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Posted At : November 24, 2008 11:14 AM | Posted By : D McKee
Related Categories:
G2E,IGT,Marketing
Liz Benston has an excellent précis of the bells and whistles on display this year at G2E. The money quote is: Some Nevada casinos offer Bally’s iView — a small screen below the game that displays a gambler’s account and offers casino promotions — and will soon offer touch-screen games from IGT that allow players to order cocktails, view and print coupons and make show reservations.
Try to get a slot exec to tell you what server-based gaming has to offer the player and you can't much past this. (IGT's Ed Rogich, to be fair, went a bit further, but our conversation was off the record.) And the bad news for manufacturers is that these kinds of targeted convenience-and-marketing services are already being enabled without having to wait for networked gambling. (Four words: Las Vegas Gaming Inc.)
So, after years of server-based gambling being the Great & Powerful Oz, is this what it's come to be? (Remember how you had to sign away the movie rights to your first-born child to gain admittance to the triple-secret downloadable-slot booths at past G2Es?)
Call me crazy, but slot boffins need to talk less about how networked gambling is going to make life easier for casino owners -- who can't afford to go "all in" with the technology anymore -- and more about why John Q. Public should be wanting, nay, demanding it. Because, in an economy where casino companies are paralyzed by debt, significant implementation of server-based gambling isn't likely to happen without a big push from the players themselves.
The R-J's roster of reluctant bloggers is about to expand to include Howard Stutz. Or so it would appear. I came across a link to an alleged Stutz blog this weekend but only found a head shot and an otherwise blank page. Those crackerjack Stephens Media IT people must have errantly made a beta site "live." Meanwhile, the paper's answer to Harry Hope from The Iceman Cometh (and its newest blogger) used his Sunday column to -- you guessed it -- make fun of blogs. Darn those horseless carriages!
Help me, David. I thought the biggest benefit would be the ability to choose which game I wanted to play. My wife and I are very specific about which machines we like, and if they're occupied, we'll go next door. I figured that SBG would let me choose fram a bumdle of IGT or Bally games, to help eliminate that issue. Is that not the biggest focus of SBG?
You're right. Strangely, when you ask slot execs what the customer benefit will be, they blow right past the wider-selection issue and start blathering about how you can order drinks from your slot machine, get comps and promos without leaving your seat, etc. They really seem to think that's THE value message.
Are you that gullible? To believe a marketing dweebs blather? Of course you are! The goal of all these "windows" is to get player to gamble more. And to gamble more while they are drunk on their free drinks. I'm surprised at you! You are normally only brain dead not completely clueless!
How gullible can YOU be Dave? The days of sitting at a slot and getting drunk for next to nothing are gone. The purpose of the drink order feature is to "Rate" your play, and if you aren't running enough money through, the drink will come much more slowly. It will, of course, be blamed on some type of computer glitch. When's the last time you were in Las Vegas?
The last time we played slots (at Fiesta Henderson), the slots went through our money so fast there wasn't even time for a cocktail waitress to manifest her presence.
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