“Rooks Revenge Free spins feature” (CC BY 2.0) by PokiesGalore
Visit any online casino and you’ll notice one thing almost straight away. No matter how many variations of roulette, blackjack, and poker may be on offer, this will be hugely eclipsed by the number of slots games.
Not only are they there in profusion, but they are also the players’ number one choice of game. As a result, there is always a great pressure to innovate, whether that’s in the form of coming up with new games, different ways to play, or even different ways to win.
Slots are also an important contributor to the $57 billion in revenue global online casino market generates each year. So the question always hovering in the air is just what the games developers and casino operators have up their sleeves for the future to maximize the earning potential still further.
The huge popularity of slots online means that there are always a number of firm favorites on any site. These are ones that are placed up front, designed to get maximum attention whenever anyone visits a site. Key titles include the Ancient Egyptian Eye of Horus game, any number of fishing-based games like Big Bass Bonanza and even ones based around popular movies like Ted. Because player data is always recorded, this gives a good idea about what particular themes are most popular, so coming up with new ones is not usually a problem. So we shouldn’t expect any new games to veer away too dramatically from the themes that are a big hit today.
Instead, it’s far more likely that the changes may come in the ways people play the games and the mechanics of the games themselves.
“Bitcoins” (CC BY 2.0) by Jorge Franganillo
Many people have found it surprising that cryptocurrencies have failed, so far, to be widely adopted as a payment method by most online casinos. Much of this has been to do with the slightly shady reputation that the currencies may have had in the past. But this is fast-changing and, just as the highly respected PayPal will now accept Bitcoin, it could be that we’ll soon be seeing the first real generation of crypto-slots games. Certainly, the security and anonymity of the blockchain that lies behind them should appeal to operators and players alike.
Another area that is likely to get some close attention is how to inject an element of skill into the games themselves. Typically, the current slots player is older than the millennials that almost all sectors want to target. There is a feeling that a generation who have been brought up on video games might find slots more attractive if they included some element of skill too. Early experiments into this have proved reasonably successful, so we should expect to see more of these elements being woven into games in the future.
Last, but by no means least, there are the twin technologies of Augmented and Virtual Reality. The latter may have been a long time coming, but it would appear to have finally arrived even if there are still a few skeptics. Both AR and VR could represent a true quantum leap forward in the gaming experience making it truly immersive. It would undoubtedly pose many challenges for the games developers, but even more opportunities.
Of course, no one has a crystal ball to look into the future – not even a virtual one – so none, or all, of these predictions, could come to pass. But we can be sure of one thing and that’s going to be the continuing popularity of the games themselves.
