"I’m not in love with the term skill-based slots," says GameCo CEO Blaine Graboyes. He prefers 'video game gambling machine' (VGM). "Our product looks a little bit like a slot machine. It has a game controller, though, like you would find on an Xbox or PC game. " GameCo licenses existing video games and converts them to a casino-friendly format. "There’s no slot aspect to it other than we have a bill validator and a TITO dispenser. You walk up to the machine, you play a video game for 45 seconds, and your skill determines the payout."
"There’s a small element of chance involved," Graboyes continues. "Our first game has a little bit more than 10,000 maps and the only element of chance is which map you’re presented. Other than the chance element of which map you’re playing, it’s completely up to the player’s skill to get a payout based on their score in the game. Our first game is called Danger Arena. You’re fighting robots. If you take out six or more robots, you’re in the money. You take out 10 or more, you get the highest payout.
In addition to tablets and tabletops, future skill-based games will likely include hand-motion sensors, joysticks, and even eye-tracking technology. The early wave of games will probably be familiar ones retrofitted with skill elements, such as bonuses where the player is given the choice between a free spin and a skill event. The more leading-edge products will probably come from outfits like Gamblit, which saw this evolution in slot play coming six years ago.
It’s also been active in the social-gaming sphere, generating 35 million downloads with its Catapult King mobile-phone game. "Online has been great because we have been able to launch games much faster into the public domain and immediately get that reaction from tens of thousands of users on what they like and what they don’t," said Chief Marketing Officer Darion Lowenstein.
GameCo’s approach has been to marry veteran slot-sector talent with the best minds it can pluck from the video-game universe. It expects to go live in New Jersey late this year. Atlantic City has been looking for ways to refresh the casino experience, as its very existence is at stake. (Voters will go to the polls this November to decide whether to uphold or overturn Atlantic City’s casino monopoly.) Borgata, for instance, hosted a free-throw basketball tourney … a long way from skill-based slots, but you get the idea.
According to the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers, you would start with a base payback of 88 percent. However, with a high level of skill, you could raise that payback level to 98 percent "with blended overall playback selected by operators falling somewhere in the middle."
There are skeptics. The R-J pointed out that, during a recent period in which nationwide slot holds rose 14.5 percent, actual slot revenue only managed a 1 percent uptick. Whether the game-playing millennial can be persuaded to set aside his mobile phone and play a newfangled twist on the good old slot machine is a question that remains to be answered. Millennial blogger VegasFanBoy warns, "There is, despite the general decline in gaming revenue, still a large body of people who enjoy gambling. Skill-based gaming may be intriguing to them as well, but I would be very careful about trying to please the customers you want, instead of the customers you have. The former is more expensive."
