As smartphone penetration continues to skyrocket, social casino gaming on mobile devices is a growing market with huge potential although competition is fierce, Jamison Selby, Vice President of Games at b Spot said at iGaming Asia Congress which kicked off yesterday. “We need to stay competitive by going ‘mobile’ in a growing online gaming market. It’s growing very quickly compared to the land-based operators of casinos,” said Mr. Selby.
John Oh, Director of Neowiz in Seoul added that there has been a growing demand in the mobile gaming market since 2007, with about 1,600 million global mobile users in 2015 and expected to grow faster than desktop users. He indicated that in social casino games in Korea, mobile devices generate 59 per cent of the revenue, while PC takes the other 41 per cent. The iGaming expert also added that video ads not only help boost revenue but helps increase the retention rate of customers.
Online social casinos are considered to be a huge market to be explored. “Currently, only 2 to 3 per cent of players pay to play at online social casinos. However, for example, a company in the US makes approximately US$1 million per day. In social gaming, you have a huge amount of gamblers worldwide,” Kevin Li, CEO of Inteplay, said. “A lot of algorithm in land-based casinos can be applied to online social casinos. We launched an integrated game of slot machines last year. Now we have more than one million players”.
“People will be more relaxed in social gambling. They invite more players to join the game. There are many ways to keep them attracted. Going to gamble in a real casino is more time-consuming compared to online social casinos. They use their phones to play on a daily basis and for social gambling. It’s more like a competition and they want to show off the results to their friends,” said Mr. Li.
Virtual reality technology has been adopted to transform the horseracing viewing experience, said Oonagh Chan, head of broadcasting for Hong Kong Jockey Club. Ms. Chan said that adopting new technology is one of the means of attracting a new demographic.
“We’ve been using mobile devices in virtual reality games to enhance immersive experiences for horseracing,” said Ms. Chan. “Taking online gambling into a virtual casino for horseracing, therefore increasing customer engagement, have information digitized and providing virtualization of horseracing as an alternative.” She added that the current technique can do this including: Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard, YouTube 360-degree videos and Formula 1 immersive 360.
“We need to keep people engaged for longer in social games. Although the cost is high, it will go down as camera equipment is getting better as well as the content,” John English, president of WEBE Gaming, added.
Source: Macaubusinessdaily
