Online Casino Developments – Slots Are Still Favoured by Industry Heavyweights
With virtual and augmented reality threatening to break into the mainstream, online casino industry insiders had speculated over whether internet casino games were about to enter a transitional phase.
The sector has been known to evolve and move with the times, and it is expected to integrate these new platforms in the near future. To get an indication of the direction the industry is heading in, it’s a good idea to look at the market leaders and see what they are doing. Microgaming is still putting a heavy focus on slots, which suggests that online casinos are not quite ready to move into the next phase.
Slots Are What the Players Want
At the current time, it is still clear that state of the art slots are what most players are looking for when it comes to online casino games. Slots are the main selling points for operators when they are trying to attract players, and a wide number of bonuses are centred around this game type. There are sites that even list all of these promotions out so players can see where the best casinos are. For example, the SlotsCalendar free bonus no deposit list has over sixteen recommendations about where to play slots.
Microgaming has been in the online casino industry since 1994 when the company claims to have created the first online casino software. Ever since then, the developer has stayed at the forefront of the sector and has set the benchmark for others to follow. The fact that Microgaming is still heavily invested in slots suggests that the games will be around in their current form for a while longer. In April 2020 alone the Isle of Man-based studio released more than ten games including Arena of Gold, Diamond Force, and The Vault.
Developers Will Wait for Wider Rollout of New Technology
When the Oculus Rift was released in 2016, developers in all branches of the gaming industry scrambled to create software for the revolutionary platform. Microgaming created its VR Roulette at that time, and the developer clearly believed that VR would be big. It didn’t blow up that year as expected, though, so most of the leading developers decided to put their VR projects on hold while waiting for more advancements with the technology.
One of the reasons VR failed to break into the mainstream four years ago was its price point. The projections now reflect how more households are expected to invest in VR when newer generations of the hardware are released, hence lowering the price of those that came before. The market is expected to be worth $120 billion by 2026. For this reason, online casino developers like Microgaming may be looking to that year as a turning point in the sector. They are likely to continue to make their best-selling products in that time while experimenting with new advancements in VR.
It will take something big to push slots off their throne as the top online casino game, and that is why the main developers are still focusing on this area. Later in the decade we may see more of a shift in the industry towards a new stage in the evolution of casino games.
