A leading expert in the slot gaming industry, Guy Hasson has been at the forefront of innovation, offering strategic insights that have helped shape the future of slot gaming for over 16 years.
Question: You’ve mentioned that the biggest problem for slot companies today is over-saturation. Can you elaborate?
Answer: I think there isn’t a slot company who isn’t feeling the pain of over-saturation. More than a hundred new slots are released a week. It’s harder to keep a slot alive for more than a few weeks in the online casinos because they disappear into the back of the lobby. It’s getting harder to breathe.
I think what slot companies are missing, though,is that their solutions to over-saturation are causing more over-saturation.
For example: They’re trying to create more slots faster, which is easier with AI. Giants like Games Global, Aristocrat, and more are buying up more and more studios so as to increase their relative percentage of the pie. But the pie keeps growing and they keep releasing more games with their multiple studios. So these strategies are actually causing more of the exact thing they’re trying to fight: over-saturation!
Question: If ‘more’ is not the solution, what is the solution in battling over-saturation?
Answer: There’s only one solution: Branding. And to be clear, I mean branding to the players, not the operators or casinos. You do that as well, but it’s a different thing.
Right now we’ve got on YouTube regular people who have a following of 400K, 500K and more, whose every daily video gets more than 100K views. Meanwhile, the biggest multi-billion dollar slot companies in the world are getting 86 and 150 views per video.
The slot influencers prove that there are millions of people who want to see slot content every day. If you play your cards right and do the content right, you could also get 500K subscribers who actually actively want you to advertise them. Because it’s you who actually makes the product they love!
You can activate your community when a new slot is released and everyone goes to play. Your percentage of players goes up in a big way at the launch. And they play your game longer – your income is now multiplied. And then they return to it. And they tell their friends. And they remember for next time and your next slot. So your income is multiplied, multiplied, multiplied and multiplied again.
Brand is–
Question: Excuse me. Can’t better-performing slots also solve the problem? I’ve seen you talk about this as well.
Answer: Oh, yes. There are a few methods to get double, triple, and even X10 times as much out of existing slots as you get now.
Here are just two strategies I recommend to my clients.
One: Being memorable in the online lobby. All slot names and all slot icons, or logos if you prefer, look more or less the same. So if you turn away, five minutes later you can’t remember the game name and you won’t recognize the game logo to save your life. So how can you expect players to find the game and return to it when it’s not at the top of the lobby?
Creating a memorable name and slot icon gets you more players when it’s at the top of the lobby. Then it gets you players who come back to look for the game and actually find it when it’s not at the top of the lobby. And it gets you an additional boost when players don’t look for it but find it by accident when it’s in the back. If each of these improvements is 40%, together they become a 274% improvement. If each of these improvements is 60%, then you get a 400% improvement.
I talk about methods to be memorable in a way that doesn’t allow operators to change your game name or icon. But there’s no room for that here.
Another great strategy to increase a slot’s income by even more than that is what I call ‘The Holistic Method’.
What it means is that you start with marketing.The game designers go to the marketing department and ask them what they could say about a slot that would make the marketing go viral. Marketing thinks outside the box and says ‘If I could say X, my posts and ads would go through the roof’. So the game designers design a game that has X and is a great game.
Then the marketing team posts all over the place ‘This is the game that has X’ and the posts go viral, because what they say is true. And because X is viral.
So the ads are viral, the marketing is viral, and so many more people play the game and for a longer time.
Not only that, but the marketing department can milk that X for a year or two because X is such a great idea. And suddenly the game has a great shelf life for years instead of two weeks! That’s gold!
The trick is to start at the end: Marketing. Otherwise what you get is the bland marketing statements you always get: This new game has feature X. It’s got a huge win so and so. Join the adventure in the desert/circus/whatever.
See the difference?
Question: Then why isn’t improving the income of slots what you recommend? Is something wrong with it?
Answer: Oh, I recommend it and help with multiple strategies. But in the long run it’s putting your finger in the dam. The dam will still burst.
Question: Then let’s get to it. What do you mean that slots should build a brand? Don’t they already have big brands?
Answer: Slots today spend their brand-building energy on building a brand to operators and casinos, not to players. Slot companies are horrendous in talking to players. I mean, we’re talking about 86 or 150 views per video. And they all have their comments turned off. That’s horrendous. Their videos generate no excitement, no community, no follow-throughs.
I’ve found that slot companies are really afraid of opening themselves up to criticism. I mean I’ve talked to a head of a huge studio who was deathly afraid he might get a bad comment by an unknown person on YouTube.
I’ve interviewed quite a few slot influencers, and they all agree. You have to open up to comments. It’s the only way to build a community. Bad comments won’t kill you. Closing yourself off to comments will kill you. You get info from reading comments, both good and bad. Your followers will take care of the trolls for you, which also helps build a community. Don’t be afraid. Comments are the best thing that can happen to your community-building.
Slot companies also instinctively know they shouldn’t do what slot influencers do – which is play games. But they can’t figure out what they should do instead. So I’ll break it down to four categories:
𝗔𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀: Their audience needs detailed reviews. Focus on providing comprehensive insights and evaluations of slots and casinos.
𝗦𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘀: They love to play, and their audience loves to watch. Create engaging and entertaining gameplay videos that showcase the fun and excitement of playing.
𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗼𝘀: Showcase your unique offerings. Highlight your views, hotels, machines, games, restaurants, shows, and overall experience to attract visitors.
𝗦𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀: Find a unique way to show that you care about your players. Highlight player-centric features, innovative designs, and community engagement to build trust and loyalty. And most of all: Show that you really care and listen to the players!
What slot companies should do is show how much they care. And they should mean it. Which right now they don’t.
So to do that they actually have to start a process of listening to players, understanding players and not just data, and genuinely caring. All these things are really tough because none of them are done by slot companies. It’s a change of attitude that has to come from above and from within, authentically and not cynically.
Question: Why should slot companies go through all that effort? Is the ROI on it clear?
Answer: What’s the ROI on the Nike brand? In a world flooded with different shoes Nike can withstand anything short of a brand-destroying scandal. It doesn’t matter how many shoes other companies create, the brand for Nike is strong. People look for their shoes regardless of the over-saturation of the market.
Branding is the one solution that is totally future-proof and over-saturation proof! It doesn’t matter what your company size is. If you have a huge brand and following on YouTube, you will punch X10 and even X100 above your weight. Imagine what that feels like! You won’t have to drown and fight with more and more slots. You’ll be Nike! You’ll be above the fray.
That’s the one thing you should take away from this. Branding to players for free, organically on YouTube will make you over-saturation proof and allow you to punch X10 to X100 above your weight, depending on how good you are in branding (not slot creating).
And you’ll be the genius who went down the winning path while all the other companies just added to the pie and tried to keep their heads above water.
Question: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.
Answer: Thank you for having me!
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