conference, so
“Right now, it is a bank-by-bank approach, self- you design this bonus for the BMW delegates. They
contained networks – that is what the floors can come in and via a ticket, via a card, or via a PIN
support today. As the floors become more and more number on the screen, identify themselves as being
networked, it plays into a lot of the new technologies part of this conference, and at any time during that
we are developing, and expanding community gaming weekend they will be playing for a communal-style
– for instance, with world-wide leaderboards. That’s a bonus that is only available to them.
step where we have machines talking to a central “The operator can set up this kind of club or
The new Star Wars, which IGT will be
database in Reno, Nevada, keeping track of all the community at will, which means you can host family
launching internationally in the next few
statistics and repopulating it out to all games. That is events, you can have conferences, you can have
months. One of the bonus rounds is just added information, but as we start to get more different tiers for regular players, whether it is silver,
based on the race through the forest in floor machines networked it is really going to change gold or platinum players, so that each tier plays for
Return of the Jedi. Players don’t control
the mix.” different types of bonus-style events.
the bike, but there are sequences where
Like WMS and Phil Gelber, IGT’s Kurt Quartier “The power of server-based, what it brings in the
the player makes selections, such as
sees technology as enabling an exciting new future in way you manage that player experience, will take
where to shoot the Death Star, which
can determine the outcome slightly. It’s
terms of enhancing the player experience. you further than anything you can do by just
still a random game, not a skill game.
“Sever-based gives you bonusing, community grouping a bunch of machines together. The
gaming and all those kind of applications on integration between what you do on the game side,
steroids…it completely changes things. With sever- what you do on the player side and how you
based gaming people tend to focus on download and customise that for your operation starts becoming
configuration, which is a fantastic element and gets far more intense. Previously, if you wanted to go out
you to manage your floor and people are really and make specific bonuses for your BMW group, for
excited about that. But it is these types of application,
the Community Play type applications, which really
change the player experience at the terminal. Sever-
Reel em In, Compete to Win is the WMS ‘next generation’
based opens up so many doors.”
community product, due for launch soon. Players select a team,
“Community gaming will really start accelerating
and pick which character they want to be in the competitive,
when we get to server-based,” Quartier says. “Server-
interactive fishing tournament bonus round. People also create
accounts, and a leaderboard tracks player performance, adding
based allows you to control your whole floor.
another competitive level.
You could have a community bonus
game on your whole floor. You
could have people
accessing the same
game…couples, for
instance, playing in the
same community game
but at opposite ends of
the casino.”
Bonusing, of course,
was the first type of
community gaming,
where players try to
qualify for a bonus.
A future version
of server-based
gaming could
allow
operators to
deliver a
bonus game
and make it is
available on any
machine on the
floor, in a service
window perhaps,
or in the top
36 APRIL 2009
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54