G3-247 Report MOBILE & TABLET GAMING
with the more successful offering compelling products, optimizing the player’s entire experience.
At this advanced level, mobile and tablet games, as well as the overall offering, should be personalized and cater to the needs of different players and groups. It should render beautifully on a player’s device, whether tablet or phone, and be fully functional across all operating systems, whether iOS or Android. The user journey needs to be simple and direct, with the minimum num- ber of taps to play required.
Designing tablet specific games allows for the inclusion of more design functionality and intelligent use of screen real estate. Repackaging content and images might have been acceptable two or three years ago but players’ demands have risen sharply.
IGT recently released tablet specific Roulette! and Blackjack games. They have a tailored interface taking advantage of the increased screen size, richer graphics, advanced animation as well as super quick download. They also demonstrate the fact that IGT has an impres- sive portfolio of table games to match the slots library with which we are more traditionally associated.
We’re often asked why our mobile table games perform better than others. The reason is in their simplicity and consistent player experience across desktop, phone and tablet. In the battle to acquire new players it is vital that operators arm themselves with the ability to serve the highest quality content with consistent player experi- ence on every channel.
Jim Veevaert, Vice-President of Games, DoubleDown Casino - At DoubleDown we don’t think about the difference between mobile and tablet, we think more about the similarities, that’s how we design our experiences to be seamless and same great play across devices. We have this great library of con- tent from IGT and we work to bring that content to our players in an effort to create the best game experience they can have on a mobile or tablet device.
Luke Alvarez, CEO, Inspired Gaming Group - For mobile and tablet games, UX and math are the two key points of difference to the player. Players use and inter- act with the devices in different ways, so the games and navigation must be sympathetic towards these differ- ences.
In terms of differences between land-based and inter- active games, we believe that the theme, design, struc- ture and mechanics of the game should be consistent so that a player who enjoys the land-based version is like- ly to enjoy the mobile or online version.
Some of our competitors use the same theme, but make the type of game completely different, which can be confusing to cross-channel players.
Neill Whyte, Head of Product Channels, Microgaming - It’s important to offer mobile and tablet players a smooth, hassle-free experience. But it’s not always easy - there are over 1,000 different screen sizes and resolutions of devices that we have to cater for. How do we overcome this? We use a smart, adaptive responsive design for HTML5, so that our games are compatible with a broad range of screen sizes and reso-
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lutions, including devices across Android, iOS and Windows.
In time, gameplay and content will become far more targeted to a player depending on the device they are using – we’re already seeing elements of this. With our Native Applications, we have begun to introduce fea- tures and content that will enable our development teams to differentiate between devices, by taking advantage of their inherent Native API capabilities, specifically with regards to Geolocation, video and audio and the user interface.
Jerry Bowskill, Chief Technology Officer for Williams Interactive - Whether discussing our wagered or social casino content, the key for us is leveraging our deep library of UK-favorite and authen- tic Vegas-style casino games in these important digital distribution channels. We take great care with these gaming experiences, already proven on casino floors and in betting shops around the world by our sister companies WMS Gaming and SG Gaming, and optimiz- ing the player experience for players on-the-go.
Ashley Lang, Founder and CEO of Odobo - There are different challenges associated with mobile devices, namely that the game needs significant design consid- erations that go well beyond user interface and artistic design. In particular:
Mathematical models generally need to accommodate shorter play times (see the session time average com- ment) so that important parts of the game are likely to be experienced during the average play session. Bonus rounds that typically trigger within a 50-100 spins range need to either be quick enough to reach with tra- ditional spin/play cycles or the RTP and model need to adjust to lower the average session time required to trigger different parts of the game.
We are seeing more and more games with a storyline or player progression element to the game design (level- ups, achievements, etc.) For these games seamlessly resuming play from one session to another is a critical to providing a great play experience across a number of mobile play sessions. Castle Builder slot by Rabcat Gambling is a great example of a game with these fea- tures and that benefits from the game-play resumption across devices and sessions supported on the Odobo platform.
WHERE DOES FREE2PLAY FIT INTO THE MOBILE/TABLET OFFERING AND DOES IT HAVE A LONG-TERM FUTURE?
Bryan Kelly, Senior Vice-President of Technology, Bally Technologies - Bally’s focus is on real money wagering. Free2Play is a tool used to engage customers and utlimately monetise that relationship. We all know the crawl, walk, run strategy. The go-live for mobile in New Jersey is all part of a B2B business approach to the overall gaming offer. Bally is providing the best North American interactive content, with a precise focus on our business relationship with the operator. We are building on Bally’s position as the biggest systems provider in the business to offer a truly unified approach. This is a single solution from a single business that offers operators one view of the patron.
We’re often asked why our mobile table games perform better than others. The reason is in their simplicity and
consistent player experience across desktop, phone and tablet. In the battle to acquire new players it is vital that operators arm themselves with the ability to serve the highest quality content with consistent player experience on every channel. Leigh Nissim, IGT Commercial Director of Interactive
As such, we are covering all bases, offering three sepa- rate modes. There’s FreePlay, with no cost to the player. Then Free2Play, whereby there’s no cost up to certain amount of free credits and then players have the option to buy credit packages that give no financial reward. Finally, in regulated jurisdictions, there’s the wagering application. We believe that B2B is the right way to
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