The online gambling market continues to grow. While other businesses suffered from COVID-19, online casinos recorded an increase in profits. The pandemic has only partially contributed to this success as the market has gradually increased over the past 10 years. Between 2009 and 2021, gambling business grew 2.5 times.
What factors contributed to this:
- The development of new technology.
- Optimization of operating costs.
- Increased audiences.
- New marketing tools.
- Increase in the range of services.
Money is the main impetus for the slot developer. There are more than 120 providers on the market, but due to active growth each one finds its place under the sun. Experienced companies have long ago established the process of creating games, and newcomers have nothing to do but to adopt experience from competitors.
Idea Creation
Development does not start with programmers – first there is an idea. To ensure the success of the concept, research, market analysis and planning. When the process is fine-tuned, a mind map is most often used:
- A central concept is created – the theme of the slot, which will serve as the starting point.
- Features and functions are considered – the number of reels, paylines, bonus rounds in a potential game are determined during the discussion phase.
- There is the introduction of technology – creating slots for new platforms allows you to expand the audience. Lately, providers are developing VR-direction.
- A systematic approach allows to set up a “conveyor” for slots production. But it also sometimes fails – the difference between new and previous games is not so noticeable for newcomers. The most technologically advanced slots can be found in one of the casinos at https://toponlinecasinoaustralia.com.
Roger Raatgever, former CEO of Microgaming, once told how the company organized a brainstorming session. Twice a year, the provider holds an Idea Factory contest among employees – for interesting ideas, participants receive a generous reward. Even a manager who has never developed slots before can participate.
Market research
After selecting ideas, they are tested for potential success. Several tools are used to analyze the market:
- It tracks players and helps to determine current trends. Information is collected not only through casinos, but also through social media.
- Usability testing system. With her help assess the usability of the interface. You can test a new page or any site, for example, a competitor.
- Social Mention. The tool is designed to track trends. It is used to determine the topics discussed on Facebook or YouTube.
- It is designed to collect financial, economic, and statistical data. Tens of thousands of open sources are used for this purpose. FreeLunch is used to determine the cost of game development.
- A tool for conducting surveys. They help to find out how much a potential slot is interesting to the target audience.
Prototyping
Once you are convinced of the feasibility of an idea, it is submitted for development. The following tools are used to create a working prototype:
- The software is suitable for ordinary users who are not familiar with programming.
- A tool for creating animations. It supports JPG, GIF, PSD formats and allows you to download images from different repositories, such as Google Drive.
- This is an alternative to Marvel. This program will be good for those who work with Photoshop.
- io. This is a tool for creating prototypes of game interfaces. No programming skills are required. It is used by game designers and UX specialists.
- Popular engine for slots, mobile apps, and PC games.
Writing the code
To create a full-fledged game you can’t do without knowledge of programming languages. Here the following tools are most often used:
- About 70% of the slots are based on this language.
- An open-source platform for creating single-page applications.
- Node JS. The server side, which is responsible for calculations, functions, etc.
- x. An alternative to Node JS.
- Vue JS. Another platform for creating one-page applications with support for many features.
- Database for collecting and processing information about bets in online games. Obtained information is used for further support of the machine and the creation of new slots.
Testing
The final code consists of hundreds of lines that hide bugs. Bugs are unlikely to please players, so most of them are eliminated before the official launch. To polish the slot, it is run through several stages of testing:
- Multiple runs of the slot machine with different settings. Tester sets different number of paylines, changes the bet amount, etc.
- Testing of payment gateways and compliance with specifications.
- Cross-platform. Running the slot on different devices with different configurations.
- Restarting the machine after errors have been fixed. The testers have to re-run the previous three steps.
- Checking infrastructure and operability when running simultaneously from hundreds of devices.
- Final evaluation and analysis of first impressions. Sometimes the slot is given to the beta test focus group.
This is the way almost every slot machine from the inception of the idea to the final release at any casino site, even at Casinonic Australia.
