Nowadays, game designers are opting to design for online gaming instead of creating games for land-based casinos. Besides, in 2013 when New Jersey introduced the online casino platforms several states started to follow it as well, like Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, and Michigan seems to follow up closely as well. In New Jersey alone, internet gaming was on top of the first seven months of 2020. Even in 2019, the online presence in the state grew a lot, and ever since it was introduced it gave the chance for designing companies like Spin Games to develop slots for the land-based casino.
Also, ever since the gaming has expanded online too these developing companies started to create for the online presence as well. For example, Golden Nugget has created perfectly the best online component for its casino portfolio. The company offers a mix of games that are available of land-based casinos, and developed games that can be found just online too. Most of these casino companies want to offer the experience to feel authentic as possible to the land-based slot. They believe that if a game designer can create an online game with the same graphics found in a B&M casino, then they are doing a fantastic job.
Different Sketch
Even in the case of games that are familiar in the online landscape, differences can emerge between them in the land-based and internet gaming. One sure thing is that the land-based casino games run on cabinets that are much more powerful than any computer or mobile device. The power difference affects the characteristics of the game.
The online games are just as important as the land-based games. The land-based games have a technology base that is generally proprietary. Meanwhile, on the online casino space, there is third-party technology, browsers, phones, apps etc. All of them require development. Game developers build games for hundreds of potential personal devices on multiple browsers vs a standardized cabinet. Unlike the traditional games found on the casino floor, online games need to be designed to fit on different screen sizes. Any online game designer needs to account for other modalities such as bandwidth, file size, choreography, and resolution, plus sound capabilities.
From the perspective of ReelPlay, every ingredient matters when designing a game. For the land-based games, developers can exaggerate the sound in the cabinet to cut the ambient noise of the casino floor. However, if this sound exaggeration is used for online games, it may irritate the eardrums. In this case, it means that players can instead focus on richer soundscapes when they play online games. Besides, what is common between online games and land-based games is the strength to get the attention of the players. It’s all about entertainment value.
Online slots gain popularity when they have innovative features such as themes that resonate with the players. For example, games from the Megaways series, such as 88 Fortunes Megaways!, are considered extremely popular. One of the reasons for their popularity is that they came with emerging new game designs. Besides, some games also offer the choice of control panels online, which are impossible to add to a cabinet that has fixed button panels.
Fundamental Design
The general rule is that despite all the differences between an online game and the offline game is that what works in the land-based environment is a good starting point for many design studios. The more familiar is the game, the better the game is perceived in the iGaming sphere. The online games have the same rules just like the offline version. However, there is also plenty of evidence that suggests the opposite when it is about the popularity of popular online mechanics.
When it comes to bringing a land-based game online, some studios either consider to bring it just like the way it is, or they would make some subtle changes to ensure that the game can compete in the online environment. Physical machines have a limited target audience compared to the wider demographic online world because a slot game can be translated even into more than 20 languages.
Online games offer more content choice than the land-based ones, and this is thanks to the large measure of easy content publication. The online casino can have changes every day, meanwhile, the physical casino doesn’t live in a fast pace world, changes are slower. Because of these choices, online studios have to design games for people who have the stamina to play for the long term. It is considered that if an online game is played by players for 30 days after it went live, it is said that it performs well.
Besides, intense animations and video are harder to achieve online, because gamers play these games remotely to a device. It is a delicate balance for designers to get an online game right. However, the technology in devices advances because more of them have built-in graphics chipsets, which will allow designers to push the technology envelope.
