Can't submit to IGT unless you're already in the industry ??

I knew IGT had an unsolicited submission process. It was part of why I bothered pursuing my game project in the first place. One, not too old (11/1/12), Dancer podcast had an IGT representative on claiming they had an easy way to approach them on their site and seemed very positive about working with game designers, and they did appear to have a submission process on their site. At the time, I didn't follow it through to verify without a product. I didn't realize I had to. When pressed the woman actively suggested that designers should come to them first and that those designers would "want to start with the market leader".

This does not appear to be true. You have to be a member on their site to make a submission. And to be a member of their site, you have to be a customer or employee. In the submission form, step 2, part b, they make you chose a specific company that you work for, from a list they provide. (granted I couldn't even chose a correct city from the list in part a, either).

I'm not sure how this squares? Is this something new? Or was the rep (apparently, the VP of lgobal marketing) uninformed? Chris Bruno, IGT "Distiguished Game Designer", was also on the show and concurred that designers would want to come there first.

I guess the next step is just to call the main office?

Wait, I can email PR@IGT.com, so I guess I can do that first.

We've also sent a form in to WMS. Aristocrat appears to accept ideas, but their submission policy link is broke and I don't know how IP laws work in Australia, so we panned to hold off on that one at first. Bally's only appears to accept table game submissions at present.

Any other ideas? How should we attempt to contact those in IGT who are eager to find outside inventors?

Thanks,
John

This is really interesting. I have a gaming patent that will be published this tuesday and i plan on contacting all the companies in the video poker field. I was able to submit on igt's website last time, but never heard back. I will try them once again this time. I also had a chance to meet the head of video poker at g2e and he gave me his card and told me i have to submit my game with a person from igt who makes sure the game is patented and public knowledge before he can review it. I guess that is my plan for igt on tuesday.

It also makes me wonder why some companies close their doors so quickly on independent inventors. Not all ideas that are brought to them will be great and i have no problem with them saying they don't like my game idea, but at least develop a good relationship with the inventor to make them want to return to your company with future games. On my personal face to face meetings, i've had great results with people where i feel i would always go back to talk with them. The no response i've received from other companies makes me think twice about trying them again. I guess their competitors will benefit in the long term.

Quote: RealizeGaming

This is really interesting. I have a gaming patent that will be published this tuesday and i plan on contacting all the companies in the video poker field. I was able to submit on igt's website last time, but never heard back. I will try them once again this time. I also had a chance to meet the head of video poker at g2e and he gave me his card and told me i have to submit my game with a person from igt who makes sure the game is patented and public knowledge before he can review it. I guess that is my plan for igt on tuesday.

It also makes me wonder why some companies close their doors so quickly on independent inventors. ...

...guess their competitors will benefit in the long term.

Yeah... idk. I guess they have a pretty good idea of where their potential money comes from. I wouldn't have minded if they just said, from the start, "we don't take submissions", or even if they'd said _nothing_. If the industry leader says no thanks from the start, there's a decent chance I spend my time doing something else. But don't put a submissions link on your site, and go on air acting like you are eager for people to submit inventions and then make it impossible. Why would you do that? That can't do anything but generate ill will.

As for competitors, the industry appears to be consolidating? Bally's and SHFL are together now, and I've heard Bally's may buy Aristocrat? But WMS has an accessible submissions form, so maybe they will benefit.

I guess the take away is, if you want IGT, go to trade shows and hope to talk to the right person? I think I'd rather spend my time converting the idea to a facebook game. Yeah, I like that idea better now that I think about it. I can go straight to consumers and if casino's like it, they can come to me.

It is know in business as NIH. NOT INVENTED HERE

Definition of NIH:

“Not Invented Here (or NIH) refers to the problem when people in companies continue to ignore existing solutions to problems because they were not created in-house. It is endemic to the computer industry.

Quote: Buzzard

It is know in business as NIH. NOT INVENTED HERE ...

Sure, and again, I don't have a big problem with that if they don't try to hide the fact. But when left hand is all "bring us your game" and right hand is like NIH, NIH... well, what can I say.

I had a lot of difficulty when trying to represent my Video Poker concept to IGT. I spoke to several key employees there but it seemed like there were other groups, or market advisors, that you had to convince before you could get any further.

Buzz is also correct IMO, they would rather design their own concepts if they can.

NIH even exists in different departments within the same organization. My source = Buzz Paff, and my 30+ years at AT&T !

Quote: Buzzard

NIH even exists in different departments within the same organization. My source = Buzz Paff, and my 30+ years at AT&T !

I agree Buzz. It seemed like I had to go through 3 levels of management before I could actually get around to showing my concepts.

On the flip-side, Ernie Moody did ok out of IGT :-)

Well, things may be changing soon at IGT upper levels, but I doubt anything below board level will.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2013/02/18/patti-harts-governance-questions-keep-dogging-her-and-igts-board/

Wonder how Bally & SHFL are doing? Is the honeymoon over yet ? Surely SYNERGY has happened !

Quote: Switch

I had a lot of difficulty when trying to represent my Video Poker concept to IGT. I spoke to several key employees there but it seemed like there were other groups, or market advisors, that you had to convince before you could get any further.

Buzz is also correct IMO, they would rather design their own concepts if they can.

I guess i should've expected that. I never expected a red carpet, just a basically functional process.

You're considered a significant success in terms of gaming indie devs, I believe. In retrospect has it been worth it, or would have taken another path knowing what you know?

Quote: Buzzard

Wonder how Bally & SHFL are doing? Is the honeymoon over yet ? Surely SYNERGY has happened !

lol. I'm not betting against SYNERGY.

Here may be why the IGT culture has a NIH attitude.

This is from 1997 but I imagine little has changed.

IGT continued to outspend its rivals in R & D, investing more than $30 million annually while Anchor, Alliance, and Silicon Gaming spent less than $20 million combined.


P.S. SWITCH, your 30 seconds are up.

Quote: socks

lol. I'm not betting against SYNERGY.

Every time AT&T made a new acquisition SYNERGY was hailed as the road to great expectations. Then after a 6 month honeymoon, it was : The AT&T way or the Highway !

Quote: socks

... ... ...
You're considered a significant success in terms of gaming indie devs, I believe. In retrospect has it been worth it, or would have taken another path knowing what you know?

Good question. For the first 5 years I struggled, driving around in a 10-year old Ford Fiesta and depleting my card-counting money that I had saved (approx $60,000).

However, the last 6 years have been good and I've enjoyed the whole experience. My finances are steadily improving as well as a result. I still get a tremendous buzz from seeing one of my games being played in a casino and I believe that's an integral part of being a success - the excitement I have when demoing my games seems to help convince the casino managers.

Nevertheless, I would love to go back to the start knowing what I know now. I've made mistakes and I've had some unfortunate circumstances - improving the former would minimize the latter.

The key moment came when The Taj Mahal removed 'Blackjack Switch'. I could have stopped then and looked for an alternative career, or gone back into teaching, but I studied what went wrong and came up with the 'Push 22' rule. There really is a fine line between success and failure.

Quote: Buzzard

Every time AT&T made a new acquisition SYNERGY was hailed as the road to great expectations. Then after a 6 month honeymoon, it was : The AT&T way or the Highway !

Standard Operating Procedure for pointed haired bosses everywhere, no doubt.

Quote: Switch

Good question. For the first 5 years I struggled, driving around in a 10-year old Ford Fiesta and depleting my card-counting money that I had saved (approx $60,000).

However, the last 6 years have been good and I've enjoyed the whole experience.
...
There really is a fine line between success and failure.

Interesting account. Thanks. I believe there's a very fine line.
Thomas Sowell wrote something close to, "I feel sorry for those who do 90% of what it takes to succeed." That hangs in my head when I'm feeling beat up.

Quote: Switch

Good question. For the first 5 years I struggled, driving around in a 10-year old Ford Fiesta and depleting my card-counting money that I had saved (approx $60,000).

However, the last 6 years have been good and I've enjoyed the whole experience. My finances are steadily improving as well as a result. I still get a tremendous buzz from seeing one of my games being played in a casino and I believe that's an integral part of being a success - the excitement I have when demoing my games seems to help convince the casino managers.

Nevertheless, I would love to go back to the start knowing what I know now. I've made mistakes and I've had some unfortunate circumstances - improving the former would minimize the latter.

The key moment came when The Taj Mahal removed 'Blackjack Switch'. I could have stopped then and looked for an alternative career, or gone back into teaching, but I studied what went wrong and came up with the 'Push 22' rule. There really is a fine line between success and failure.

Invaluable observations, Switch; thanks for answering so well.

My experiences are much different. I have had an audience for many games in front of IGT. They only excepted one, but I was always given an audience.

Quote: Switch

The key moment came when The Taj Mahal removed 'Blackjack Switch'. I could have stopped then and looked for an alternative career, or gone back into teaching, but I studied what went wrong and came up with the 'Push 22' rule. There really is a fine line between success and failure.

Could you go into this with a little bit more detail? I've always been under the assumption that "Blackjack Switch" had the "Push 22" rule. What other rule(s) took its place? Thanks for sharing.

Quote: DRich

My experiences are much different. I have had an audience for many games in front of IGT. They only excepted one, but I was always given an audience.

You did well to get a game accepted Rich. It's quite possible that my game didn't make the grade or I wasn't in front of the right people.

Quote: tringlomane

Could you go into this with a little bit more detail? I've always been under the assumption that "Blackjack Switch" had the "Push 22" rule. What other rule(s) took its place? Thanks for sharing.

Hi Tring',

The first developed version of 'Blackjack Switch' was shown at G2E, Vegas in October 2000 and it lead to an installation into Harvey's (now Harrahs), Council Bluffs, Iowa, in February 2001. There was no push on 22, instead the dealer would win ties on 17, 18 and 19 and you weren't allowed to 'Switch' Aces.

During the Iowa installation, in summer, 2001, The Taj Mahal, Atlantic City, asked to install the original version and the approval process took 11 months to complete. The Taj Mahal installed the game in October 2002 - unfortunately the game only lasted 2 months there as the hold % suffered even though the drop was good. The game was also removed from Iowa prior to The Taj installation so I was down to zero installations.

The feedback from Iowa was that players enjoyed the 'Switch' but got annoyed when the dealer took their ties. So, rather than quit, I thought about trying to replace the 'dealer take ties' rule. I finally came up with the 'Push 22' and got the math' verified and the push 22 fitted perfectly with the math's. It took a while but in May 2003 I had a working version and managed to get the game in front of the DTG at The 4 Queens. He liked it so we started the application for a field trial and the 'Push 22' game went live, in Vegas, on December 9th 2003.

The rest, as they say, is history :-)

Quote: socks

I knew IGT had an unsolicited submission process. It was part of why I bothered pursuing my game project in the first place. One, not too old (11/1/12), Dancer podcast had an IGT representative on claiming they had an easy way to approach them on their site and seemed very positive about working with game designers, and they did appear to have a submission process on their site. At the time, I didn't follow it through to verify without a product. I didn't realize I had to. When pressed the woman actively suggested that designers should come to them first and that those designers would "want to start with the market leader".

This does not appear to be true. You have to be a member on their site to make a submission. And to be a member of their site, you have to be a customer or employee. In the submission form, step 2, part b, they make you chose a specific company that you work for, from a list they provide. (granted I couldn't even chose a correct city from the list in part a, either).

I'm not sure how this squares? Is this something new? Or was the rep (apparently, the VP of lgobal marketing) uninformed? Chris Bruno, IGT "Distiguished Game Designer", was also on the show and concurred that designers would want to come there first.

I guess the next step is just to call the main office?

Wait, I can email PR@IGT.com, so I guess I can do that first.

We've also sent a form in to WMS. Aristocrat appears to accept ideas, but their submission policy link is broke and I don't know how IP laws work in Australia, so we panned to hold off on that one at first. Bally's only appears to accept table game submissions at present.

Any other ideas? How should we attempt to contact those in IGT who are eager to find outside inventors?

Thanks,
John

Just to update, i tried igt's submission page yesterday and it worked with no problem. I did have to log into it, though. I received confirmation that they received it and my contact at igt confirmed it.

Quote: Switch

Hi Tring',

The first developed version of 'Blackjack Switch' was shown at G2E, Vegas in October 2000 and it lead to an installation into Harvey's (now Harrahs), Council Bluffs, Iowa, in February 2001. There was no push on 22, instead the dealer would win ties on 17, 18 and 19 and you weren't allowed to 'Switch' Aces.

During the Iowa installation, in summer, 2001, The Taj Mahal, Atlantic City, asked to install the original version and the approval process took 11 months to complete. The Taj Mahal installed the game in October 2002 - unfortunately the game only lasted 2 months there as the hold % suffered even though the drop was good. The game was also removed from Iowa prior to The Taj installation so I was down to zero installations.

The feedback from Iowa was that players enjoyed the 'Switch' but got annoyed when the dealer took their ties. So, rather than quit, I thought about trying to replace the 'dealer take ties' rule. I finally came up with the 'Push 22' and got the math' verified and the push 22 fitted perfectly with the math's. It took a while but in May 2003 I had a working version and managed to get the game in front of the DTG at The 4 Queens. He liked it so we started the application for a field trial and the 'Push 22' game went live, in Vegas, on December 9th 2003.

The rest, as they say, is history :-)

Great background, Switch. Way to persevere! Thanks for the insight.

Quote: RealizeGaming

...I did have to log into it, though...

How did you get a membership if you don't work for one of the companies listed in their form?

Quote: socks

How did you get a membership if you don't work for one of the companies listed in their form?

I think i created my own!

Quote: RealizeGaming

I think i created my own!

I don't understand. When? As of last week, after agreeing to their terms, I'm sent to a login page where there is an option to "Apply for Member Account" if you're not a member. Clicking here takes you to a multistep form to become a member.

In Step 1 Part B, you agree to the following:
"The secured portions of IGT.com are intended solely for IGT customers and employees - those in the gaming industry who work directly with IGT. By selecting“I Agree,” you agree that you are a gaming industry employee and/or a direct customer of IGT."

Even if you interpret this to mean that you, as an inventor, are (potentially) a "customer" of IGT, you get to a bigger problem in part2.

Huh, going back through things just now, something weird happened. In part 2, you select the country/state/city of your company. When I got to city, at first, there was a huge selection. I live in Greenwood and selected "greenwood village" though I've never heard it called a village. The selection failed and now there are the 3 cities that were on the list a week ago. I picked West Columbia, which is clearly incorrect, but...

THEN, in step 2 part B I'm presented with a list of companies to select the one I work for. At this point, there's no way to pretend things are close or that there's been some misunderstanding.

Does this process sounds anything like what you did to become a member of IGT.com? Is there some other process?

edit: also, their public relations department has failed to respond to my email

edit2: spelling errors

Quote: socks

I don't understand. When? As of last week, after agreeing to their terms, I'm sent to a login page where there is an option to "Apply for Member Account" if you're not a member. Clicking here takes you to a multistep form to become a member.

In Step 1 Part B, you agree to the following:
"The secured portions of IGT.com are intended solely for IGT customers and employees - those in the gaming industry who work directly with IGT. By selecting“I Agree,” you agree that you are a gaming industry employee and/or a direct customer of IGT."

Even if you interpret this to mean that you, as an inventor, are (potentially) a "customer" of IGT, you get to a bigger problem in part2.

Huh, going back through things just now, something weird happened. In part 2, you select the country/state/city of your company. When I got to city, at first, there was a huge selection. I live in Greenwood and selected "greenwood village" though I've never heard it called a village. The selection failed and now there are the 3 cities that were on the list a week ago. I picked West Columbia, which is clearly incorrect, but...

THEN, in step 2 part B I'm presented with a list of companies to select the one I work for. At this point, there's no way to pretend things are close or that there's been some misunderstanding.

Does this process sounds anything like what you did to become a member of IGT.com? Is there some other process?

edit: also, their public relations department has failed to respond to my email

edit2: spelling errors

I may have been lucky enough to sign up a year or two ago and luckily I still remember my log in and password.

Did you log in here? https://www.igt.com/membership/createAccount.aspx

Quote: RealizeGaming

I may have been lucky enough to sign up a year or two ago and luckily I still remember my log in and password.

Did you log in here? https://www.igt.com/membership/createAccount.aspx

Yes. That's the where I see the multi-part application. It looks newer and cleaner than the previous page, with the 3d buttons and staged entry. I'm thinking they just changed the process at some point and didn't realize it killed external game submissions, and there's no apparent way for them to accept public feedback (if they aren't going to answer PR emails).

I called today and none of their automated phone options seemed to fit unless I wanted to leave a voice message in the generic company voice mail box.

My contact at IGT mentioned the submission page was down. I was lucky enough to submit mine in between the page going down once again. I will let you know if i find out any other information.

Quote: RealizeGaming

My contact at IGT mentioned the submission page was down. I was lucky enough to submit mine in between the page going down once again. I will let you know if i find out any other information.

Yep, that sounds about right. thanks for the update.