Month: April 2016

Quick! Name your favorite slots ever! Come on, I’ll give you, like, 30 seconds to think about it and make a mental list in your mind! Imagine the Jeopardy music if that helps. You ready? Alright, let’s take a look at our lists, compare and contrast! Mine are “The Avengers”, “South Park”, “Jurassic Park” and “Spider-Man”! Well, okay, I obviously can’t see yours, since, you know, this is a pre-written message and we’re not actually talking (if you think that this is a real conversation, then please see a mental health professional), but I’m willing to bet that your list has one thing in common with mine – most of the slots listed on them are based on movies and TV shows. Have you ever wondered why that is? No need to respond, as I said, this isn’t actually a real conversation. The important part is that so have I, and I think I came up with a few good ideas.

The fact of the matter is that it’s a bit of a closed circle, really. Why? Well, allow me to explain. Licensed slots generally attract a whole lot of attention. If you made an average person who has absolutely no knowledge of slots whatsoever choose between “Mega Moolah”, “Thunderstruck” and “Game of Thrones”, they’d most likely go with “Game of Thrones” literally just because of the name. When you have no other point of reference, you need to judge the book by its cover. And since the majority of people who play online slots don’t really know too much about them (sure, YOU are doing your research by reading blogs such as mine, but I assure you, you’re in the minority), slots bearing easily recognizable names tend to be a lot more popular.

But wait! That’s not where the mystery ends, not by a long shot! You see, the people developing the slots take good care to watch their numbers. It’s not hard for them to see that the most profitable slots are the licensed ones. So place yourself in the position of a CEO – if you could allocate the budget you have to spare between several slots that your company is currently developing, where would you place your bet? On the licensed slots, of course! As a result, licensed slots generally have better graphics, music, bonus games and payouts, which in turn makes them popular even among more experienced gamblers. And since they’re so popular, they get pushed to the front page of their casino, where new people can see them, recognize their name and give them a shot. Do you realize now how the typically high quality of licensed slots is a perpetual, closed circle? It’s pretty fascinating to think about, but honestly, I don’t really mind at all. As long as it keeps bringing us awesome slots based on our favorite movies and TV shows, long live the circle!

If you’re here, that means you must have played a whole ton of slots! Maybe you liked some, but not others, or maybe most slots you play are enjoyable to you. Either way, I’m sure you’ve noticed that a lot of them tend to be very different. Sure, there’s some which are just carbon copies of each other (looking straight at you, IGT), but most have at least one small thing which makes them unique, like a special minigame or a bonus feature. It’s not uncommon at all for slots these days to have at least one element which is a bit more interactive – a game that you activate by getting special symbols (usually called “scatters”) which provides a nice change of pace and a decent reward following it. But not every slot has a bonus game – some, such as “Mega Moolah” or a lot of IGT slots, prefer to stick to the basics and still manage to remain popular. So the question is, how important are bonus games, really?

I think that, to answer the question lies in the games themselves, and in what people expect from them when playing slots. First, let’s take a look at the slots which have bonus games and try to discover what they have in common. “South Park”, for example, is famous for having tons of very fun bonus games and bonus rounds. These range from interactive (spraying hippies with a fire extinguisher in the park or leading Kenny through a street without getting him run over by a car) to passive (playing ‘kick the baby’ and getting bonuses to your free spins)… But then again, if you know anything about “South Park”, you’d know that this is all par for the course. The franchise has always had the potential for wacky and fun games, so it’s really no surprise that the slot was designed in this way. As a matter of fact, if you look at all slots that have bonus games, a good chunk of them have been based on something – “King Kong”, “The Avengers”, “Jurassic Park”, “Aliens” and so on and so forth.

Meanwhile, slots that don’t have bonus games are seldom based on an actual property. “Mega Moolah”, for example, is based on the theme of animals being fifty shades of crazy in an African savannah. But have you noticed something interesting about the slots which don’t feature bonus games? They all have something else that’s drawing the players in, most often a jackpot. Since people will be playing these slots for the jackpots anyway, a bonus game simply isn’t necessary. But for non-jackpot slots, especially those based on a license, the presence or lack of a bonus game can make or break it. But most importantly, a bonus game can bring a slot that much closer to its license, and as a result appeal that much more to the fans of the license.