iGaming Daily

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Good afternoon and welcome to today's episode of the iGaming Daily brought to you by OptiMove, the number one CRM solution for the iGaming market. Today we're going to dive deep into the world of iGaming and talk slots, crash games and fish shooting games. And yeah, just have a deeper look at the evolution of slots games and some of the more niche avenues to player engagement. We kick things off with Craig Davis. How are you doing, Craig? Delighted to be back, Joe. Yeah, a return to the podcast. And also somewhat of a return as well, Danny. How are you doing, Danny Lee from Slot Beats? Yeah, all good, mate. Ready to get back on the pod, talk about some things within the iGaming scene at the minute. Brilliant stuff. Yeah, we've got a lot going on and Craig, it was actually two of your feature articles that you wrote that kind of triggered this podcast for me. Such an interesting time for games development. We've seen two features recently. One focusing on fish shooting games, obviously we know they are such a strong theme. And also one on the potential kind of stagnation of crash games. Are they still flying high? I think was the title. Yeah, it's just an interesting time for games development, right? ALICE It is. It's a good period. There's a lot of kind of these niche segments that are doing well in particular. markets, we've seen Crash games kind of explode and a lot of studios have been quite quick to the uptake on producing these games, trying to vary the themes, trying to go down some different avenues to get players in, different nuances on different markets as we all know about. So it's quite an interesting time. Danny, what have you made of the evolution of Crash games and I guess the development of various slot games? Yeah, like Craig said, we're seeing a lot more of these niche games now. past couple of years definitely see more and more every week and particularly more and more studios that would usually just focus on slots and are like delving into all these different formats as well. But slots are still king for me. I think they're still definitely thriving in the space that I don't think there's any chance of anything sort of coming in and taking their place in that sense. But it's interesting to see the different sort of routes studios are taking to try and maybe innovate in different ways. slots are still king, but I think what we do see is that spectrum of what is a slot now really just grow and grow and grow. And yeah, the gamification just means the horizons are just far wider. And yeah. So do you think it's going to be more, we're going to continue to see that level of gamification or do you think the players and operators kind of want a bit more of a simplified game? I think. It's all about balance really, you can tell that simple games clearly do quite well, a lot of players only have a certain amount of time to play on an online casino and they might only want to go to familiar games, games that have been around for decades even now. But there's also a lot of expansion going on with studios finding new ways to introduce mechanics and new ways to deliver wins and all those good bonus features that we see being introduced. Yeah, balance is really important there. Some studios maybe sway one way rather than the other, but it's interesting to see what sort of thrives the most. And when we go to events, you do often get like very mixed sort of opinions between operators and suppliers on what it is that they want and what it is that players want as well. Craig, you speak to suppliers probably as much as anyone at SBC. Is that the same sentiment you're getting that there's still an appetite for gamification, but... Also, there is a need for balance and traditional kind of slots are still king. Absolutely. That's kind of the overarching theme. If you were going to sum it up in about five or ten seconds, that would be what you'd say. I think one of the overwhelming messages now, as you kind of get much more kind of granular data and the data becomes much more kind of, I suppose, reliable on a market by market basis and... It's overwhelming what these kind of studios and operators have at the palms of the hands at the minute. And if you feed that back into what Danny's just been saying with slots are still king, yeah, true. And they always will be. If you look at it on a global basis, but on that market by market basis, that's where you might start seeing, I'm not going to say a crash game overtakes slots, but on that market by market basis, you may see some of these more. niche segments making a much bigger splash than you will elsewhere. More legacy markets such as the UK for example, slots are going to dominate forever. Elsewhere you may see these other segments coming in a big way. Well I mean that was kind of explored in one of your articles about whether Crash games have kind of stagnated. I wanted to get your opinion on that. Do you think... Crash games have kind of paused in their growth a little bit or is that incorrect? I'd possibly say not. It's still... while not a new thing, this surge in popularity seems relatively new, I'd say. But if you look at... if you go from Crash games to all the different gaming segments we've got, what you've got to remember is if I go back to... I kind of suppose data, but players themselves. And players know what they want, and if they've been playing these slots forever kind of thing, it's trying... A supplier is going to do something tried and tested that's been successful over something new because that's a huge risk. And you're putting that much money into it. So if you've got something like... If you're... Although it's ended now, I'm gonna throw it out. If you've got a relaxed game and doing a money train and they've had all this success and they know the operators trust it... Of course they're doing a two and a three and a four. And you see it now with the tumble series. The tumble series is doing really well. Quite the fun myself to be fair. And they're doing really well. So of course they're pursuing that because they know they have that operator trust. And operators themselves, they know what the players are playing more than anyone. So they're not going to, for example, say, oh, let's put this crash game as pride of place in our lobby. When they've got all these hundreds of slots. that they're going to trust players to play on top of them. So I'd say it's that again, the balancing acts of that, it's trying to get that trust of the operator to take the punt on you. And I suppose if you do look at studios that are tried and tested, if you stick with a relaxed gaming for example, or you know, a blueprint who've had numerous iterations of Fish in Frenzy. And if, if one of those studios were to do something a little bit different... An operator may be a little bit more inclined because of those past successes. That could be a hugely incorrect opinion, but it could work that way that an operator is going to trust those studios have been with for a long time. Well, they've had all these successes with this lot and this lot and this lot and this lot, but I try something different. Let's have a go. But I do, I do think operators are, they're going to trust the slots. They're going to trust the slots. They know. Yeah. I notice when you see sequels like that, it's a real fine art. Just the slight changes, the slight little additions I notice with Elk Studios' Pirates. Each time it's just kind of the same, but it's just something a little bit different. Just add something, just give it a different feel. I guess that's how you slowly make an audience feel comfortable with a new mechanic or something like that. are so clever. Whether it's a new addition in a series or just a fresh iteration of a tried and trusted theme like your fishing frenzy for example, which everyone will know, it's trying to retain that familiarity while also adding something a bit new and different. You can't go too far into something different because then players are just going to be like, well, this isn't the same. You lose the whole purpose of that comfortability. Yeah, comfortable is a good word. You've got to keep that level of comfort while also kind of peaking that engagement and interest in something that might be a little bit different. Yeah, and Danny, I want to bring it back just a little bit. Where do you sit on the idea that maybe the growth of Crash games has stagnated? Did you agree with that sentiment, or do you still feel like they're on this upward trajectory? Yeah, definitely. I'd say they're still on that trajectory, because we've just seen so many studios, like In the past year, it feels like 2024, we've seen loads of studios that have never really dabbled in crash games before bring out their first ever crash game and actually enter the vertical, whether that's because they think that it's a format that's going to succeed or they just want to have a greater variety of products on offer to appeal to the operators they're partnering with. I'm not too sure about that, but we're also constantly seeing companies basically tell us in these PRs, they give us how many users that they get and like, I know Spryve always like to... tell us the amount of monthly users has gone. It's always quite an impressive figure. And it's always increasing as well month by month. Yeah, maybe one thing I would say about the CrashGear market is that maybe not stagnating, but sort of getting a bit saturated. Obviously, there's only so many things you can have like fly in the sky and then crash out of it. There's not. Welcome to Casino, Dan. Exactly. There's not much else that can be brought to the table in terms of like mechanics and features and stuff. But we are seeing some studios like bring new social elements in or try and make it a bit more of like a multiplayer feel and then also we've seen like branded versions of Crash games as well so there definitely is a bit of a need for innovation in the space to make it a bit less of each game being the same. So I think it's still on the rise but maybe it could be at risk of stagnating if we don't see a bit more introduced to the game itself. Okay, and do you think innovation is the key to kind of ending this saturation? Yeah, I suppose so. Like I said, there's only so many things you can actually do with a crash game, so if we just keep pumping out these same games, it's just something else flying in the sky or another little character that gets... Crossing the road. Yeah, crossing the road and gets run over, whatever it is. That's Frogger, that, Joe. Bound to get to a point where we're just seeing the same game over and over and over again, but just with a different skin or a new design. I think it's features that are going to really take Crash games into the next level. What can you do to make the actual gameplay more exciting or different to another studio's Crash game? Because at the minute it does sort of feel like when you move from Crash game to Crash game it's just a new design, it's all about the design, what it looks like, what sort of thing you're betting on. But I do think we've seen a couple of studios sort of try to... capitalise on that a little bit and introduce something new, bring something new to the table. I suppose what Studios would say there though, would come back to something you said earlier, players may not have too much time on their hands, so if they're going to start developing these and the gameplay actually becomes longer and more complex, would that then turn players off because that gets away from that quick nature of the game? That's the thing isn't it, it's... tricky balance that we've been talking about for the past 10 minutes. It's not something that's easily done, whether it's worth just keeping these same simple games coming out, whether that's what players want, maybe they're okay with just having a new design, they want to check out whichever studio's new, what new crash game they brought out because they want to see the different plane that's crashing out of the sky this time. But there's got to be some studios out there thinking that if they bring something new to the table then maybe they can... push Crash games into, you know, a bigger format, something that could maybe rival slots one day. Not that I think that will be the case, but you know, there's some studios out there that already will make its Crash games. So surely they're going to want to innovate in that space and introduce something that might excite players a bit more than just placing a bet and cashing it out and placing a bet and cashing it out. I do agree with that. There will be a studio at some point who does push the envelope. Yeah. I mean, I kind of present you a Another alternative one of the things we saw last week was a Mike Tyson crash game in anticipation for his fight with Jake Paul, I guess it didn't really pan out as much of a fight, but Yeah in anticipation for that big Netflix event could Brandon be the route to kind of bringing crash games to a new level Could it be yeah, could we see like, you know, some of that we've seen like Ted and Rick and Morty these type of things be branded into slots? Could we see them branded into quite engaging crash games? Like a Jake Paul v Mike Tyson crash game? Yeah. I mean, the crash game for Mike Tyson was very simple, right? It was him punching the speed bag thing and then it kind of ranked up. But yeah, could we see branding into crash games? It wouldn't surprise me. It's been hugely popular in slots. They've done it. quite well, a lot of studios across a lot of markets. All I would say is it had come down to, again, it had come down to the research that suppliers do themselves, undoubtedly be delving into this, could have branded Crash game work, is it something that players actually want? It'll come down to that research, that data. But again, like we've just been saying about potentially adding new features and kind of fresh ideas within the whole Crash game segment, it'll come down to... a studio or to take in that pun. And it could well be a studio who has that IP within slots. Maybe they have that IP within a slot and they can expand it into other themes. That would, that, that would be the route I'd expect an established studio to think, right, let's, let's give this a go. branded crash game we've just seen with Mike Tyson. I think that's obviously a really good idea because they've capitalised on such a big event. I'm not sure how many viewers there were for that event, I've not done my research into it, but I'm guessing it was a lot. It's such a big event for Netflix to have. 65 mil I think was the total number. But what's the lifespan on that? I suppose it was a flip side. Exactly, and I think that's the case with a lot of this sort of branded content. I'm not too sure. I mean, I might be forgetting games here, but I can't really... put my finger on sort of evergreen celebrity branded game. If you look at like TV series or film I feel like they last a lot longer, you can do a lot more with them, you can keep returning to whether it's Rick and Morty, Deal or No Deal, Ted, those sort of things. I think they're a bit more evergreen. I think often with these celebrity ones this seems to maybe sort of fade away when the hype sort of dies down. But again it's about research like you said Craig, obviously... I think it was Joga Global that brought out this Mike Tyson crash game, so they've clearly done a good job of capitalising on a big event, maybe bringing in some fans of Mike Tyson, I don't know, that maybe wouldn't even know what a crash game is, and then they see that Mike Tyson's attached to a game they want to play, that's the idea, right? It's acquiring new players. But I wouldn't say operators and suppliers are becoming sort of too reliant on these deals with celebrities, because if a game... is a good game then it's going to do well. Like if the content is good and there's new bonus features or there's exciting features within it then it's going to do well. And you don't have to attach a celebrity name to it to gather that success. Is it safer to do a branded game with a TV series or a movie franchise rather than a specific celebrity considering you never know what headlines are on the corner these days? Exactly. It's a good point, like you don't have that type of risk with a Jurassic Park or something like that. with a celebrity, you never know. That's an interesting point. One theme, you know, we're talking about themes kind of that have worked, you know, the longevity of a TV show theme compared to a celebrity theme. One theme that has just stood the test of time is the fishing theme and the shooting fishing games. We covered, you covered that on Casino Beats this morning. You covered that on Casino Beats recently. Yeah, what is it about these fishing games that just continue to be successful and continue to be fruitful? Is it more than just players are comfortable with that theme? Well, speaking to those who do produce them, it's predominantly one market so far, or one continent and they're trying to spread it beyond that. The overwhelming theme I get from them, what appeals to players, is it's a bit more freedom rather than just spinning a reel or whatever or... watching a plane go in the sky and clicking before you think it's going to explode. You have more freedom to kind of control your own narrative within the game with regards to the shooting aspect. The one difficulty I suppose, and it comes down to something we've been saying throughout this entire podcast is it's limited if you talk about fish shooting games. You're very much limited to one theme there. I think the challenge now is to open that up. and introduce new themes because that is, in my opinion, how you expand into new markets. You can't just have this one limited idea and think we're going to conquer the world. You need to appeal to different player types. Danny, to round us off there, the fifth shooting game just, you know, success in and date with success. What do we expand upon these? Yeah, I think Craig's right there. It's about taking it to the next step and maybe transforming. these type of mechanics that clearly do quite well and sort of resonate with players into new sort of themes and designs, but I think it maybe says a lot about like the sort of demographic of slot players as well that enjoy these type of games. Maybe there's something similar between the people that like fishing and the people that like slots and it's definitely like Fishing's a sport, right, and it's a sport that kind of marries quite well with the mechanics of a slot. It's clearly a simple thing for players to understand as well. Like I think if you hadn't played a slot before and the first slot you did play was like a fishing frenzy it wouldn't take long at all to understand where you get the big prizes from and what sort of features you're looking out for in there as well. So by that sentiment, does that mean the next, the untapped potential is in a, in a golf game maybe? Is that where we go next? Well, I'm sure there's a golf crash game out there somewhere where the ball flies through the sky and then crashes out. So maybe, yeah. Yeah. A golfer crosses the road, maybe something like that. Yeah. Guys, thanks ever so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Diving deep into the world of iGaming. So yeah, good, good stuff. Thank you. And yeah, be sure to continue to check out iGaming Daily and Casino Beats and Slot Beats this week where we continue to update you on everything that's going on in the world of iGaming and Casino.