Five taboos in mobile gambling game development

As the mobile market continues to grow, many developers and new companies are looking for unique content to stand out and succeed. Although mobile gambling games are no longer a small market, this content still has great potential and platform expansion, especially in the United States, where online gambling legislation may be further relaxed.

Zynga's Poker, Big Fish's Casino, and Bash Gaming's social gambling games have all found success in the mobile gambling market, but there is still a lot of room for growth and innovation in this field. So, how do you find your own success point without several years of experience? As a veteran who has worked in this field for many years, I have listed here the five major mistakes in this field over the past 15 years, hoping that later generations can avoid them when developing future mobile gambling games:

1. Don’t tie yourself to the first platform

Even though you may have started out making games for one platform, that doesn’t mean it’s always the right platform for your game. New studios and game companies invest a lot of time, money, and research into new technologies, keeping the mobile gaming community up to date.

When we first developed Bingo Bash, we used the Adobe platform because it was the best fit at the time. As the game grew and changed, we realized that multiple platform options might be the best way to reach the most users and also the most fun thing to do when developing the game.

You may always be at a crossroads in terms of platform selection. Every game company needs to improve, which is inevitable. When crossing platforms, you must be willing to try new platforms, because no one knows which platform will be the final winner.

2. Don’t waste time blindly imitating others

For game imitators, all content is not difficult to obtain. Successful and popular mobile games will have many companies copying them and hoping to bring good luck to themselves.

Many studios are producing very simple and repetitive games without any creativity or imagination, especially when it comes to mobile casino games. Hundreds of mobile casino games have never been able to outperform the original, and none of them seem to be focused on a specific demographic or market. This strategy of "copying success" may work for fashion companies or Hollywood remakes, but in the mobile casino space, it's a waste of resources, time, and development dollars.

If you’re in a highly saturated market, use existing hot spots as inspiration, but never copy something that’s already out there because you’ll never be able to outdo the original.

3. Don’t launch a game without understanding the market

You and your development team may have a great idea for a mobile casino game, but to make sure you are on the right track, you need to do more. It is best to make a list of the needs of your target audience, as well as the elements or features you need to add, and have a preliminary consideration of the competition you face.

You may need to consider:

Who are the target groups?

What are the favorite games of this type of players?

Does your game need social features?

How does your game differ from your competitors?

How do you make your game the same as your competitors?

What kind of visual effects are more attractive to your target audience?

There are many more things to consider, but the key to success in mobile casino gaming is to put the players first and foremost, and you can make appropriate improvements based on the players' feedback.

4. Don’t release the game without market feedback

First, find a test market and don't release it publicly until you meet the requirements. Canada is the best test market, and I can't express my gratitude to Canadian players. Canada is a great country in helping American apps find bugs and user problems and improve products.

Any mobile gambling game that is going to fully enter the US market will not succeed without first getting some user feedback. You can research your target market and competitors until you know what you are facing, but the best way is to let players test your game to find out their likes and dislikes, your game's shortcomings, and ways to improve. Many games are not even satisfactory to the developers themselves, so how can you get the attention of players who are more picky than you?

5. Don’t be afraid to mobile new content

Find a gambling content, game or new idea that hasn’t been mobileized yet and bring it to life. This is what I did with Bingo. Years before Bingo Bash was released, I researched the mobile gaming market and saw a lot of poker games, but no bingo. Were these games really not suitable for mobile platforms? I thought it was not the case, so I took the risk and launched a mobile gambling game called Bingo, which now has over 1.5 million DAU.

When it comes to gambling games, whether online or offline, the gaming experience is not easy to handle on mobile platforms, and the small screen makes it difficult to provide a good gambling gaming experience.

We sought to release Bingo Bash exclusively on iPad, knowing that we would reach a much smaller audience, but also knowing that we would have a richer experience because casino games can be a more exciting and rewarding experience on a larger screen.

Developing casino games in the mobile space is very unique and challenging, and requires real-life knowledge. Players who like casino games also like to play these games in real life. This requires developers to refer to some real-life factors in the planning of the game and apply them to the smaller 2D screen.

Article from: Game Panorama