IGT’s development of new video poker offerings has barely slowed during the pandemic
If any style of gaming machine is ready for a big comeback as casinos continue to reopen under pandemic-related restrictions, it is video poker. The game, in all its variations, retains one of the most devoted fan bases on the casino floor, occupying anywhere from 9 percent to 12 percent of any given slot floor — and significantly more in the locals casinos of Las Vegas, according to Darnell Johnson, director of product management and business operations for International Game Technology.
The PeakBarTop cabinet
IGT, of course, produces the vast majority of the video poker product in the market, and has been the driving force in the development of the genre since the company’s founder, Si Redd, developed the first casino video poker games in the 1970s. As casinos reopen following the pandemic, the company’s two multi-game platforms, Game King and Super Star Poker II, become more important simply because they offer multiple game choices in a single unit at a time when half or more of the gaming machines in a casino are disabled.
The pandemic has barely slowed the development of a variety of new video poker games for both platforms — there are 40 different themes currently available for Game King and 28 for Super Star, and counting — because IGT quickly adapted to the new normal of game development amid a global pandemic.
“(The pandemic) has definitely shifted the dynamics quite a bit in our game development process,” said Johnson, who oversees product development for IGT’s video poker library. “But at the same time, IGT has taken an approach that really allows us to continue to flourish in our game development process.”
By utilizing mobile technology, online meetings, and home-based game development, IGT has kept the video poker development machine going despite industry shutdowns and stay-at-home orders. “Although we aren’t able to gather together on a daily basis in person, we still meet up relatively frequently online,” Johnson said. “The team has their tools to do a majority of the work from home, so that’s working out well.”
As a result, while production timetables were naturally somewhat impacted by furloughs and slowing demand, the video poker library has continued to grow. “We’re going to be about one, maybe two games short of what we typically do,” Johnson said. “We have actually introduced new versions of Game King and Super Star.” He says Super Star Poker has been the preferred platform for bar-top placement, most recently on IGT’s new PeakBarTop cabinet. “It has a combination of single-hand poker and multi-hand poker, as well as slot content, table game content such as roulette and blackjack, and some of our best keno content.”
“The new Game King is something I’m very excited about,” Johnson said. “We made a slight change to the strategy we’ve used with Game King in the past, introducing slot content that is probably more attuned to what slot players are playing today. So, you have more low-denom, high-line games in Game King’s slot content versus what we’ve had in the past. We were able to add games such as Solar Disk, Golden Egypt and Temple of Fire to that category, as well as some of our classic games like Kitty Glitter and Wolf Run, which are going to appeal a bit more to some slot players.”
VP Focus
But video poker remains at the core of the company’s multi-game offerings, and IGT game developers continue to push the envelope, using tried-and-true video poker games in a variety of bonus-enhanced versions.
IGT has mastered the art of adding bonus features to video poker, a practice that has failed in the past due to the sophisticated nature of video poker players, who know their pay tables and can plainly see when return-to-player has been reduced at the expense of a bonus. IGT solved the problem by altering the per-hand wager instead of the pay schedule. By using a six-, seven- or 10-credit per-hand wager instead of the normal five credits, the high-returning pay tables remain untouched.
GameKingX Cobalt
For that reason, IGT’s video poker library continues to feature interesting and lucrative bonuses without losing the diehard video poker fans that keep the genre going. Johnson singles out three new offerings this year as what he calls particularly exciting developments—Super Hot Roll Poker, Ultimate X Gold, and an expansion of the footprint for the popular 3-Way Action game.
Hot Roll Poker, a popular IGT offering since its 2014 introduction, randomly awards a multiplier on the deal or draw of certain hands. The value of the multiplier is determined through a video roll of dice, the total on the dice equaling a multiplier of up to 12X. Super Hot Roll Poker addresses the fact that, should a hand in the original end up a loser, the multiplier is wasted. The new version of the game keeps the multiplier in place until a winning hand is achieved. Also, the new version applies the multiplier to both the current hand and the following hand.
“It’s very similar to games we’ve released in the past like Super Times Pay or Ultimate X,” said Johnson. “It’s a very unique and compelling game that drives a lot of anticipation and excitement for players, and we believe our players are going to go crazy over this game. Hot Roll was introduced to the market in late 2014, and has been a very, very successful title for IGT thus far. So, we really expect that our players are going to love what we’re doing with Super Hot Roll by adding that Ultimate X persistent feel.”
Screenshot from Super Hot Roll
Ultimate X Gold is a new entry into the Ultimate X family of games that adds a similar persistent feature. Instead of applying the multiplier to a specific hand, it applies the multiplier to a hand on the pay schedule and sticks until it hits. “Where Ultimate X provided a multiplier to a winning hand, Ultimate X Gold is actually applying and having that multiplier stick to a winning pay table,” Johnson said. “Players can now get multipliers applied across various different winning hands across the course of their play period.”
3-Way Action is a game that’s been extremely popular in Nevada, which allows three bets on every hand—on the deal, on the five-card hand draw, and on a seven-card hand made up by the five-card hand plus two more cards from the remaining deck.
“The game is extremely popular, but we haven’t had a chance to push that game outside of the Nevada market,” Johnson said. “When we introduce it to other key poker markets such as California, Florida, New Jersey, and Michigan, we think players are really going to gravitate to the mechanic around that game and just love it.”
Johnson adds that these games augment a library of video poker titles that can be placed on any of the IGT form factors. “All of our games to date can be played on any of our cabinets—the bartop, slant-top or upright,” he said. “All of these games have been created using our Ascent foundation, the new foundation IGT has transitioned over to the last couple of years.
“Poker players are very, very loyal, probably some of the most loyal players at a casino. So we want to make sure if a player has a particular game or machine that they love that this new game content can be played on those (cabinets) as well.”
Long-Term Popularity
That player loyalty is what will sustain video poker for the long term, including the immediate future, as the industry emerges from the Covid-19 shutdown.
Super Star Poker II
“Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus, Deuces Wild, Jacks or Better… All those classic game families and pay tables continue to be very, very strong with players,” Johnson said. “When we were first dealing with the casino closures, we had opportunities to work with our sales team and provide thoughts on how they should be interacting with their customers. And one of the things we shared with the group was that video poker probably has some of the most loyal players in the industry today.
“And once the properties reopen, they should really keep a mindful eye of that — because probably the properties will see a welcome spike, from those players who haven’t had a chance to play for some time.”
That has played out as casinos have reopened, Johnson said, citing a June report from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming showing that Ultimate X Poker was the overall top-performing slot product for the month. “That validated that our poker players really have come back hard and strong once those properties reopened,” said Johnson.
Johnson added that the newest versions of Game King and Super Star Poker stand to expose current slot players to video poker as well. “You’ll start seeing more slot players have the opportunity to play Game King, and I think that resonates well during this time when you see properties doing social distancing and trying to maximize the space they have on the floor.
“Now, we have a content package that allows our players to play some of their favorite slot content on the same box on which they play their favorite video poker games.”
