Podcast
MULTI-CHANNEL GAMES DEVELOPMENT - ODOBO
them to produce, but it is very important for game developers to look for ways to optimise the distri- bution at a lower cost, because on the production side they are going to be producing more assets for optimal game presentation across multiple devices and its going to add to production cost.
Are there specific types of games that make con- version to multi channel easier, are the social games easy to convert, are the classics?
If you’re looking at the issues that we’ve just been discussing, the simpler the game you have, the easier it is to publish across all those devices. The target is the lowest common denominator of a 3G connection on a low end smart phone then the simpler the game format, the easier its going to be to have the maximum supported device. So to that point you can say a simple spinning reel slot machines would be the most portable games to multi channel model and that those types of games might appeal or have a good recognition with player. However, today’s players are used to games from desktop or from a land-based gaming point of view, but I don’t think that’s where the real innovation and opportunity is.
I think there’s a lot more you can do with the technology, it’s a bit more challenging, you have to be a bit more clever about it, but I think the innovation is going to come from expanding upon that and introducing innovative new ways to rep- resent similar math models so the game feels familiar to the player, but it’s represented in a more creative way. And that is certainly achiev- able across multi channel and I think that’s where tomorrow’s customers are going to be gravitating towards. However, it does require a bit more thought ensuring that when you’re adding those extra features and visuals to the games, you’re not compromising the player experience for lower end device users.
Should game developers be focusing all their attention on mobile right now or is web-based browser play still an important element within the offer to the player?
Today, mobiles are the fastest growing segment of the market but online play on desktop still repre- sents a significant volume, in fact it’s too big a percentage of revenue to be ignored. So again, I come back to the fact that we support multi chan- nel development and distribution. The desktop for us is a mandatory publication channel for game producers on our platform. We don’t have game producers build games that are not also playable on desktop, but at the same time mobile is the fastest growing segment, so you don’t want to focus exclusively on desktop and ignore the trend in the market.
So it’s really important that developers are think- ing first about the mobile user experience for the greatest growing commercial opportunity, but at the same time make sure that the content they’re producing services today’s market, which is still to a greater degree desktop consumption as well.
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The maximum benefit for a game developer serv- icing players across both channels and all the operators that we’re dealing with are looking for content that plays on desktop and mobile parallel channels.
And should any game be developed right now for multi channel, is it the case where you’re losing out if you’re not creating a multi channel game?
Look at tomorrow’s gaming customers and we may see more and more that new
players’ first experience with games is online. They may never have been in a land- based casino and to them
those land based titles are less relevant.
The customers that we have integrated with are, if not already, not accepting games that are not both desktop and mobile or certainly moving in that direction where they’re less inclined to accept a game that isn’t also available on mobile at the same time. I mean, it’s going to have to be a well known game that for just some technical reason isn’t yet available on mobile, but will be soon. It’s good to see that the industry is now accepting HTML5 desktop as well, so developers don’t have to build in Flash for desktop and build in HTML5 for mobile - you can build in HTML5 across the whole array of desktop, tablet and mobile. But that’s the standard now, the expectation from the industry is that games are published and they’re multi channel.
Are there games that aren’t suitable for multi channel release; games that just simply aren’t created or aren’t transferable between those channels?
Well, there’s going to be things you can do from a production and visual standpoint on a desktop or an iPad that are very difficult to replicate on a small screen, just in terms of available screen real estate and I think that it would be unfortunate for developers not to build a brilliant tablet game just because they can’t see how that game is going to work on a smaller screen. So I think there are some considerations in terms of games that have deep cinematic 3D qualities with other interac- tions within the game that are difficult to compre- hend on a smaller screen, that would be unfortu- nate for the market not to see those games just because of the necessity to support mobile. But right now I think that we’ve not yet seen a game that is not adaptable to mobile. And I think for the biggest commercial opportunity for game devel- opers, they should be trying to contemplate mobile first in their game design and work from there backwards and ensure that mobile is part of
the scope with the viable publication of the game concept that they’ve come up with.
We’ve seen a lot of classic top titles transferred to multi channel, with back catalogues bought and sold for huge sums, are these the ideal games for multi channel should we be looking back to create future multi channel?
There’s a good reason why those back catalogues are so valuable, these are games that players have come know and love through their publication in land based casinos or in high street betting shops, so the value in those games is in the brand recog- nition with the consumer. When those games are presented on-line players automatically feel a greater degree of comfort being familiar with the game and knowing how to play that game.
So because of the infrastructure required to bring a game to market in land-based, that means there’s a lot greater upfront investment in the production and testing of games before releasing them into land based casinos. Over the years those titles have been further refined even further to make sure that they make the best use of the limited floor space in the casino and generate the most revenue. Those games have very strong
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