Design Works Gaming’s Founder and CEO, Troy Zurawski, discusses why online casino operators need to rethink how they approach content
Over the past few years, we’ve observed online casino content move in a similar direction to television. It may now seem like ancient history, but for decades, consumers were served by just a handful of major television networks.
It has only been in the last 30 years or so that this dramatically expanded with the addition of cable TV networks, and even more so during the last decade where we’ve seen the explosion of streaming content, led by Netflix.
The Netflix model has seen an increase in the amount of content consumed, because it has been better matched to the consumer. Netflix is a far more engaging proposition than channel hopping between 10 different shows, all of which you don’t really want to watch.
This has been driven by the creation of far more niche content targeted at small groups of users; it doesn’t matter whether your preference is far hard-hitting real crime documentaries or bad rom coms – Netflix has the volume of niche content required to keep you engaged.
Content wars
It is time that the trail blazed by Netflix inspires a similar transformation in the way content is delivered to online casino users.
For too long, operators have not been incentivised to try something new with content. With casinos packed with thousands of titles already, conventional wisdom suggested that adding a few more won’t make a significant impact to an operator’s bottom line.
But learning from the Netflix example, and understanding the importance of serving customers within specific niches, turns the model on its head.
When online casinos curate a wide-ranging suite of games that appeal to niche audiences, it provides a unique opportunity to attract new players and retain them better than titles that are designed to appeal to the masses.
This is how new content becomes the driver of incremental revenues. You aren’t adding a new game to give your average player 2,001 titles to choose from when they previously had 2,000. That new title is there to engage a small sub-section of your users who perhaps weren’t quite finding what they were looking for previously, and were considering taking their business elsewhere.
Trust the data
Ultimately, for this approach to work, you need to trust the data.
When we design our games, we aren’t subjective. I’ve worked in studios where storyboards were judged on opinion and taste, and I can tell you from experience, it simply doesn’t work.
It is an old way of thinking, that a few tastemakers know what everyone wants. Netflix, and the more progressive casino operators out there, are showing that the data is what connects you to hidden niches of players who were previously underserved.
It may be counterintuitive sometimes, but we ask our partners to trust our opinions and recommendations, and we can point to 15 years of success at Design Works Gaming across land-based, social and RMG as to why that might be a good idea.
At the heart of all of this is a new type of relationship between content creator and operator. I understand why main online casino operators view suppliers with suspicion, because many of these suppliers are after only one thing: the top spots on your casino homepage.
But whether you place Game A or Game B there is not going to change the player experience or your casino’s performance.
That’s why we focus heavily on building deeper relationships with our operator partners. We’re all about finding ways to make our content work for you, and that means letting the data lead, and working together to connect the right game to the right customer.
Because as Netflix has shown us, content is ultimately about whoever is consuming it.
Read full article on G3newswire.com
