G3-247 Report MOBILE & TABLET GAMING
much bigger phones could be the gaming platform for the future. Providers want to be able to supply two devices, but the phablet suits all purposes and people want to carry just one on their hip for both purposes.
Mathias Larsson, Director of Business Development, Ezugi - In a way both are equally important because tablets are taking the place of a desktop. But mobile is more important since it requires better technical solutions in order to work properly.
Charles Cohen, Vice President, Mobile, GTECH - Players on mobile are equally as important as those on tablets. Broadly speaking, smartphones attract a more casual, general audience, whereas tablets attract higher yielding players. It is essential for the balance of a gam- ing ecosystem to cater to both.
Though certain users will predominantly use one type of device, there are increasing numbers that move between tablet and mobile at different times of the day. Morning and daytime sessions are typically in shorter bursts on mobile, as players grab a few minutes on the go, while evenings are, on average, the time for longer periods of higher-value play on tablets. As players cross over, their number one requirement is a seamless expe- rience.
Over the long term, tablet players are only going to be satisfied by bespoke, optimised games that use the full potential of these larger and more powerful devices in just the same way that desktop and laptop titles do. Having games which offer the best experience for each device type is fundamental to securing players’ loyalty and repeat engagement.
Luke Davis, Marketing Director, Playtech - Both are important for operators. Sometimes they are consid- ered the same segment where as other times they are considered different segments but essentially they are both mobile devices. Playtech’s mobile offering already mirrors the web in core functionality, with more prod- ucts and features compared to competitor sets. This has led to our licensees experiencing huge take up, helping them win market share and exceeding desktop in new registration numbers in some cases.
Now with the increased choice, and therefore reduction in price, tablet user growth has also been a driving fac- tor of our more recent developments, this is why we have deployed an optimised offering to fully utilise a tablets potential for many of our product verticals, for example our Playtech Bingo product. Designed specifi- cally for tablet screens, our new dedicated player inter- face brings all the features of our desktop product to life on tablet devices. With access to bingo, chat and side- games on screen all at once – delivering a rich and engaging experience for players.
Aleš Gornjec, General Manager at Comtrade Gaming - Both, all players need to be considered when targeting today's audience. With mobile you cover a bigger volume of players on the go. With tablets you can have players playing desktop quality games and Live games with more features than would be feasible for mobile devices. Also, tablet play is increasing in com- parison to mobile in the last half year so tablets defi- nitely need to be considered when building tomorrow's games.
1 0 2
Jerry Bowskill, Chief Technology Officer for Williams Interactive - As with all forms of digital media convergence everyone is striving for ‘anytime, anyplace, anywhere’ gaming experiences. In terms of the underlying service delivery platform and client technologies then they are the same, and for suppliers such as Williams Interactive there is no mobile or tablet, they are all HTML5 compatible devices and they all need supporting to ensure that our wagered game con- tent is delivered in a format optimized for the device of a player’s choosing. When we move from real-money
Over the long term, tablet players are only going to be satisfied by bespoke, optimised games that use the full potential of these
larger and more powerful devices in just the same way that desktop and laptop titles do. Having games which offer the best experience for each device type is fundamental to securing players’ loyalty and repeat engagement. Charles Cohen, VP Mobile, GTECH
into social casino, for example our Play4Fun Network white-label social casino platform, we’re finding that while players engage on both smart phone and tablet, those playing on tablet tend to be worth more per-ses- sion than those on smart phone.
Ashley Lang, Founder and CEO of Odobo - Both are important but longer play sessions (typical of desktop and tablet play) result in greater revenue generation per session. While this is the case, tablet play is likely to remain key from the revenue per session yield (when taken from an operator’s perspective). However, the accessibility of play on smartphones and the greater market penetration of mobiles over tablets make the smartphone segment of the market more “important” from a potential growth opportunity. Many of the games on the market today were designed first for desktop play and to provide the player with a play experience based upon the longer desktop average ses- sion time.
When these games are played on mobiles with a shorter average session time the player experience may not be optimal (less likelihood of experiencing a bonus feature for example) and as a result the player may be less like- ly to return to the same game or yield the operator the desired revenue per session. As more data is available to game developers, through services such as Odobo analytics, developers will design games for the mobile device to provide higher entertainment value within the shorter session time. Where successful player sessions may still be shorter, due to the “snackable” nature of mobile play, the game experience will be designed to be more exciting and rewarding for the player resulting in higher repeat game-play and an overall higher ARPU (average revenue per user) per month.
Charles Cohen, Vice President, Mobile, GTECH -Players are strongly influenced by the apps and the general user interface of their mobile device. Game development must take account of what users are expecting and by how they interact with other apps.
Increasingly, there is a divergence between the world of Android and of iOS interface design, which makes this task even more complex for developers. This will become even more acute with the next releases of their operating systems later in 2014.
It is inevitable that the way you interact with a game on an Android device will start to look very different to the same game on iOS. At GTECH, we are already building differently for the two platforms.
Bryan Kelly, Senior Vice-President of Technology, Bally Technologies - The first versions of games standardised for the wagering, didn’t support the OS very well. Historically, a native app draws graphics through the cell phone, but browser-based games slow due to firewall between the two. Google, Apple and Windows are all working hard on that, but it’s HTML5, that has really allowed us to directly drive graphics through the phone via a web component. At the same time, if you want to play multiple games at once, you’re going to need bigger real-estate, bigger dis- plays, as adding social alongside wagering on smaller phones is a less engaging expereince. Bigger form fac- tors allow us to engage the customers more, as they’ve become very adept at consuming lots of data all at once.
Aleš Gornjec, General Manager at Comtrade Gaming - The gaming industry is betting big on HTML5
Odobo recognises these trends and supports game developers by making a great degree of game-play data available to game developers to identify areas of opti- misation and by enabling differentiated play experi- ences by device.
WHAT MOBILE/TABLET PLATFORM DEVELOPMENTS ARE SHAPING GAME INTERACTIONS WITH PLAYERS?
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 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132