To see how technology can shape casino gaming, look at data-driven enterprises such as Formula 1 racing or the video game Roblox, Shayan Sanyal told G2E attendees.
Each Formula 1 car generates 1.1 million data points per second that are instantly analyzed during a race and compared with historical data, said Sanyal, who leads Global Games Industry Business Development at AWS. The worldwide popularity of Roblox, which reached 111.8 million daily active users this year with its ability to let players choose from millions of user-created games, is “radically different” from what current adults enjoy and could foreshadow a change in the types of games casinos offer.
Sanyal’s comments came during the Oct. 6 panel discussion titled “How Technology Might Shape Gaming’s Future.” Also on the panel were Patrick Bland, chief technology officer of Acres; Andrew Burke, CEO of Las Vegas-based slot manufacturer Bluberi; and Scott Melnick, vice president of Interactive Systems Development for AGS. Mackenzie Haugh, chief delivery officer for Gaming Laboratories International, moderated.
Melnick said even the staid pastime of bowling has gamified itself by enabling players to compete against bowlers anywhere in the world. He called a front-office hesitancy to adopt new technologies a significant barrier to advancements in the gaming industry. “We’re in a risk-based industry, lots of regulation required, (but) there can be a bit of the lag sometimes, especially with the Cloud.”
Burke said many CEOs and CFOs are reluctant to invest in technology projects, given that the immediate cost is so high. “It’s super easy to say it’s not broken, so we don’t need to do that right now. But it’s a debt that you’ll eventually have to pay,” he continued. “(These technologies are) going to make exponential money three years from now.”
Bland suggested regulatory changes could speed new products to market, such as allowing a potential new game to be tested in a limited area on a casino floor to determine if it’s viable. “Let’s work with the regulators to give them status reports. That gives us the ability to fail quickly. If consumers don’t want it, what’s the point?” He also said that a game that wins approval in one jurisdiction should qualify for “express-lane” approval in another.
Panelists predicted artificial intelligence and other technologies will enable casino operators to hyper-personalize each customer’s experience, from instant reward offers to responsible-gaming efforts.
“We’re seeing the convergence of experience, media, entertainment, sports betting, gaming, and potentially user-generated content in the betting industry,” Sanyal said. “We have to consider that future generations of players will want to play different kinds of games.”
Bland noted that collection of customer data can range from “creepy to cool,” so operators must tread carefully. He cited public reports that some operators have seen their customer personalization efforts result in an 18 percent increase in time on device and a 22 percent increase in return visits. “It’s right on the cusp of the cool version of the data continuum,” he said, “but we’ll have to find out over the next decade or so where we land.”
Sanyal predicted that increased personalization of the player experience will lead to new forms of betting. “We’re going to be able to democratize gameplay worldwide and adjust it in real time for different demographics, different categories of players.”
Burke noted that even though the technology is available now, operators haven’t embraced real-time offers to customers. “We can do that. We don’t,” he said. “People are making various amounts of progress, but the shifts (over the next three to five years) are going to be probably smaller we want them to be.
“The promise of great technology doesn’t necessarily mean better gaming products,” he said.
