Hello!
Each week I’ll be sending out a mail that highlights a particular game. I’ll explain how it works, how it makes money, and why it’s particularly important right now. Feel free to pass it on, to tell me to stop emailing you, or to suggest particular games or genres that you’d like to know more about.
This week’s game is Slotomania. You can play it on Facebook, iOS, Android, or web. It was created by Playtika, an Israeli studio founded in 2010. 2.1m people played it today, and 6.6m played in the last 30 days.
How does it work?
Slotomania is a social slots game. Social slots look very much like regular online slots games, but you can’t win any real money. Instead you win coins with which to bet, XP (experience points) which add up and take you from one level to the next, and access to mini games through which you can win multipliers. Levelling up is important because at certain levels, new slot machines and increases to your maximum bet are unlocked. There are a small set of Facebook-connected social mechanics built in: you can invite friends, send gifts of coins to your Facebook friends, and collect gifts from others.
How does it make money?
You can buy coins using real money – players will do this in order either to make more spins, or to stake more coins on their spins. It might seem counter-intuitive for people to spend real money playing a gambling game in which they cannot win any real money in return. But social slots games are among the highest monetising per user, and although they often attract fewer players than more mainstream games, the revenue they generate means that they are among the most profitable.
Why is this game particularly interesting?
Slotomania is particularly interesting because of its part in triggering the explosion of investment in social gambling games.
Slotomania was one of the first big Facebook hits in the genre. That attracted the attention of Caesars (owner of the famous Harrah’s, Bally’s, and Caesar’s Palace casinos), who bought 51% of Playtika for c.$90m in May 2011, and exercised a two-year option to buy the rest just seven months later. Shortly thereafter, Doubledown Interactive was acquired by IGT for a stonking $500m.
There are two main reasons for the interest of established gambling companies: (1) access to a huge number of potential real money gamblers (whose lifetime value can reach hundreds of dollars), and (2) the prospect of the legalisation of online gambling in the US, where Facebook has a huge footprint.
But the conversion of free gambling players into real-money gamblers is not a given, and legalisation of online gambling in the US has been just around the corner for rather a long time now – so the acquisitions in this sector are themselves pretty big gambles (pun bonus, woo!).
Give Slotomania a shot, and let me know what you think of it. Enjoy!
Todd
P.S. If you’d like me to send you the previous Game of the Week emails – on Amazing Alex, Candy Crush Saga, Living Classics, Plants vs. Zombies, Triple Town, and Matching With Friends – just let me know.