The ascending crop of social casino games may seem similar to those used by established egaming sites that often pre-date Facebook and the iPhone, but there are some key differentiating factors, beJig CEO Tom Gooding explains.
To exploit existing content for virtual currency and to deliver games that meet the rising expectations of the next generation of online gamblers, egaming operators and developers need to kill off some old habits and learn a few new ones.
The social casino market is dominated by casual game studios familiar with the mass market, which understand its promiscuity. On Facebook, another ‘free’ experience is seconds away and players are continually exposed to messaging from competing content.
We founded beJig in 2010 with a veteran egaming team; between us we’d developed platforms for Gamesys and Virtue Fusion, operated LadbrokesBingo.com and built an affiliate/gaming operator (QuickThink Media Ltd) from zero to a powerful position in the sector in 18 months. Our fi rst social game, AvaTingo, launched last year; a bingo and slots app themed around a virtual town. Reaching success with this game (now growing daily) required profound changes in our approach to operations and development.
Making these changes, and seeing their impact, gave us a set of insights that any traditional egaming developer or operator will soon be unable to ignore.
Gameplay comes first
The innate excitement of playing for real provides a “fig leaf” for stagnant or dated content. The motivation of social casino players differs from gamblers; they are seeking an experience that is satisfying in its own right. The best games balance a sense of progress with gameplay that’s immediately interesting and, importantly, they present it as fast as possible. Playing to unlock gated features is well-understood driver of engagement but equally important is gameplay that feels fun.
Obsessively streamlining onboarding is normal in social games, but perhaps less so in egaming? I’m convinced a better experience for new players would benefit many current egaming sites enormously.
Development driven by feedback from those on your team who really understand your players allows continual improvement of content. The closer the collaboration between developers and acquisition and retention teams, the better.
The extent to which we’ve seen growth on AvaTingo delivered through product development alone has highlighted the advantage full-stack operator/developers have over those running 3rd party technology.
To make the most of operating on Facebook, we’ve invested time in understanding how best to exploit the developer APIs and Open Graph publishing system. These are moving targets with sparse documentation but research and experimentation pays off. When content maximises its exposure properly, improvements are dramatic.
It was unusual (and considered reckless) for gambling games to divert player’s attention from their core activity unless it was necessary to allow them to carry on playing. But with so many games now following the freemium model, players are used to being interrupted with prompts highlighting extra (often paid) features. An important challenge for social game developers is fi nding the best points in a user’s journey for these. A data-driven approach identifies sweet spots and with the right contextual messaging they can be used to great effect in driving conversion. As the sector evolves, it will increasingly be the norm for gambling games to behave in a similar way; identifying patterns of player behaviour and reacting to them dynamically.
Future convergence?
The approach required to develop successful social games will be increasingly important in the development of all egaming content, social or otherwise.
To differentiate and compete, operators will have to rely less on branding and marketing and more on engaging experiences, which can be iterated and optimised in response to player behaviour.
Overall, it’s an exciting environment for tight-knit businesses that have their marketing, analytics and development under the same roof, and great news for players, who can expect the quality and originality of content available to them to improve faster than ever.