This time last year, the question on everyone’s lips in the gaming industry was, “Are skill-based games going to work?” Today, the top question is somewhat different: “Are you on mute?”
Admit it: 12 months ago, the only time you saw the word “Zoom” was in a comic strip. Now you probably have a Pro subscription and wish you had bought the company’s stock when it was just $62 a share. (As we go to press, the closing price was $433.23). Likewise for Google Meet, GoTo, Messenger, WhatsApp, FaceTime and the dozens of other virtual apps. While most casinos today are back in the real world, their back offices are still “masked up” in more ways than one and completely “virtual.”
This decade was a nine-month learning process. Woe to those who were caught unprepared when the pandemic caused things to get strange in March. In their recent “Year Ahead” issue, Bloomberg Businessweek wrote, “This past year has been grim, solitary and deeply traumatic.” They quoted Dartmouth economic professor Diego Comin as saying, “Remote learning, massive virtual conferencing, leisure that has a large digital component. Because we don’t have any other alternative now, we had to try them with a positive attitude.”
But for some in gaming, the changes forced by pandemic restrictions came too fast and all at once, regardless of their attitude. The annual NIGA (National Indian Gaming Association) trade show and conference was one of the first victims. The tribal gaming world looks forward to their trek to sunny San Diego in the spring. Not last year. And not even virtually—the technology was still too new and untested. By March 12, NIGA Chairman Ernie Stevens threw in the towel and announced that the show set for March 24-27 was “postponed.” He wasn’t alone. Every day in March, April and May, there seemed to be news of another closure, cancellation or rescheduling.
Today, widespread COVID-19 vaccine distribution and/or herd immunity are still months away, but great progress has been made in our ability to use newer technologies to adapt and to achieve some sense of normality.
Compare the NIGA show’s cancellation with G2E 2020. While the “normal” Global Gaming Expo at the Sands in Las Vegas was cancelled, they did have time to pivot to a virtual event that kicked off on October 14 with most sessions held on the 27th and 28th. The AGA (American Gaming Association) was the official host, using Reed Exhibitions to make it happen. Cait DeBaun, AGA’s senior director of strategic communications and responsibility, said “We’re doing everything we can to provide that same experience online. We’ve never done anything like this before, but that’s never stopped us.”
This was one of the first “big” events held virtually. Not everything was perfect. Just like we all have noticed that our Zoom calls in the spring and summer would often feature participants struggling to control their microphones, cameras and computer settings, things are getting better, but far from perfect. Can anyone not laugh when a recent viral video showed an attorney at an on-line court hearing appearing as a forlorn kitty since his daughter had turned on his “cat filter?” And who hasn’t seen the numerous camera shots showing way more personal clothing (or lack thereof) than intended?
But those blaring mistakes had largely been corrected by G2E’s virtual 2020 event. The big issue, of course, was that everyone missed the live face-to-face interactions. On the plus side, no one complained about the reduced travel and accommodation costs, booth setup & teardown, the sore feet and strained vocal cords. There was also the benefit that the web opened many sessions to a broader audience than ever before. While there were new faces, attendance at any participant’s virtual booth was substantially down compared to the three-day Expo floor hosting 30,000+.
Reed’s event director Korbi Carrison said, “We quickly learned that moving to a virtual event format allows for new opportunities like enabling more diverse participation from the global gaming community.” That has been the big lesson in the latter half of 2020. We are beginning to understand what virtual can, and cannot, provide.
One event last year was near perfect. It had the advantage of learning from those who went before, and it benefited since most its participants were card-carrying geeks (or, more correctly, Information Technology professionals). That event was TribalNet, held November 10 and 11.
If you’ve never worked with Native American gaming, you may have never heard of TribalNet, or its newer, more-inclusive parent, TribalHub. “Net” is a cooperative association that started as a sharing network for IT pros working in Native America casinos over 20 years ago.
The commercial gaming industry has always been overly siloed, both internally and externally. In other words, commercial casino competitors have never liked to share what they called “proprietary” practices. That’s somewhat normal, but not when most non-Native operators declared that absolutely everything they do is “proprietary.” Early Native American teams with minimal gaming experience realized that working together in peer groups was critical to develop best practices and better products.
Accordingly, the computer folks in IT started sharing information, and worked in tandem with technology vendors to develop the strongest SOPs and products for their industry. As part of that mission, they organized the first TribalNet event 21 years ago. It was like a mini-G2E but focused just on IT and technology. TribalHub expands that role to offer consulting, education and general operations.
TribalNet worked, and worked well. Today, many Native American operations are among the technology leaders and are often the preferred sites for gaming vendors to explore and test new products.
Shannon Bouschor, TribalHub, Director of Operations
With that background, it was certainly no surprise that this group might be the best-equipped to host a virtual conference near the end of 2020. Not only could they benefit from the good and bad lessons of those earlier virtual events, but most of their attendees were “techies.” Shannon Bouschor, Director of Operations for TribalHub, said they began their planning with a few objectives, one of which was, “let’s not try to replicate everything that we do face-to-face, but still make it enjoyable.”
She noted that, “obviously, activities like golf tournaments and cocktail sessions would never happen. Yet we still realized that we needed to have some fun to encourage engagement. We used a lot of ‘gamification’ to offer prizes, leader boards and the like. An event cannot work well if you’re doing nothing but staring at a screen.”
Having a tech background didn’t hurt, as the organizing group had experience in evaluating systems and finding the best software platforms to host various aspects of their event. They also had some huge advantages over a global show like G2E, in that their audience is small, close-knit and focused just here in the U.S.
Their “normal” show had been set for the Gaylord Convention Center in Grapevine, TX and would have attracted about 400 participants. When they went virtual, the same 400 were all on board, along with many others who normally don’t make the travel squad.
With their software, they were able to run up to five concurrent events without interruptions, each with diverse contents and each with the ability for participants to get questions and answers on the side.
Again, learning from previous shows, they realized that video and sound quality were critical. Bouschor says that they examined multiple providers to find one that delivered the highest quality. Ram Patrachari, the CIO/VP of IT at Viejas Casino & Resort near San Diego was a conference attendee and said, “the video quality at TribalNet was a key factor that set this show apart” from others he’s joined recently. A column on a Google Developers website echoed the same sentiments: “The video quality of your meetings and online events speaks volumes. It is sad to say, but if you’ve got a beautiful visual setup, people will listen longer and be more interested in what you have to say. It’s part of a well-known cognitive bias called the ‘halo effect’.” The halo effect is the tendency for positive impressions in one area (such as crystal-clear video and good sound) to positively influence your feelings in other areas. No matter how good your presentation materials, poor video and sound can hurt your message.
Of course, cameras and microphones are important at the source, but the video conferencing software platform also plays a role, along with good connection speeds.
Both Patrachari and Bouschor said “size also matters.” In other words, it’s far easier to be successful in a virtual conference with 400 attendees than it is to target an audience five or fifty times larger and one that is both domestic and international like G2E. The same applied to vendor presentations. TribalNet had just 60 different booths, compared to hundreds more at the larger shows.
Despite their success, Bouschor said “we can’t just stay where we were. Expectations change all year long for any kind of event. What the industry needs now may be far different by the end of 2021.”
Most casino executives are optimistic that we could see a return to semi-normal by the fall. However, that does not mean that virtual is going away. Most believe that the future will bring a mixture of in-person and virtual experiences. Patrachari thinks the sooner “live” events return the better, but also said, “some activities, especially educational sessions, may remain virtual with the enhanced ability to have sidebar discussions with chat features and to attract a broader audience.” Bouschor added that, “Both the hosts and the attendees have different points of view… and they are forever changed.”
TribalNet is hoping to be live for 2021 and are again planning to show up in person in Texas in the fall. Hopefully, if your event remains virtual this year, it will be wildly successful based on some of the excellent lessons that TribalNet showcased a few months ago.
You can learn more about TribalHub at www.tribalhub.com/
And, one footnote, as a bit of news just came in: NIGA just announced that they would be holding their 2021 event live on July 20-22 in Las Vegas instead of the traditional early spring date in San Diego. It will be a hybrid format with both in-person exhibits and educational sessions done either live or on-line. Details should be coming soon
