ROLLER
massive difference to getting something like this off the ground. Equally, we know that trust is consistently one of the key barriers for online gambling customers and having the well-known and hugely well respected Paddy Power brand puts us in a great position verses some of our competitors.
CIO: Why do you think the sector has been so
slow to bring iPad/iPhone-specific real money products to market? NA: Really interesting question, which broadly
comes down to a couple of reasons. Firstly I think people are, legitimately, concerned about the App Store rules and approval process. It takes a big investment to get a quality product to market – this isn’t something that you can get two guys in a garage to knock up over 6 months - and business are rightly worried that Apple might just say “no”. Secondly, I think people have struggled with the idea of having a product that can only operate in fully-regulated markets. A lot of other casino business operate across a variety of different regions and it’s a difficult decision for them to launch a product that they know won’t be available for a significant portion of their customer base.
CIO: What makes this specific project
interesting to you? NA: The interesting aspect has been delivering a
product and brand from concept to launch in a new channel. When we started there weren’t any real- money casino products in the App Store. Therefore it was a case of designing a product that sets the benchmark in terms of usability and design, rather than just looking at competitor’s offerings and tweaking it. We have tried to put a big emphasis on innovation and implementing features that wouldn’t necessarily work on a desktop product – some will work, some won’t, but the not knowing’s part of what makes it interesting.
CIO: Please give us some examples of how the
product makes use of… Touchscreen
NA: This is solely a mobile/tablet product, so
everything is done via the touchscreen. However, we’ve made it a bit more interesting than that; for example, you swipe down on the slots to spin the
reels and swipe the screen to thrown the ball in
Roller Roulette. Accelerometer NA: Hotel of Horror – one of our flagship slots
games – utilises the accelerometer in the bonus round where the user has to tilt the cart to escape
the haunted graveyard. Music libraries
NA: Whilst I’ve become particularly attached to ‘Burnt Toast’ as we tested Roller [one of the built in background music tracks] we know people want to listen to their own music whilst playing at the tables, so we put one click access to your iTunes library in each of our games. It’s another one of those features that’s theoretically possible on a PC, but is made so much easier and cleaner on a mobile device
CIO: How different are customers’ expectations
for iPad/iPhone apps over traditional online offerings? NA: The easiest but worst thing you can do is say “this is what works on a PC, I’m going to do the same but port it to a mobile platform”. That might be what customers would have accepted (and expected) three years ago, but the bar has been raised hugely over the past 18 months and users simply will not invest in your app. There is a whole article to be written on this very subject, but I think there a couple of key points to dwell on. Firstly, think about how a customer is going to use the product; a typical session on an iPhone is going to be very different to a typical session on a PC and the user experience has to reflect that. Secondly, how users expect to interact with Apps is very different to how they expect to interact with a website; if you’re trying to put everything on a single page you’re going to struggle.
CIO: What are your favourite elements of the product personally?
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