Former Mr Green CEO Jesper Kärrbrink warned yesterday that slots providers are at risk from major disrupters usurping their market if they fail to innovate.
Speaking in the keynote slot at the Casino Beats conference in London yesterday afternoon, Kärrbrink said: “[Disruption] hits you in the head just when you think everything is great. So, we are positioned to be disrupted. That’s for sure”.
Kärrbrink conceded that taking an iterative approach to product design has been lucrative for the majority of providers to date but warned that complacency was often the precursor to failure.
Citing results from a survey looking at the habits of younger gamblers, Kärrbrink made the case for gamification in slots. Pointing to the research from games developer Synergy Blue, Kärrbrink said 84% of respondents believed that if a game required more thought, strategy or skill to play, they would have – or might have – a better chance of winning.
Whether or not that was the case did not matter, according to Kärrbrink. “They don’t have to up the chances to win, they just have to get the feeling of getting a bit more in control,” he said. “In this industry, the only thing we don’t give them is control.”
Meanwhile, he said the research had found that 93% had played arcade, video or casual/mobile games – this figure was in stark contrast to the between 5 and 7% who are known to play slots.
“So, if you put these together the fact that the demographic of 18 to 25 is going down, and 93% of the population is playing arcade, or video games, that means that 100% of that demographic is playing these games. It’s not that difficult to put these two together and realise there’s kind of a relationship between (them),” he said.
Kärrbrink is so sold on the idea of gamification in slots that his new venture, Green Jade Games, has set about developing several games that use classic slots mechanics alongside features found in skill-based games. One even includes levels, in an attempt to keep the player immersed for a period of time even while accepting that they will move on once the game has been ‘completed’.
Kärrbrink was challenged in the Q&A as to how such games could reach new players if the only outlet is in a casino lobby. He admitted this was a conundrum Green Jade Games’ was still grappling with.
“There is a conflict in this one. Definitely. And that’s why we also are making slots because we need to give to live,” he said, building on an earlier argument that true innovation meant putting resource in ahead of the curve, in the hope that when the opportunity arises to meet the new demand, you are already in pole position.
