Do we need a new topic area for New Games and their designs?

Hey, Dan I will email you :)

Got it and replied.
You can mention that you are from SNK gaming, the creators of wish-card poker at www.snkge.com
Just don't pitch....

I think that the concept of such a forum could be useful for novices to learn about the steps needed to be taken to venture into casino games design along with inventors receiving feedback on new games.

However, there are not many of those who have the full experience of going from start-up to installing a game and they may be apprehensive at giving valuable advice to a wouldbe competitor. For example, if I saw a blackjack variation, which I felt could be improved in some way, then I may not be so forthcoming knowing that it could end up competing for floor space with "Blackjack Switch".

Nevertheless, bearing this in mind, it could still serve as a useful initial testing phase and allow posters here a glimpse of what may be on the casino floor in the near future.

I voted yes anyway :-) I have some new games that have not gone to market yet so I will try and keep updated with the forum here.

Geoff Hall

Any improvement would likely be outside the scope of the inventor's patent -- assuming they filed one and didn't inadvertently make a patent-ruining public disclosure first.

On one hand, I'm all in favor of helping to raise the overall level of sophistication in the "independent inventor" market. For one, many would-be new games are simply not feasible for fundamental reasons, like they can't possibly make enough money to justify displacing a blackjack table. On the other hand, you have to combat "inventoritis". I tried telling someone one year at G2E that his game was broken but he wouldn't listen. I didn't see him the next year though...

I think the usefulness of a new-games forum may go beyond an initial testing phase, too. Social media like this is very useful for building a far-flung network of collaborators, even when those collaborators are in what popular media has coined "coopetition". According to "Wikinomics", the biggest motorcycle manufacturer in China is a far-flung network of different companies. Even here in the U.S., smaller slot machine vendors are being formed as networks of specialized teams, rather than the all-in-one corporate model behind IGT or Bally -- and often the same cabinets or hardware boards are being used by multiple teams. You get a content team, a software team, a hardware team, and a cabinet maker together and you can start producing machines. It's happening today, and slot games are far, far more complex to put together than new table games.

M.E.
Great comment - "Inventoritis."
So true in game design. Whip something up, and it has to be better than craps or BJ. Seldom is.
I can't picture Blackjack, Craps, or Roulette ever being replaced. They basically can not be improved upon. So Game designers are fighting it out for a small area of floor space, jockeying for position.

The number of new games that "made it" are very few:
Let It ride, Carribean stud, Spanish-21, Superfun-21, and the big one, Three Card Poker with 1,500 or so installs.
Mini-Pai Gow and Deuces Wild faded away, as has Superfun to some degree. Pai Gow Poker was actually unpatented, as were the side bets from Galaxy and SMI, for some reason. EZ pai gow has a patented commission-free "queen-high push" qualifer, and is emerging.

A lot of the "games" that do make it are pure side bets: The Fire Bet for craps, and a gazillion side bets for BJ.
The only brand new games I saw were Quick-7 and two-cards high.
Of 12 or so new games I saw at the Raving Table games convention, maybe three will make it: Triple-attack Bl;ackjack, EZ Pai Gow, and Three Card Blackjack.

A lot of the new stuff concerns progressive jackpots and electronic side betting mechanism, which DEQ systems has covered extensively: the G3 side bet console, and the progressive jackpots for table games.

For new table game designers, It's a REAL ROUGH go of it, expensive (patents and gaming approvals) and time-consuming in terms of years. Every new game site I see has a "How to invest in us" button. (Talk about gambling!)

Do not assume at any improvement is outside of the scope of an inventors patent if you haven't read the patent. Many games have had mods to their math and patents;most games need some tweaking before they get finalized and hit the tables.

Quote: Paigowdan

The number of new games that "made it" are very few:
Let It ride, Carribean stud, Spanish-21, Superfun-21, and the big one, Three Card Poker with 1,500 or so installs.
Mini-Pai Gow and Deuces Wild faded away, as has Superfun to some degree.

For some reason, Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em has caught on in a big way at one of the stores near me. I wouldn't hesitate to say they are the largest UTH operator in the country -- four tables operating at peak times, and they just put in a progressive in one. It's interesting to see what catches fire in some places. You can go to another nearby casino and the game will be just about dead.
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Texas Hold 'Em Bonus seems kind of popular. Darvin Moon played it constantly at the WSOP last year, which gave it some publicity.
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I wish the WPT 3x and all-in games were more popular. Those are the closest to true poker, in my opinion.

Teddys:
True, True! - you caught me off-guard, UTH is VERY a strong game now....may because it's still new, and very fine. Some games that peak in massive popularity fade after five years...Deuces Wild Hold 'em Fold 'em is an example. In 2001, they were in 50% of Las Vegas Casinos, and now it's just about extinct, similar to Mini Pai Gow...gone.

Will UTH hold out?....maybe yes! There is absolutely a casino need - and a place - for a Texas Hold 'em Casino-banked game. For a casino to have FOUR tables of a "carnival game" at Full-out is a great endorsement. Roger Snow and all people at SMI should be glad to see UTH just nailing it down...


Personally, I would have thought Texas Hold 'em Bonus would have held out that position, it's a strong game that's simple and easy and Fun to play, with UTH being a little awkward in its betting layout structure.

I know the inventor of Texas Hold 'em Bonus, Paul Omohundro. Actually, he is now the VP of Sales at DEQ (who is distributing my own game, EZ Pai Gow Poker)....in a way, he's my boss, but is quiet (unlike me and Earle H.!)...and Paul did a great job on Texas Hold 'em bonus. I like his game more than UTH, which I feel is "bulky" and "awkward" in its betting structure, while THB is elegant. Very Glad to see THB is getting good action, too...

Some new games act like Carnival games, get every where for a while and are gone 5 years later (mini Pai Gow, deuces Wild, Let it Ride, Carribean) but others Stay with Permanence (Three Card poker, Pai Gow Poker, EZ Baccarat).

Coming up with a new casino game is worse than doing an independent film, as a ridiculously long, long shot. Some may hit like "The Blair Witch Project" - which caught fire and made a billion, and dissapeared. Others are Like "Bad Lieutenant," made peanuts and then died. Others are like "It's a Wonderful life" - about as old as the game of Craps, and not going anywhere, and will never disappear, to live on and on.

You have NO idea if a new game idea will hit, or if it does, if it'll stay around. If you attended a New Table game conference and see one or more games, one might make it BIG for decades to come ("Three Card Poker"), one will hit big then Die ("Mini Pai Gow and Deuces Wild"), one will live on forever at 50 games in the background ("Texas Hold 'em Bonus") - WHILE "JOHN H. WINN" - WHO INVENTED MODERN CRAPS IN 1912 IN PHILADELPHIA - got the job done - patent or no patent, big money or little money, lives forever.

The other games of Blackjack, Roulette, Hazard, Faro, and Baccarat stem from Middle-ages Europe and 18th century America with no author. Actually, Roulette was invented by a single person also, a French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, who tried to come up with a "perpetual motion machine" via a heavily-weighted wheel with virtually NO resistance to slowdown. So, He discovered a great toy for gambling grown ups, to say the least. This was his only non-scientific folly that became Roulette in the 18th Century, much as John H.Winn's "New dice Layout that prevents gaffe dice from playing" became the modern crap game in 1912 Philadelphia.

Boy, did those two games become established!!

Roger Snow, Robert Saucier, Paul Omohundro, Derek Webb, Dan Lubin, and the like - are just trying to pay off a mortage in the Las Vegas Valley, on a bigger house, while keeping the wife happy...

New game developers will never defeat Blaise Pascal and John H. Winn, after them....Maybe because they just gave it to the gambling world, no commission to be charged on some game of sin...

Quote: Paigowdan

So true in game design. Whip something up, and it has to be better than craps or BJ. Seldom is.
I can't picture Blackjack, Craps, or Roulette ever being replaced.

I'm not so sure about that. Faro was replaced ... by blackjack. Blackjack didn't really, *really* get popular until the 60s after Thorp showed you could beat it. It's not inconceivable that blackjack will get stale. It's not happening right now, but it might. Look how quickly Caribbean Stud got stale, and that was going gangbusters when it was first released.

And while there is decidedly fixed floor space in most casinos, a good operator will adjust mix if a better (more profitable) product comes along. In Washington, there's a hard limit on number of tables (15) regardless of floor space -- that includes poker -- so an operator has to decide whether to offer another blackjack table, another hold'em table, or a newer game like Three Card Poker or Let It Ride. If a new game significantly outperforms blackjack, it's not too hard to replace a BJ table with it.

I could say a lot more about my experiences with inventoritis, but I feel I should save something for the new forum. A big part of commercial game design is realizing it's a business and treating it accordingly. For example, I don't have an "invest" button on my site because that's (imo) not how to do a funding round. (Plus, I'm not sure that wouldn't constitute an improper public offering...)

For now, I'll wait until the new-games/inventors forum comes along.

Any news on when the game inventors forum is coming? I just heard something very interesting from the NGCB that belongs there.

I asked JB to add a category, but I guess he has been busy.