Opinion: The messaging opportunity
Robert Haslam, senior consultant at B2B technology MarComms agency Big Ideas Machine, looks at the opportunities of messaging for egaming companies
From the flurry of recent announcements, it is becoming increasingly clear that messaging apps are emerging as the new platform battleground. Messaging apps have always been an important part of any mobile OS toolbox, but they have also proven to be highly fickle; once dominant market leaders such as AOL Messenger, MSN Messenger and BBM have since been supplanted by WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and WeChat. When Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19bn in 2014, it seemed like a crazy amount. Particularly for a company that had never made a profit.
To help win the next phase in the mobile wars, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple and others are using a mixture of AI and ChatBots to evolve messaging platforms. This appears to stem from the popularity of chat-as-a-service messaging platforms in Asia. Weixin, the Chinese version of Tencent’s WeChat app, enables users to complete a variety of tasks. These include booking taxis, checking in for flights, playing games, managing banking or even donating to charity.  Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple are all betting their futures on platforms like these.
At its annual I/O developer conference, Google recently announced Allo, its latest messaging app that integrates with Google Assistant, the evolution of Google Now (Goggle’s Siri equivalent). With Allo, Google Assistant will proactively make suggestions during a conversation. For example, if you ask whether you should have Italian, Allo will suggest Italian restaurants and enable you to book.
Both Facebook and Microsoft are also betting on ChatBots through APIs that give companies the ability to create bots within Facebook Messenger and Microsoft Skype. In both cases, users can ‘have a conversation’ with a company to do things such as book hotel rooms, buy clothes or deal with customer service issues. They won’t be speaking to real people though. They will be talking to bots, programmed to become more intelligent over time and mimic human like interactions.
A bot is essentially a piece of code, or software, that runs automated tasks and as a technical concept, they are not particularly new.  They’ve been around for nearly the entirety of the internet. Anyone who remembers Clippy, the-often-annoying Office assistant will have experienced a bot.
Throughout their history, bots have been used for malicious reasons such as cheating in games, placing last-minute bids on auctions and luring people to porn sites. In other words, bots have thus far had a largely awful reputation. More recently, Microsoft launched Tay, a bot designed to act like a teenager that Twitter users managed to turn into a racist, drug taking, highly offensive bot that Microsoft swiftly shut down.
Apple is also going to be opening up its Messages platform to developers. With iOS 10, developers can create apps that work exclusively within the Messages app. With these ‘in Message apps’ users will be able to do what they would otherwise use a third party app for. Rather than iOS proactively providing the app it thinks a user wants to use, the user will be able to select from the services they already use.
Apple is also opening up Siri to third-party apps, meaning that you will be able to book an Uber, without launching Uber. Apple has been very vocal in its stance on user privacy, with any AI taking place on the device rather than the cloud.
So what does all of this mean for the egaming sector?
Already, Siri can provide users with predictions on sporting events. Noel Tate, senior product manager at Adverts.ie, asked Siri about the outcomes of 10 Premier League Games in April. Noel put €10 on each of Siri’s predictions – a total of €100. The result? Siri delivered a return of €135.45 – a hit rate of 6/10 and ROI of 34%.
With intelligence already built into a service like Siri, it is easy to imagine the ability to reply to odds with ‘place a €10 bet on team X to win’. There is a clear opportunity for the egaming sector to be present on these messaging platforms. It is here that people spend the majority of their time on mobile. Providing useful information and enabling users to make bets could be helpful for big sporting events.
Within messaging apps, the same is easy to imagine. With Facebook Messenger or Skype, ChatBots could provide odds for different games, enabling bets to be placed. With Google Allo, it could be possible to use Google Assistant to bring up odds and place bets. Or within Messages, use a betting app extension to place a group bet. The only barrier is whether the platform owners allow gaming companies to integrate their services.
Apps with real-money gambling have been banned on Google Play. It stands to reason that Google won’t be opening up Allo or Google Assistant to gaming companies. While developers may be able to go through iMessage on iOS, using Siri may be off limits to begin with. While Apple has announced that Siri will be able to deal with payments, it isn’t clear whether they will include betting apps.
There is no denying that these new services offer a significant opportunity for egaming companies. Anything that makes it easier for people to place bets can be a boon to business. From a marketing perspective, being first to these platforms will yield attention and first mover advantage. With many of these services not due for launch until the Autumn, questions remain about which approach will win.