It can be argued that these kinds of slots pull in a new fan base, however most of the time we enjoy branded titles without any connection for the subject matter. For instance, I wouldn’t sit and listen to a Guns N’ Roses record, yet the slot by NetEnt is one of my favourites ever.

Why is it then, that these types of slots become some of the most popular at the casino? Is it because they’re simply better? Today we’re talking about why slot designers utilize certain brands, how branded slots add value to a player’s experience and why these games always seem to do so well.

Picking A Subject Matter

With so many branded slots being released lately, it can sometimes feel like software developers simply latch on to a theme or a new movie and go with it. However, it’s quite the opposite. Picking a subject matter is one of the most important decisions a software developer can make, especially when it comes to working with a brand.

There’s a lot of thought and effort that goes into deciding which brands to promote, and most of this is based around how the slot may attract new and old players. Software developers need to be sure that the brand they’ve chosen will resonate with their player base, and so they must assess which kind of people play slots and which kind of pop-culture references will fit.

The first thing that a software developer will consider when designing a slot is who are they trying to appeal to. They will also consider who the average slot player may be, and they do this through a lot of market research and by assessing which of their pre-existing slots have been popular in the past. For instance, NetEnt may know that Starburst is one of their most played games, but they’ll also know that the online gaming sector is mostly populated by middle-aged players, rather than young people.

On the other hand, some software designers may try to use a brand to harness a new player demographic. Slots such as Family Guy and Emoji Planet are quite obviously designed to attract a younger audience. However, these kinds of games can be quite hit and miss, and so other slot developers may decide that they’d prefer not to take the risk. Furthermore, slots like these definitely have a shelf life, once the pop-culture reference is no longer relevant, the slots look dated and unappealing.

Are Storylines Important?

Many slot reviewers will tell you that having a coherent narrative to the game is important. We won’t disagree with this, and that’s why branded slots have an edge over normal games.  With a branded title, especially those which use a film or TV series, the storyline is already written and players are already familiar with it. For instance, the Aliens slot is one of the most successful games around, and although not all players will have seen the movie series, they will probably know that the story is to save the planet from alien invasion.

In contrast, unbranded titles must develop their own storyline. Not only is this much more effort for the software developers, it also means that they have to wait for their players to fall in love with their characters. Slots such as Foxin’ Wins by NextGen and Gonzo’s Quest by NetEnt have very strong storylines and likeable characters, however when they were first released it may have taken players a little while to enjoy the games as much as they do now.

Storylines also encourage players to keep spinning. The more invested a player is in a journey or a ‘hero’, the more they’ll keep playing to see if they can ‘win’. The previously mentioned Aliens slot by NetEnt is the perfect example of this, as not only does the player progress within the storyline, but they can also ‘level up’ to reveal different bonus rounds and more chances to win big.

Branded Slots Cost Much More To Make

At the end of the day, slots and casinos are businesses and so they must run at a profit. It’s easy to forget this, yet the financial side of this is probably the biggest concern when software developers are producing a new game. It may seem, then, counter intuitive to produce blockbuster titles where the licensing fees cost an arm and a leg.

Developers must weigh up the cost of obtaining the rights to a film or a franchise, against how much they expect to make from a game. The slots, therefore, HAVE to be popular enough to cover the fees and then also make a profit on top of that. This is why branded titles are, by large, much more innovative and better made.

The designers will have put extra effort into ensuring that these titles do well, as they’re financially invested in their success. This is also why there are so many ‘knock-off’ slots around, such as Troll’s Tale by Nektan (Shrek in disguise) and NetEnt’s latest release CopyCats (a take on the Disney classic The Aristocats). That is, however, an argument for us to have some other day…

The post Why Branded Slots Are Big Business — Our Insight appeared first on Mobile Slots 4U.

An International Phenomenon

We’re talking on a global scale here, not just mobile gambling in the UK. Of course, we as a nation regulate mobile gambling to a T, as we do with almost everything else — us Brits love a bit of regulation, hence why many perceive us as a “nanny state”.

But there are still many countries who don’t regulate it at all either because mobile gambling isn’t as popular as it is over here or because their governments consider other matters more of a priority. But because mobile gambling is becoming an international phenomenon, the necessity to regulate is becoming more of a pressing issue. There’s almost no way of hiding from it anymore.

The Benefits

Obviously, like with everything else, there are benefits towards increased regulation, but with mobile gambling it’s more of a question of why it should be regulated.

• Massive Growth: We don’t want to harp on about this but the mobile gambling industry has shown massive growth in the last few years alone with over a $56 billion net worth. This is a 100% increase over the last nine years alone.

• Better Measures: For governments who don’t regulate mobile gambling, many of them tend to just block the IP of the web address as a disciplinary measure. This, obviously, is a very unfair, black-and-white system which could become much more sophisticated if these governments took the time to developer proper regulations.

• Economical: Companies and governments could be pulling in so much more money if they chose to regulate mobile gambling because it is such a lucrative market. Not only would casinos feel more freedom to trade (odd, considering regulations can be restrictive) but the perception of mobile gambling will change and become more socially acceptable, which brings us onto our next point…

• Changing Perceptions: From what we’ve observed, the more something is regulated, the more socially acceptable it is. For instance, alcohol is more harmful to you than cannabis, yet alcohol is more socially acceptable to consume because it is regulated unlike cannabis which is, in many countries, completely illegal. If the same happens with mobile gambling, it’ll be seen more favourably in the eyes of society.

• Addiction: It will be much better for those addicted to mobile gambling to seek help when the government has tighter regulations. There will also be much more prevention tactics to stop it happening in the first place, which is always better than having to deal with a problem that’s already there.

The Drawbacks

Of course, with benefits there are also drawbacks. In the case of mobile gambling, however, the benefits are a double-edged sword and can present more problems as well as solutions.

• Restrictive Measures: With more measures in place, the more people may feel restricted by the government. It is not a totally free market, as it should be, since mobile gambling can become problematic. But an over-zealous regulating body can make it impossible for traders to make a profit. However, we would take this any day over a government that would shut you down the moment you make a wrong move.

• Worsening Perceptions: Some people, rather than believe regulation is making mobile gambling more socially acceptable, may think that the government is encouraging “immoral” behaviour. These perceptions are dwindling, though, and are being taken less seriously by the day. In reality, more and more people are gambling unabated all over the world.

• More Addiction: Because of this perceived threat of mobile gambling, many may also believe that it’ll worsen the case of problem gambling. This drawback is probably the least serious as regulation policies tend to set standards for every casino to follow. If a company chooses to ignore those standard, there will be consequences.

Conclusion

We hate to sound like busy-bodies but we think that, yes, there should be regulation of mobile gambling – more now than ever. Why? Because if governments choose to ignore it much longer, they will find themselves with a rising black market on their hands which they will find more difficult to control once it has been established.

In the UK, we have already taken steps and have set an example of what good mobile gambling regulation looks like as well as countries like Brazil. While some may argue that our laws are a little too restrictive, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. And what’s the alternative? A government that doesn’t care who shuts down a website willy-nilly? It may be bureaucratic but it makes sense.

The post Does Mobile Gambling Really Need To Be Regulated? appeared first on Mobile Slots 4U.

1. You Can Play At Any Time
Unless you do live at the Las Vegas strip, it’s very unlikely that your local bookies or casino is open 24/7. Plus even if it is continually open, you then need to get to it’s location. This will be fine for some players, who drive and have regular shift patterns which mean they can spend their evenings at the casino. However, we’re not all in that position and that’s where online casinos have the advantage.

Online casinos are open 24/7, 365 days a year. On top of being open for all players, all the time, it means that you don’t need to dedicate a night to playing. Got a spare ten minutes in the morning? Why not have a few spins? Partner wants to watch X Factor and you hate it? Get your phone out and play. The ease of use factor to online gambling easily beats going to a land based casinos as you can play any time, and for however long is possible.

 

2. It’s Cheaper
Whilst in actual gameplay terms it may not be exactly true that online casinos are cheaper, bear with us for a minute here. If you’ve got £100 to blow on gaming, where will you get more for your money – online or in a land based casino?

Going to a land based casino involves transport to and from the venue, you’ll probably want a drink when you arrive, maybe you’ll start to get hungry as you play. All of these extra costs are eating into your £100. This means you may only have £70 left over to play with.

In contrast, you can start up your laptop from your own home, drink your own beers and eat yesterday’s leftovers for all anyone knows. This means you can deposit the full £100 and play with it all. Whilst this doesn’t necessarily make the experience cheaper, it does mean you get to spend all of your cash on what it was intended to be spent on.

 

3. Laziness
Laziness was counted as one of the seven deadly sins but, here at MobileSlots4U, we think its something you should embrace. Everyone loves a lazy day on the sofa or a Friday night in accompanied by a takeaway and, thanks to the genius of the internet, you can play your favourite casino games whilst you relax.

One of the best bits about relaxing, however, is your relaxing attire — whether that’s pyjamas, underpants, or that onesie some distant relative bought you last Christmas. Now imagine turning up to a land based casino dressed like you do in your own house.

Land based casinos impose certain standards of dress code. Even though the black tie expectations of the past have loosened up a little, you’ll still probably have a little bit of a showdown with the bouncers if you try and enter in your boxers! On the other hand, playing online means that you don’t even need to interact with other humans if you don’t want to – that means it’s perfectly acceptable to play even if you haven’t showered for a few days,  when you’re having a bad hair day or if you just want to play in the nude – whatever floats your boat!

 

4. Online Gaming Favours Low Rollers
This one’s a biggie! Land based casinos treat high rollers as celebrities, but if you’re spending £20 on 10p spins, it’s likely they won’t look at you twice, let alone offer you any sort of bonus or special treatment. We’ve all seen films where suited and booted protagonists sit down at a poker table to have free cocktails brought over by a personal butler and the casino owner comes over to shake their hand. Sadly, unless you enter a casino with tons of cash, you won’t be getting this sort of service.

The online world, in contrast, is very different. Online casinos are great for low rollers as their bonuses and promotions are as much for them as they are for big spenders. Most deposit match bonuses and other promotions start at a reasonable £10 and you can pick up extra spins pretty regularly too – regardless of how much money you spend. Plus, sites like mFortune offer deposit limits set as low as just £3, meaning you can keep playing even when you’re a bit short of funds.

 

5. Variety
Chances are if you really want to play at a land based casino there’s probably one in a city near you. But, its likely that that will be it – just one. Those who live in smaller towns may have to travel to get to it too, meaning if you end up not liking the one closest, you’re out of options unless you drive even further away.

Commuting to a casino might not bother some people, but the limited number of UK casinos means that you can’t really afford to dislike too many. Yet, as we all know, the online world is very different.

There are hundreds of different online casinos around, each with their own pros and cons. For newbies finding a favourite casino is no mean feat, but the huge variety of sites around means that you can find something that suits your specific needs.

The post 5 Reasons Why Playing Online Is Better Than Playing At A Land Based Casino appeared first on Mobile Slots 4U.

Sign Up at Royal Panda Today!

The Win
Caroline is a loyal player at popular site Royal Panda, so loyal that she’s achieved Silver status in their casino VIP program. The program rewards players for how often they play and, as this story shows, can become lucrative if you remain loyal to the site. As a silver member, Caroline was given a casino cash bonus. We’re not aware of how much the bonus was worth, but Caroline had a particular strategy as to how to play with it.

She chose to play big, as it was a free bet she thought why not, and placed £30 on every spin. She was playing one of NextGen’s most popular slots, Gorilla Go Wild. For those who’ve never played, Gorilla Go Wild is full of bonus features, and there’s one in particular that can result in some pretty incredible wins, even if you’re not wagering huge amounts.

Gary’s Feature Kingdom (Gary is the name of the slot’s gorilla mascot) is a bonus round that’s triggered when three or more temple symbols appear upon your reels. You’ll be rewarded with ten extra spins as standard, yet the more you play, and the more you trigger the bonus round, the more features in Gary’s Kingdom are unlocked. When you’ve unlocked all the features, there are four bonuses up for grabs:

• Stay Wild: Any wilds that appear during your ten extra spins will remain sticky until the end of the round.
• Mega-Rilla Multiplier: The multiplier on your extra spins starts at 1x but increase by one up to a maximum of 10x for every wild that appears.
• More Wilds: Up to three symbols change to wilds on every extra spins.
• Guaranteed Gorillionaire Win Spins: you’re guaranteed a win on each spin.

As a seasoned player, Caroline had unlocked all the features and she chose to play with the Stay Wild bonus. She then managed to fill up the 15 symbol slot with 11 wilds, as they remain sticky each spin. It’s no easy feat, and Caroline must have been sensing the tension at this point. To have 11 wilds on your reels gives you a 1,928x your bet win – which is how Caroline managed to take home a five figure sum of £57,840!

She took the remainder of her free cash bonus and played some of her other favourite games, maintaining that she would wager big amounts as the cash is free, and managed to scoop £64,961 in total.

 

What Can We Learn From Caroline?
Well, first of all we think Caroline deserves a round of applause! To hold your nerve and continue to play big is not for the faint hearted but we all know the phrase – go big or go home! It seems like the first thing we can learn from Caroline is that when you’ve got free cash to spend, why not take a risk? The worst that can happen is that you’re in the same position as before you received the bonus and, as it must be spent at the casino sometime, what’ve you got to lose?

That being said, we think that the biggest lesson we’ve learnt from Caroline’s story is that casino loyalty pays off. How many times have you over looked a casino’s VIP program and deemed it as some sort of scam to keep you spending money. Whilst we would never recommend a loyalty program as something of an aim, loyalty to a casino pays off in the long term and if you’re going to play there anyway, the points soon rack up.

Royal Panda’s loyalty scheme isn’t anything spectacular. It’s main appeal is that small wins count towards your VIP points, and it isn’t based around how much you deposit or wager. This means that you don’t need to be a high-roller to benefit from the program.

You do, however, need to remain loyal. Honestly, we can’t say that enough – it’s the moral of the story after all. When you start placing wagers at Royal Panda you’ll accumulate points for every wager you make. Every £10 you wager earns 1 point. You begin as a bronze level player and, once you’ve earned 15,000 points, you’ll graduate to Silver, which is when you’ll start seeing rewards for your hard work.

15,000 points means that you have wagered £150,000 at the site. This is why we really do want to stress that loyalty programs aren’t a way to make a quick buck or something to aim for. As all seasoned gamblers know, you should never be spending more than you can afford. Even if you’ve been playing at the site for four years, to achieve this figure means you’d have to wager over £50 per day.

If you do, however, manage to achieve silver status at Royal Panda (however long it takes), you will receive prizes that you can cash out at the casino’s online shop. These include extra spins bonuses, free money bonuses (like Caroline’s reward) and even gadgets such as iPads and Macbooks.

 

Play At Royal Panda
Caroline’s story is an incredible tale of nerve and, lets be honest, very good luck. However, Royal Panda could still be the casino for you, even if you don’t ever manage a free five figure win! The site already has a huge following, and has a roster packed with games from software developers such as NetEnt, Next Gen and Microgaming.

They’re currently giving all new players a 100% no deposit bonus, up to £100, and 10 extra spins to get you going. This means that anything you deposit will be instantly doubled; fund your account with £20 and have £40 to play with.

Sign Up at Royal Panda Today!

The post What We Can Learn About Loyalty Programs From Woman’s £64,000 Win appeared first on Mobile Slots 4U.

We love the ICE Total Gaming Conferences that take place every year. Not only is it the biggest B2B conference in the gambling industry, but it is also used by software developers to show off their latest innovations and strut their stuff, so to speak. This year has yielded a particularly large crop of developments that have the ability to improve mobile gambling and change it beyond recognition.

Just cast your mind back to NetEnt, which introduced the concept of 3D sound. While it will be fascinating to totally immerse yourself in the games in terms of audio, we are even more excited about Microgaming’s Virtual Reality gambling that uses Oculus Rift gear and sophisticated sound technology to make you feel as if you’re actually in the game. Plus, they’re dabbling with augmented reality, wearables and other new technologies too, reinventing the way we gamble as we speak.

The Beginnings of Virtual Reality – Roulette

No other developer before has tried their hand at marrying virtual reality and remote gambling before. That’s precisely why Microgaming’s premier of Virtual Reality Roulette has been such a revelation to many. Developed especially for the ICE Conference, visitors were able to experience the future of mobile gambling in a futuristic looking CRYO lab.

Whoever donned the mean looking Oculus Rift DK 2 glasses was transported to a roulette table set in the outer space. Stars, planets and even space boulders all surround the player as he or she makes roulette bets. The 3D csaino table itself looks extremely realistic and players are able to look into every direction to perceive the depth of objects perfectly.

There is no doubt that the potential of Virtual Reality to offer an immersive experience is unrivaled. But you don’t just get to watch as the robot spins the roulette wheel or takes bets – you could interact with it too! In addition to the Oculus Rift DK 2 headset, the Virtual Reality Roulette experience is enhanced by a Leap Motion 3D. This piece of technology tracks hand movements and then immediately (with just the slightest tinge of millisecond delay) projects the movements into the 3D world. So you can wave to the robot and even physically place the chips on the table.

Augmented Reality and Wearables

However, the Virtual Reality Roulette wasn’t the only thing that visitors could check out in the CRYO lab. Microgaming had also done their homework in augmented reality and wearable technology gaming and brought samples of their work to ICE.

We’ve got to say that we love the way that augmented reality looks in the context of mobile gambling. While we remain uncertain about the precise way that it works from the technological point of view, it could also be a great way to engage users and offer 3D entertainment in mobile gambling.

And then, there were the wearables. There were rumours in the past that Microgaming would release The Dark Knight Rises slot on a smart watch, but that hasn’t materialised. Perhaps the technology wasn’t ripe enough yet or they scrapped it for the fears that not many consumers own a smart watch. Nonetheless, they’ve re-introduced the idea at this year’s ICE and we hope to see much more about wearable gaming quite soon – we’ll keep you in the loop.

Mobile Gaming In The Future

It appears that very exciting times await all of us when it comes to mobile gambling. And while it all looks good and offers great entertainment, there is one obvious question when it comes to Virtual Reality – how realistic is it that gamblers would invest in all the expensive hardware to play slots? We don’t think it’s going to happen this year, but in the next decade for sure.

For comparison, just think back to year 2004 (ish). Hardly anyone owned a smartphone and playing slots from the palm of your hand on ‘such a small screen’ was seen as absurd by many. Now fast-forward to 2016 and the notion of playing mobile slots is as normal as sleeping and eating. And talking about mobile slots, it was Microgaming that developed some of the very first pieces of mobile gambling software and now they’re pioneering new concepts again. 

Technology evolves so swiftly that it’s very hard to predict as to how it will develop and, more importantly, which trends will catch on with consumers. After all, they will be the ones to decide if they want to put on bulky head-wear and perhaps overcomplicate the simplicity that is mobile gambling. Yet, we do think that a segment of consumers, particularly the technology-loving millennials, will take to Virtual Realty like fish to water.

There is no doubt the hardware will be shrunk down and simplified in the coming years, while the software and graphics will improve tremendously.  Plus, Virtual Reality could easily piggy-back on another trend of making mobile slots look as similar to video games as possible. After all, there is nothing more immersive and engaging than Virtual Reality, except the reality itself (aka real life, brick-and-mortar casinos).

In sum, all of this technological innovation by Microgaming has so much potential to provide an unparalleled gambling experience and we really hope that we can soon obtain and play Virtual Reality casino games and slots for real money! For now, take a look for yourself – could you see yourself gambling in Virtual Reality in the very near future?

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