online gaming - mecca for game inventors?

Since this topic has gone cold, I'd like to get everyone's opinion on something I think will be a boon to game inventors.

All game inventors know that their biggest nemesis is the blackjack table, as the profit their new game makes is almost always compared to what a standard blackjack table makes. "Why should we take out a blackjack table which is a proven money maker in order to put in a new game that nobody knows how to play and is unlikely to make more than a blackjack table?" is the conventional hurdle game inventors need to get past (of course we all know this is fuzzy math, as it isn't quite that simple). Even new games that are getting considerable play are frequently removed because they still aren't doing as well as standard blackjack tables.

When online gambling gets to be huge in the U.S. (I think that in a few years more than half of Americans will be living in a state with legal online gambling), the "taking out a blackjack table to put in your game" no longer applies. Legal online casinos can serve as many different games as they want and if players choose not to play them well it's no loss for the online casino. So I think there will be great opportunities to get new games into online casinos, and if the games do well online it is inevitable there will be a demand for a felt version as well.

What does everyone think?

The majority of online content won't be adaptable to normal felt play. Online table games are a much smaller percentage of online casino revenue than felt tables are of B&M casino win. Even in Europe where roulette is popular, the vast majority of gaming win is from slot games. In NV, about 1/3 of casino win is from tables.

Plus, there's still the sales aspect. Right now you can sell a felt blackjack game to a casino directly. You won't be able to do that with an online casino - you'll need to sell your game to the software company who sells the software that the online casino runs. I've done both kinds of deals, actually, but they're very different. Selling to an online software company means getting them to commit the engineering resources to implement and approve your game. That's a large cost for an unproven product, certainly compared to the negligible cost to print up a layout and some rack cards.

There is always the option of starting your own software studio to do games for one of these companies. There are many small studios selling content to larger distributors, but as above it's almost all slot games, not table content.

Of course, the future of online wagering is neither table games nor slot games. But that's a different discussion.

Quote: MathExtremist

Selling to an online software company means getting them to commit the engineering resources to implement and approve your game. That's a large cost for an unproven product, certainly compared to the negligible cost to print up a layout and some rack cards.

I was thinking that the development cost for an online casino to code a new game title to add to their platform would probably be only $5k-$10k, which the inventor may have to agree to pick up himself in order to close the deal. Therefore, it's really a no-lose situation for the online casino to add a new game title to their platform (assuming the house edge on the new game isn't ridiculously low to take action away from a more profitable game).

Quote: MathExtremist

Of course, the future of online wagering is neither table games nor slot games. But that's a different discussion.

Not sure what you are referring to here?

Quote: jon

I was thinking that the development cost for an online casino to code a new game title to add to their platform would probably be only $5k-$10k, which the inventor may have to agree to pick up himself in order to close the deal.

Unfortunately, it's quite a bit more than that. It's almost invariably a six-figure expense to fully produce and test a game in the online space on a distribution network worth using. It's not just the game, remember, it's integration with all the ancillary infrastructure that goes with it: geofencing, banking, fraud detection, etc. You might be able to develop a demo for $10k, but certainly not production code worth wagering on. $10k is less than a week of time for a small studio. Plus, after all that, there's external compliance costs. Regulated online gaming will require certification testing via an electronic equivalent of GLI (or perhaps GLI itself). So no, $10k is far too low.

Quote:

Not sure what you are referring to here?

The future of online wagering will not involve simulations of existing land-based content, whether that involves cards, dice, roulette wheels or spinning reels. It will trend toward the games that the under-40 crowd grew up playing on Nintendo or Atari consoles (or at coin-op arcade games), and later get to Xbox or Playstation-type games with higher production quality and multi-player features, like Halo or Counter-Strike. Here's a screenshot of Microgaming's Max Damage and the Alien Attack, currently available at many Microgaming casinos. This is the main game, not a bonus round:

Quote: MathExtremist

Of course, the future of online wagering is neither table games nor slot games. But that's a different discussion.

I know you didn't mean this, but I think the real future of online wagering in this country is sports betting.

Quote: MathExtremist

Here's a screenshot of Microgaming's Max Damage and the Alien Attack, currently available at many Microgaming casinos. This is the main game, not a bonus round:

Question: Is this is a game of skill or chance?

Quote: sodawater

I know you didn't mean this, but I think the real future of online wagering in this country is sports betting.

That's what I was thinking too, until I saw that screen shot.

Very cool and interesting.

Quote: sodawater

I know you didn't mean this, but I think the real future of online wagering in this country is sports betting.

I agree that wagering laws will be relaxed to allow sports betting, but I do make the distinction between betting (on external events) and gaming. Sports like basketball or football will be played regardless of whether anyone bets on them because there's an entire industry around that exclusive of betting. The betting is ancillary, even though it's a huge business. But in a casino environment, the wagering *is* the business.

Still, I'm sure someone (probably NJ first) will be successful at expanding sports betting. I'd also expect to see a successor to Intrade at some point.

Quote: tringlomane

Question: Is this is a game of skill or chance?

Fundamentally chance. Every time you blow up an alien, the game deducts 10 credits and, based on a random distribution, gives you a payback (which may be less than 10).

Quote: MathExtremist

Fundamentally chance. Every time you blow up an alien, the game deducts 10 credits and, based on a random distribution, gives you a payback (which may be less than 10).

I just watched a video of a full nine-level playthrough of Max Damage. Every 3rd level, there is a boss battle, which seems to give a guaranteed payout, and a decent payout for finishing the game. The video showed a 400 coin win for finishing, which may have been partially luck.

Getting to the boss battles seems to be worth pushing through, so to speak. Kind of like wonging a machine? You know a slightly larger payout is coming, although it may not recoup all losses.

I also noticed there was a larger variance at higher levels. Level 1 had a bunch of 2, 5, 10, 15 and 20 coin payouts. Level 9 had fewer payouts, but they were 10, 15, 20, 30, 50 coins or more.

Skill? To a point. You can't just sit there idly and expect to make it to level 9. You must dodge and strategize in order to advance.

As mentioned, every alien shot down is a "bet", which can result in a loss, a partial win, a break-even win, or a higher-pay win. Much like rapid slot machine play, or playing Keno or scratch-off lottery tickets at a high rate of speed. It's new dressing on an old concept... but it's a good looking skin.

Legalized on-line inter-state gambling will be POKER first. I will bet on that.

Quote: MathExtremist

I'd also expect to see a successor to Intrade at some point.

Looks like NV wants to be next home for InTrade Political Wagering

Quote: Paradigm

Looks like NV wants to be next home for InTrade Political Wagering

Very interesting. Vegas should take bets on anything that is incorruptible, including Supreme Court decisions. I bet there would be a lot of action on Hollingsworth v. Perry.

Quote: MathExtremist

The future of online wagering will not involve simulations of existing land-based content, whether that involves cards, dice, roulette wheels or spinning reels. It will trend toward the games that the under-40 crowd grew up playing on Nintendo or Atari consoles (or at coin-op arcade games), and later get to Xbox or Playstation-type games with higher production quality and multi-player features, like Halo or Counter-Strike.

I can't tell you how many times I've stood on a dead table game on a Tuesday night and looked out at the slots and wondered why they didn't make "video games" into slot-type gambling. It would certainly pump some new life into "slots" as the attraction to younger players would increase, and it doesn't seem to me to be that hard to make it into equal parts luck and skill. I've always supposed the fear would be that people would figure out how to play without losing, like learning the patterns to a Pac Man game, but I think the AI possibilities, especially if the developer knew the outcome would be gambled on, have come a long way since Pac Man.

Quote: MonkeyMonkey

I can't tell you how many times I've stood on a dead table game on a Tuesday night and looked out at the slots and wondered why they didn't make "video games" into slot-type gambling.

I can recall 2 video games that have been made into themed slots: Pac-Man and House of the Dead. Neither of them had controllable video-game aspects, but were just "themed". Pac-Man didn't seem to last very long at the casino I saw it at; They had promo posters and everything, but were gone within a few months.

Bejeweled is an online slot, never having seen it in a brick-and-mortar... though I have seen Gems: Wild Tiles which has a Bejeweled-like game mechanic, and is not a "reeled" slot.

I did try to make a gambling version of Bejeweled, and have come to a roadblock in what some might call the AI: How to bring the game to a stop. In some cases, I let the game auto-play, and it went through dozens if not hundreds of matches in a row. I may revisit the issue, to figure out the best distribution of "randomization" to prevent play from going too long. I like the idea of Max Damage, where every hit counts as a "spin"...

Quote: MonkeyMonkey

...like learning the patterns to a Pac Man game, but I think the AI possibilities, especially if the developer knew the outcome would be gambled on, have come a long way since Pac Man.

There is a fine balance between making a computer AI that will ruthlessly attack a player, leaving it impossible for a human to win, and an AI that is challenging but beatable. An interesting article called the Pac-Man Dossier explains how the ghosts behave, and why patterns worked in that game. It is a bit techy in parts, but a good read for most folks.

Do you think the cost to place a game on a social casino would be less? I feel like that could be a low risk way for a new game to get noticed. If it does well there, then it makes sense to try it in a real casino? I think the distributors could become efficient at testing out new games this way?