10 out of 50 US top grossing games are social casino giants, an indication of how dominant this genre is with an massively loyal target audience.
Superdata research predicts massive growth in this segement
You may wonder, why people are sinking millions of dollars in to these games which can not be played for real money! give no cash returns, unlike the real life casinos! & online gambling counterparts!
I remember in 2010 while working at slot machine giant WMS (acquired by scientific gaming for $1.5 billion).
When they launched a variant of their popular flagship (online real money) brand 'Jackpot Party' as an F2P game on Facebook, everyone was genuinely surprised, it racked up 25K overnight!!
Traditional casino gaming manufacturers could not fathom what would drive people to play these no real money counterparts? Have they discovered another virgin goldmine waiting to be explored?
Flash forward 2016, a majority of traditional casino industry titans like Caesars Interactive (owns Playtika/ Slotmania), IGT (owns Double Down Interactive), WMS (owns Jackpot Party) now have a dominant presence in top grossing charts via acquisition and mergers of mobile savvy app companies.
Question: Why people play/pay for such 'no real money' betting games....When you can easily play online or head to nearby casino to the paying counterparts?
The answer of course lies in user behaviour.
But what may hold true of an average person does not hold true of an average gambler. Their intrinsic motivations are quiet different:
For an average person recurring motivation to bet or gamble is the lure of high returns, beating the odds and getting a lucky dip once in a while.
- Engaged gamblers relish the thrill of win and loss, the unpredictability of outcomes, the roller coaster of high rolling ups & downs.
Motivation : In this case more then returns is gambling rush.
It's got more to do with the journey then the destination.
- A massive TA of this genre is Baby Boomer and Millennial (35+ to 60+ demographic) & while casinos do promote themselves as destination for young crowd...
...Ground reality of majority of regular visitors is quiet different
For players in this demographics majority of who are pensioners and retired or working less hours regular visit to casinos for spending time is part of the routine and hence more then occasional gambling it part of their daily time sink.
Motivation : In this case, more than betting is daily routine.
- A lot of people may also be using these games to hone their skills, so they can apply the experience to real money counterparts (believe it or not every second regular casino visitor will have a strategy or tips to handout when it comes to poker, roulette and the kinds)
- 30+ Women, house makers often indulge in playing card games after their daily chores traditionally to kill time and socialise via kitty parties, social casino apps bring the experience right at their fingertips without the need to have other players and at their own convenient time. (Super Data research shows, Latin American middle aged women to be most engaged players)
Motivation : In this case, more than betting is killing time.
- Low barrier to entry via the F2P model, you can buy way more chips/coins for considerably lower investment, play these games a whole lot longer, and probably not feel guilty pangs that you get if you have lost money in a real casino.
Question? Are Social Casino games different from real money games?
The bait is the same but the hooks are not
Social Casino games are not regulated like real money casino games, the stringent rules and testing certification by GLI (Gaming Labs International) the ruling body on real money casino games is not applicable to probability math tables and design of social casino games.
