Aussie game developer wants to revolutionise land casino gambling

The concerns of land casino operators that the critically important millennial generation is showing less interest in traditional casino gaming in favour of more skill-based activity is now well known, and this week an Australian online games developer, Daniel Visser, came forward with a possible solution.

Visser has some credibility; his Melbourne-based company Wicked Witch developed the massively popular mobile game Catapult King, which has been downloaded 30 million times and counting.

Visser claims that land casinos have not significantly changed in the last 50 years, and are consequently out of step with the demands of the up-and-coming millennial generation that will provide much of the industry’s potential business in the years ahead.

It’s a demographic that has grown up with digital appliances and devices, along with sophisticated recreational machines like PlayStation, Nintendo and X Box delivering high-end graphic experiences.

Armed with modern technology and an appreciation of millennial generation needs, Visser and his team have embarked on an initiative to develop a skill-based gambling experience for Las Vegas casino visitors that will appeal to millennials, starting with a gaming version of their hit product Catapult King.

The format for the game involves the player shooting medieval siege catapults to knock down castles; if the aim is good enough and the castle falls, rewards will be achieved.

“We went through lots of different versions, the mechanics with different versions and how it sits on top of the math model,” Visser said in an ABC interview this week.

“What we’ve got now we think is a good balance of rewarding the people who are good but not neglecting the people who are not so good.”

Visser’s new idea sits comfortably within recent Nevada gambling laws that permit skill-based computer games to be played in casinos.

Independent observers in tune with millennial thinking say that games with the right sort of appeal have to present a reasonable kind of challenge where the player can improve and ultimately has a chance to beat the house.

Above all, the player must feel assured that the game is not rigged against him or her and that skill counts.

And, they warn, young digitally literate people these days have a vast range of available and interesting entertainment and pastimes literally at their fingertips…they do not need to travel to a casino, and the attraction therefore needs to be strong and appealing to them.

Balancing the gamer and the house’s need to win is the challenge Visser faces, and he is aware of this, saying:

“The casinos of the future are going to look very different to what they do today and we saw that as an opportunity and a market that we are jumping into.”

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