Slot Manager - January 2009 - (Page 28)

INSIDE EDGE Measuring the player experience: what a squiggly line can tell you John Acres W hy people gamble has long been debated. That people gamble is undisputed: We’ve done so all through recorded history. One of my favorite personal toys is a single die (two or more die are called dice), carved from bone back around 300 B.C. Except for its yellowed appearance and less than perfect cubism, it could be put to use on modern craps tables and barely noticed—witness to how little gambling has changed in 2,300 years. Each gambling transaction culminates in either a win or a loss; while the former is preferable, the latter provides meaning. Without real possibility of loss, winning cannot gratify because gambling is more about overcoming loss rather than material gain. Loss makes the business of recreational gambling possible; if players do not collectively lose more than is won, there is no proﬁt. Within the human psyche, joy of winning far outweighs the cost of losing. Humans are programmed to endure hardship, setback and disappointment in the pursuit of occasional accomplishment. In our work, our sports, our politics and our wars, occasional winning outcomes justify any required sacriﬁce. In fact, a series of costly losses sometimes enhances the importance of a win. Gambling is simply a microcosm—an entire cycle of life—lived out in the space of an evening or an hour. The wagering experience is so compelling that, since shortly after the invention of gambling, governments have tried to limit, or eliminate, the enterprise. Many of religious, or moral, inclination work hard to ban the practice, not only for themselves, but for everyone, on the theory that society’s very fabric is damaged by pursuit of unearned accomplishment. In fact, legal barriers to gambling have made the casino industry, as we know it, possible. Without such barriers, gambling machines would exist in every bar, every grocery and every restaurant. Tens of millions of machines, each earning only a few dollars a day, would populate the Earth. Only because of opposition to gambling “There are two great pleasures in gambling: that of winning and that of losing.” ~French proverb are large numbers of games concentrated in a relatively few locations where they are better controlled and taxed. So effective are these barriers, according to the American Gaming Association, that, as popular as gambling has seemingly become within the United States, just 1 in 4 adults even set foot in a gambling establishment last year. Just 20 percent of those visitors accounted for some 90 percent of total wagers. In other words, nearly all wagering revenues come from barely 5 percent of the adult population. AGA surveys show that visitation, as a percentage of population, has held steady for at least the past 10 years. Yet the U.S. adult population is growing at just 1 percent annually while casino game population is growing much more rapidly. As I’ve noted in previous columns, casino expansion has been so proliﬁc over the past decade that game supply now exceeds player demand. Our industry, which is built upon rapid expansion, cannot continue to grow—unless we convince a larger percentage of people to engage in the gambling pastime. Convincing people to gamble requires a lot of effort—or at least a lot of new effort—as compared to current marketing campaigns, which aim largely at getting existing players to return more often or pirating other casinos' customers. Before the work of bringing in new players efﬁciently begins, let’s make sure the people that do visit us are largely satisﬁed with the experience. If we can engage a larger percentage of visitors, work done to attract new customers will be more easily amortized. How can we convert more visitors into loyal customers? Just asking that question is a great start because, bluntly, we’ve not paid much attention to this opportunity and a variety of good possibilities exist. Here’s one: A variety of surveys conﬁ rm that if a new player enjoys a winning experience on his or her ﬁ rst outing at a casino, that player is far more likely to become a loyal customer. Anecdotal evidence further shows a player who doesn't win with some frequency will eventually grow frustrated and stop playing. While that seems counter to my earlier comments that a streak of costly losses ampliﬁes the value of a win, we all have limits.Those limits vary from person to person and to the mood of a person at a given time. How can we ﬁgure out what these limits are? Let’s start by measuring player experience and response. Right now, our systems focus primarily on accounting, security and basic rewards. We simply don’t try to quantify player experiences, much less determine what sort of experiences players best respond to. One way to measure the quality of a player’s experience at a gaming machine is through a method I call “Squiggles.” The dictionary deﬁ nes squiggle as “a short twisty line.” In the technique I’m about to describe, a squiggle indicates an enjoyable session of gambling. Figure 1 graphs an imaginary play session. The vertical axis shows the credit meter balance on a game, the horizontal axis represents games played. In Figure 1, a player inserts $20 (red arrow line) and wagers $1 per game. She plays 20 successive games and never wins. Her credit balance, which began at $20, drops by $1 at a time until, after 20 games, there’s no money left. The graphed line is straight and has a constant negative slope, meaning the line goes downward as successive games are played. There’s no twisty part of the line because the player always loses. The casino is happy with the result: $20 won. Our player isn’t so pleased and is less likely to be a long-term customer. Figure 2 graphs a second imaginary play session. Again our player starts with $20. Again she wagers $1 per game, but this time, she wins $10 on each wager. Her credit balance grows by $9 per game, and certain her luck can’t continue, she cashes out (red down arrow) after 10 wagers with a $90 proﬁt. She’s 28 SLOT MANAGER ❘ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009 ❘ www.slotmanager.net http://www.slotmanager.net

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Slot Manager - January 2009

Slot Manager - January 2009 Contents Editor's Note Quick Hits New Games Cover Story: Going Strong At 30 Game Changer: IGT's REELdepth Operations: Where There's a Will, There's a Way Games: G2E 2008 Slot Report Common Ground Marketing Inside Edge Advertiser Index Forum

Slot Manager - January 2009

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