Questioning the role of slots developers within the iGaming industry is an interesting one, as any company’s role is to improve the sector in which they operate – check out Microgaming slots.
Clearly, companies are set up to make money for themselves. However, the happy consequence of some healthy competition within a particular industry is that companies improve in order to stay competitive.
If a company doesn’t evolve, improve, and supply what the consumers are demanding, it will fall by the wayside. As a result, the consumers benefit. Whatever the company supplies in their particular sector should get better and better. It’s simple supply and demand.
The iGaming industry is no different. With the money involved in the industry nowadays, there’s a huge incentive for companies to be successful as the games developers can get very rich. So what do they do? They keep making better games that are ever more sophisticated, and we, the consumers, reap the benefits.
How much money are we talking?
Globally, the online gambling market is projected to reach $160 billion by 2026, and the UK plays an important part of that figure.
Gambling and online play has always been popular in the UK, and reports show that the online betting GGY (gross gambling yield) was £2.1 billion in 2019 and 2020, a 4.3% increase from April 2018 to March 2019.
It’s clear to see that there’s money to be made within the industry. As a result, more developers are being set up, and the market becomes ever more competitive. The content constantly improves, and the sector evolves. But is there a more specific role that slots developers should play apart from supplying demand?
Variety is the spice of life
An important role a slots developer has is simply to produce entertaining and novel content. What’s more, if that content offers a wide selection of games and themes, they appeal to the widest demographic of gamblers possible.
Browsing through a selection of slots libraries online will throw up many different themes anyway. You can find slots games based on famous movies, classic TV series, mythology, ancient civilisations, horror, sport – whatever you’re into, there’s a slot title for you.
In addition to varying themes, developers should also vary the gameplay. If the same old titles are being released year in year out, just repackaged, gamblers will tire of them quickly.
A duty of care
With iGaming increasingly delving into complex new areas like crypto and alternative currencies where little is known and scams can be common, another role slots developers have is to protect the people who sign up on their sites.
It goes beyond malware, fraud and online scams though. There’s a duty of care to keep the users’ personal details safe and to use their banking information in a responsible way.
Finally, possibly the most important role that slots developers have is to protect gamblers from addiction.
Gambling addiction is a very real problem in today’s society and developers are encouraged to do more to protect the people that play their games.
Discussions are ongoing about how this should be done, and opinions differ. No-one wants to live in a nanny-state where players are restricted from exercising their right to play, but at the same time, should there be a limit on how much people are allowed to spend, or the time spent playing online? It’s a role that developers will have to embrace and face head-on in order to continue thriving.
