"The real magic in slots lies in managing the expectations of the player"

Alexander Shtachenko, the leading product manager of iLogos, told us about why people play slots, how users are kept in them, and also how the behavior of players in casual projects differs from the behavior in slots.

Photo: parxcasino.com

Hi! Let’s start with the basics: how is the gameplay built in slots?

Alexander Shtachenko

Hi! Slots are the same free-to-play that we are used to seeing in other games. The same rules of engagement, retention and conversion work there, which have already been written about in more than a dozen articles.

The user starts the game, receives a reward for entry and loyalty in the form of bonuses from retention mechanics and social gifts. Then he sets and achieves short-term and long-term goals in the form of the same progress, opens a new slot, for example. And, most importantly, it spins. Spin is the core of the game, a simple one-button process that is accompanied by a bright, spectacular video sequence.

But there is one important deviation from the usual picture of the game as a whole – the slot player comes to lose.

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Wait, what’s the pleasure of losing?

The real magic in slots lies in managing the expectations of the player. When playing slots, the player has patterns of losses, winnings, and especially large winnings recorded in the subcortex.

So, at the moment of waiting for a big win, the player’s brain produces dopamine – this is such a neurotransmitter (read on wiki). It is at this moment that you can do anything with the player. Especially ask to bring. You change the pattern a little and delay a BIG win by several dozen spins, for which the player runs out of chips. The feeling of “almost”, the feeling of not getting enough, increases the motivation to pay. He pays, a couple of punches, and here he is – a happy moment with bright animations. At this moment, the player gets joy not from the prize itself or its size. The player rejoices that he knew that this would happen. It seems to him that he has solved this damn black box. In fact, it’s all math and a good backend.

And then he gets hooked and we guide him through all the content. There is no limit, friends. Ask the developers of the top slots.

It turns out that a simple genre has deeply “got into” the psychology of the player. How did it happen at all?

Historically, it was slot product companies that invested in expensive analytics, research in psychology and decision-making more than 5 years ago. It was the game designers of this genre who invented, implemented, tested a number of mechanics that jumped into other genres.

For example, studies of the target audience of slots 5 years ago, women over 35 – housewives, showed a funny moment. They sit all day, they don’t know where to put themselves, they drink with the neighborhood moms… Still watched “Desperate housewives”?

So, it turned out that they do not receive recognition. The husband brought the money, the husband took the family to the sea. What about her? Did you feed the baby and wipe your ass? So this is a child – well done that he ate, that he pooped, so that his tummy did not hurt…

In general, they do not have enough achievements. By adding achievements to the game, a woman compensates for recognition and gets joy even for minimal achievements, thereby she will pick up a tablet and start playing as soon as she feels the need for praise. By the way, it works in all genres. Three-in-a-row developers should also adopt this.

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And who is playing slots today? The same women over 35?

Here, by the way, Newzoo has released a fresh report. Let’s take a closer look at it.

As you can see, the well-established stereotype (that slots are for older ladies) has been at least a year, but not a cake. Back in November last year, I published a note on this topic in my blog. Even then, Newzoo changed the perception of the market as a whole. Even then, their specialists considered that 46% pay in slots. Today they say that this figure has reached 52%. Even then, men dominated among the payers. Then many did not believe it, and some saw it as a trend and made slots for boys.

It is important to understand who you are making the game for. It depends on what it will be, what setting you choose. If, for example, you decided to file a casino for the same grandmothers in the old-fashioned way, then you need an IP from the Public Domain, such as “Volshenika from Oz” or “Jack and the bean”, good “expensive” Vegas-style effects and a good server. If you know where to buy cheaper housewives 25-40, then it’s worth digging in the direction of the Disney cartoon or machismo. But if you heeded the instructions of Newzoo and decided to make a game for guys, then the whole fantasy world is open to you. How is it in the song about Game of Thrones? “Tits and dragons forever.”..

I know that Zynga is currently pursuing the following policy: it merges traffic to slots from its three-in-a-row. How effective is this strategy, in your opinion?

These audiences overlap. I remember statistics from EEDAR, in which there was information that more than 80% of the entire American store somehow played three-in-a-row. At the same time, about 35% play in the casino genre. Simple math shows that the intersection of the audience is in the range from 15% to 35% for the market as a whole. And if we consider only the casino genre, then at least 45% (maximum 100%) of casino players play three-in-a-row. The truth, as often happens, is somewhere in the middle. And we can say that about 60% of slots can be attracted from three-in-a-row.

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We have come to the conclusion that the audience of casual games and slots intersects, but does its behavior differ? I mean, is there a difference in the behavior of the casual audience in slots compared to how they behave in the more familiar three-in-a-row for them? How exactly is it different?

Audiences are similar, but pay differently in three-in-a-row and slots. This is the mentality, the culture of the States. A user who runs three-in-a-row when there is a need is ready to pay a maximum of a dollar to slip through. In a casino, the situation is completely different – it is normal for a user to load $50 into chips if he plans to play longer, but on bigger bets.

The fact is that casinos for Americans are not what we see in the films about James Bond. This is a vacation, vacation, entertainment. You have to pay for entertainment. To make it clearer, I will give an analogy: when you are going on vacation, say, to Egypt, then you plan the budget of the trip, how much money you will spend. If you decide that you want emotions from diving, then put +€120 into the trip budget. So here, the player decides that he needs these emotions, and he deposits $ 50 bucks into the account in the form of an IAP.

By the way, due to the fact that players pay better, as a result, retention in slots is better than in three-in-a-row. A loyal payer will always stay in the game longer, thereby they raise the indicators of Long Term Retention.

The gameplay in slots is very monotonous, then how do you manage to keep the players (what do the developers do for this)?

Content. A lot of different, cool, high-quality and relevant content. The mathematics and algorithms in the casino practically do not change, so it’s enough just to change the skins for the slot machine to increase LTV. I remember at a conference in Lviv, the PM from Playtika – Lyudmila Bezdetnaya – said that they were preparing a new slot in 2-3 weeks. And there is a need for even faster updates. Basically what you need: a skin for the slot, icons, animations, mini-games and a bit of meta content.

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By the way, which retention values are considered good?

From public (paid) data, such as SuperData and Thinkgaming, we see approximately the following figures for the Top 10 slots: D1 – 35%, D7 – 25%, D30 – 8%, D90 – 6%. But from my practice, the real numbers are higher.

It should be noted here that slots can be divided into 2 types according to the principle of building a balance in FTUE (First-time user experience). Some merge the player on the first day, thereby providing a quick ROI and identifying potential whales in order to bring down on them the full power of the system of offers and paywalls. This approach has both pros and cons, and early retention in such games is low. The second type is those who engage in the game for a long time, and the first drain is not located on the first day. Paywalls stand in places where the player has already become involved, has fallen in love with the game and does not want to part with it.

I have met with data according to which slots have an average market retention of the first day of no more than 20%. Can you comment?

It’s a strange rumor. I haven’t heard that, my numbers are really different.

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The next logical question is: why does slots earn so much?

Here, despite its obviousness, the formula works: Audience -> Setting -> Features -> Balance -> Content -> Marketing.

We must remember that the sites do not feature slots, so you need to have a scaling strategy right away. Either this is a cross-promo (as in the case of Zynga), or a commercial UA, or maybe you have an ace up your sleeve to get players virally. In any case, at the beginning it is necessary to clearly understand what kind of audience you can attract, for what money. And when you understand who you are making a game for, then choose a setting, a feature set and set up the math. Then it’s a small matter – to stamp content, attract players and count money.

Slots don’t seem to be loaded with complex gameplay, they earn a lot – why doesn’t everyone rush and make these games (everyone does three-in-a-row and strategies with role-playing games, which personally seem to me to be much more complex products)?

Moreover, now companies that have slots in the clip have begun to sell them (in whole or for spare parts). There is not much demand, however.

In general, there are two reasons. The fact is that not many people are ready to engage in slots at a competitive level. I mean meticulous operation, deep analytics, round-the-clock support and super high-quality production. This is the second reason.

And the first one is banal. Companies don’t have the money to compete for traffic. You should not go into slots if there is no money to scale.

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What trends would you highlight in slots today?

Despite the fact that it seems that the gambling market does not change, and the same ones are in the top, you can pay attention that the real action, breakthroughs and fights for the user occur in the range from 10 to 50 places of the US grossing. And there are periodically shooting new games that are gaining momentum.

I would single out the next trend – slots for a narrow audience. Simpler UA, more free keys for ASO, lower marketing rates, specifics in game design and content production.

What, in your opinion, as a person experienced in their development, is the most important thing in slots?

As in other games – it’s attention to detail, mathematics and deep analytics. Math for slots is one of the bottlenecks in game design. And not because there are super-complicated formulas, but because there are almost no specialists for this. The vast majority of game designers are not able to solve this problem: they are about features, about creativity, about narrative. That’s how it turned out that making a cool balance that converts is already a super task.

As for analytics, it goes much further than standard MAUDAURENTENSENYU. Here it is necessary to pay attention to such subtleties as the size of paywalls, their frequency, and the equivalent in dollars. If the player feels that he is being bred, he will leave. It is analytics that shows where and what should be redone. Separately, it is worth noting traffic analytics, its quality, characteristics. There is such a traffic that it needs to be squeezed out quickly, because it will not live to the end of the content (to the maximum LTV). And then you turn on a split where the drains happen more often.

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Final question: what features, in your opinion, are very lacking in games of this genre?

I would say otherwise. Other genres need to take slot features. Moreover, from traditional AERM features to the operation of the engine and balance.

Slots, especially those in the cash Top 20, are perfectly balanced, there is nothing superfluous, such as unnecessary social components that distract from spins.

I see, thanks for the interview!