Friday view: Lessons from social gaming

The smaller and more agile social gaming companies seem have handled the transition to mobile better than their real-money gaming counterparts. We ask Vicenç Marti, CEO of Akamon, what lessons can be learned? 

It is fair to say that some real-money gambling companies have handled the sweeping transition to mobile far better than others, but online operators need only cast an eye at their social counterparts to see what can be achieved.

Many have argued that social gaming companies – with the core of their business focused on creating products instantly engaging enough to keep players around long enough to pay – have simply adapted to the challenge on mobile far better. If this is the case, it stands to reason that these companies have a lot to offer in terms of advice.

“Mobile changes everything in the company,” Vicenç Marti, CEO at social gaming company Akamon, says. Every facet of an online gambling firm’s operations will have to change or at least adapt to the different demands of developing a successful mobile offering has. The profiles and skills of the development team are all different to those that might have previously worked on desktop offerings, and retraining these staff members is a timely process.

Marketing is also a completely different beast on smartphones and tablets. Viral campaigns have been considerably less successful on mobile channels and, as a result, any marketing efforts need to be much more precise in nature. Facebook’s mobile advertising platform has emerged as an enormously powerful tool, yet Marti puts real-money gaming operators two years behind the social casino industry in their understanding of it.

This extends to other social media networks like Twitter or indeed Snapchat, which Betfair has recently began to advertise on, with presences on such networks now mandatory. Ad-discovery and cross-linking sites may be able to complement any marketing initiative on mobile, but the essential position is now on these social networking mediums. “It’s not about just understanding where the users are, it’s about understanding how to use them,” Marti says.

Tablets and territories

“If we boil it down to the game development process itself, one of the things that we’re learning is having an initial game concept that maximises the utilisation on mobile platforms – something that’s especially true on tablets – is essential to later on succeed,” Marti says.

The differences between smartphones and tablets, despite being collectively referred to as mobile devices, could not be more marked. Screen sizes, processing power and social opportunities are all larger and improved on tablet, but so is the user expectation. “The wrong step to take is to think that every mobile platform is the same,” Matri says. Instead, tablet should be viewed as an altogether different platform with different strengths.

Bingo-type products traditionally fare much better on tablet devices given the required software interaction and chat functions that are difficult to replicate on a small screen. The larger screen size lends far more weight to the creation of an immersive media experience that people typically tend to spend far more time playing.

“It depends on the number of the social pitches you want to include and you need to become gritty in how you approach each platform, and that’s without mentioning the enormous difficulty of the Android ecosystem,” Matri says.

Recent data from IT research firm Gartner revealed that Android was the operating software of 62% of tablets sold throughout 2013, meaning that if you want to develop on tablet then an Android-based product is simply a must-have.

This also rings true for territories outside of the UK and Western Europe, where entry-level Android devices with limited screen resolutions have become increasingly popular. Some features prepared for iOS or high-end Android devices will not translate to these and, as a result, testing at the resolution level before a product nears release is also necessary.

There is now far more of a need to be ambitious with testing any mobile-related product on as many platforms as possible to ensure they are ready for release. Putting out a product that doesn’t work or looks like a badly-translated port from another platform simply won’t cut it any longer. Purpose-built products are now the norm and, above all else, they must be fun.

The fun factor

Matri argues that RMG operators became too preoccupied with regulation and regulated markets and as a result failed to innovate their products to the required level. “Most players ended up with skins of Playtech products, which was very good for Playtech but not for the players,” he says.

This lack of innovation only played into social casino’s hands and allowed them the room to compete on a more even keel for a user’s time. There is a huge demand on mobile devices for people to have fun and interact at the same time, something which gambling games are more than prepared to provide. What is key however is making this element of fun accessible.

“What’s an extremely attractive proposition for the user that could be adapted for the real-money space is ensuring people have a honeymoon period,” Matri says.

Operators may be considerably less enthused about handing over potential winnings in the name of fun, but social gaming companies have managed to court users in search of fun while simultaneously targeting paying players with great success. Allowing players with no deposit intentions might seem pointless, but retaining these players has led to great success.  “Don’t push people away and understand that every user is a probably long-term customer,” says Matri.

Competing for a player’s leisure time may be a new concept but it’s one RMG operators are now beginning to get used to. More and more development has been taken in-house and original games are being churned out at a greater rate than ever before.

Convergence between real-money and social operators may still be possible, but for the time being RMG operators stand to learn a considerable amount from just how well social gaming companies have performed in the face of new challenges and what it has done to the face of their companies. “It basically changes the entire DNA of a company,” Matri says