Opinion: How to get your development priorities in order

In business strategy it is often the case that the rhetoric will be way ahead of reality and in online gambling I think this is the case with mobile-first development. Often the intention and thought process will be correct, but the situation on the ground will be very different.

It is partly about PR and perception. After all, you can’t be a market leader in any area of online gambling and not say you are doing what everyone else is doing with mobile otherwise the customers will question why they use you.

But it is also about practicalities. As new markets come on tap in the emerging jurisdictions of Africa and South America we know that a large slice of revenues is still very much coming via desktop. Suppliers to those markets will be loath to shift focus even as they juggle with the shift to mobile in their more mature markets.

To reiterate here, desktop still has an important role and in many product development instances it is easier to start working with the largest possible device your product will be played on and then looking at how to scale down. Unlike with the more nimble and agile small- and medium- sized enterprises in the area, in the larger organisations many flash developers are still transitioning to HTML-5 skill-sets and the companies also have a huge back catalogue of games they still need to maintain and adapt to mobile and tablet devices.

What comes next?

But this isn’t just a debate about mobile. The evolution of wearables is set to move the market one step further ahead and I can see TV in-play also moving into new territory with a TV betting interface controlled maybe via your phone or the remote. Gambling will need to be moving alongside these type of developments or it will lose the customer to more engaging social gaming or eSports offerings.

Mobile and tablet also have differing roles to play in omni-channel environments. In casinos, tablets can be a route to play, while the mobile can play the role of ID and account verification in many retail gambling environments, allowing the operator to know not just who the player is, but also what their playing history is and what type of offering would be best to give them, whether it is a concierge service or a bonus. Outside casinos, meanwhile, omni-channel means players can be targeted who are proximate to the casino, notifying them of marketing offers to entice them inside.

What truly provides the impetus, though, is what mobile can mean in terms of revenues. Through our own consumer-facing tests, we have found that you stand a better chance of gaining market share on mobile than with desktop. There are some clear reasons for this; with desktop, there are double the amount of games available and the player base would appear to be much more set in its ways and hence more liable to stick with old favourites. This isn’t the case with mobile where the players were more willing to trial new games and were also more free-spending with a higher average spend per bet and more being spent in a session.

So given this, why the mobile-delivery shortfall? My inner UI/UX gut feel is that it is best to invest time and effort into working with the space available, and trying not to cut corners just to trim the development budget. Players will always appreciate products that make life easier for them, and having a mobile-tailored UI is now a hygiene factor for most customers. Smartphone ‘real estate’ is limited and with your mobile UI being top-notch, they won’t even give you space on their phone.

Yet, at the same time I am well aware of lean business practices and the need many businesses will feel to start bringing in revenues and data at the earliest opportunity to validate assumptions. Indeed, sometimes you have to de-scope focusing on many areas and come back to it once you are covering costs and have good traction.

Perfecting the experience

This isn’t just a debate between the UI/UX designer and the chief financial officer. Within most businesses there will be many who will believe in the lean business approach and will be conscious of costs. They always say that a product doesn’t have to be all pretty and polished before it can be launched with the consumers.

As a product person running a department and in charge of a budget you have to find the right balance, on the one hand trusting your experts and delivering revenues at the earliest opportunity to satisfy senior management while not ruining your products chances of success from a player having a bad initial experience.

That balancing act will be a continuous one, for the simple reason that the products are always constantly evolving, from the graphics and animations to the game mathematics. But I know this is worthwhile, as the games will end up performing better in the long-term. This is often how innovation works, incrementally and through a mix of competitor research and internal development.

Mostly that is now happening on mobile environments. It is where the consumer is, and it is where the best developers are as well. If any online/digital gambling product supplier isn’t in that space right now, then they are in danger of seeing the market pass them by.