Slot Manager - January 2009 - (Page 29)

INSIDE 25 FIGURE 1 20 EDGE Credits 15 10 5 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Games Played apart, satisfying squiggles must be. I suspect it will vary signiﬁcantly by player personality and circumstance. If we were to measure player experiences this way, we could use the information to improve game offers. For example, suppose we collected initial play information on 1,000 ﬁ rst-time player experiences: people that signed up for club membership and then gambled at least $50. Next we bin these players into two groups: those that returned to gamble again at a later date and those who did not. Finally, we average the play experience graphs of each group. I’m betting you’ll ﬁ nd answers when these are compared. I believe the return group will show steeper squiggles. I’m betting, too, that we can learn how to build better games 25 FIGURE 3 happy, but casino management certainly is not. Players who only experience losses (Figure 1), eventually give up and never return. Those who experience constant winning outcomes (Figure 2), will return—but not for fun— they’d simply come in to collect money—a job of sorts. Imagine a slot machine paying 102 percent with no volatility, meaning the player wins $1.02 on every $1 bet. If each game lasts 6 seconds, a player wins 12 cents per minute or $7.20 per hour. Game play is now a low-wage occupation. Without volatility—the chance to win, with a risk of loss—gambling is simply not interesting, even when payouts are more than 100 percent guaranteed. Now consider Figure 3. Again our player begins with $20 of credit. Again she wagers $1 per game. Each of the ﬁ rst three wagers are losses, followed by a $5 win, six losses, a win of $2, eight losses, a win of $5, six losses, a win of $2 and seven more losses. Notice the squiggles in this graph. They mark the times of change. Losing sequences turn to winning ones and vice versa. Squiggles mark changes of fortune and are the reason players play. I am not saying the Figure 3 squiggles deﬁ ne a satisfying player experience. (For our purposes, let’s deﬁ ne a satisfying experience as one that would cause the player to gamble again in the future.) I am saying that play experiences without squiggles are unsatisfying. Exploration is needed to determine how big, and how far 120 FIGURE 2 100 Squiggles 20 Credits 15 10 5 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 Games Played and use bonuses to greater effect if we learn this tool. Besides just the squiggles, we can learn a lot by watching for cash-outs or the insertion of additional money and what the preceding experience was. For example, if a player inserts $20 and cashes out after spending only $10 she could be bored—or maybe she just won a $100 jackpot. Graphs and squiggles would help us understand such details of behavior. One big problem stands in the way: raw data. Today’s systems simply don’t collect and store play-by-play game information. That’s a shame because modern networks have plenty of bandwidth, and disk storage space is cheap. Closing comments As much as I’ve enjoyed writing these columns, this one is my last. My goal for 2009 is to write with a deeper analysis of player behavior and measurement. Columns just aren’t good forums for such goals. Instead I hope to put these ideas into a book. Though the audience is limited, the topic is too important to leave unexplained. Thanks for reading. SlotManager Credits 75 50 20 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Games Played John Acres is CEO of Acres-Fiore, a gaming development company, and chairman of GameLogic’s Board of Directors. AD COMPANY INDEX PHONE FAX WEBSITE/EMAIL PAGE AC Coin & Slot 800-248-7568 609-383-2758 www.ac-coin.com 9 Aristocrat Technologies 800-748-4156 702-270-1001 www.aristocratgaming.com Cover Flap, 6-7 Bally Technologies 702-584-7700 702-584-7710 www.ballytech.com 2 BNP Media Gaming Group 702-794-0718 702-794-0799 www.bnpgaming.com 13, 21, 25 CashCode Co., Inc. 800-584-2633 905-303-8875 www.cashcode.com 31 Clear Seas Research 248-786-1659 248-502-9100 www.clearseasresearch.com 23 Gaming Standards Association 510-492-4060 510-492-4001 www.gamingstandards.com 14 International Game Technology 702-896-8500 702-896-8686 www.igt.com 5, 19 Konami Gaming 702-367-0573 702-367-0007 www.konamigaming.com 32 Vermette Machine Co. 800-348-6454 219-931-8652 www.vermettlifts.com 11 www.slotmanager.net ❘ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009 ❘ SLOT MANAGER 29 http://www.ac-coin.com http://www.aristocratgaming.com http://www.ballytech.com http://www.bnpgaming.com http://www.cashcode.com http://www.clearseasresearch.com http://www.gamingstandards.com http://www.igt.com http://www.konamigaming.com http://www.vermettlifts.com http://www.slotmanager.net

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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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