It’s not our job as customers to understand how casino games come to life, but it would be a good lesson that might help us understand why certain products have such a huge impact. So, let us take you through a quick journey behind the scenes of the casino game development process.
We will cover all the steps a game goes through, right from its initial stage up to the grand launch, while also looking at how a game developer has to behave and how the game development steps look through the eyes of an actual doer.
Casino Game Development: The Developer Perspective
Being a good casino game developer will require you to understand the industry from a multilateral point of view. You are not just working on a game. You have to make it appealing to millions of players and compatible with several devices and operating systems.
Casino developers are complex individuals who understand how the human brain works, how it can be triggered, and what the distinct elements are that make a great game from a psychological standpoint. On top of that, developing a slot machine or any other type of casino game will undoubtedly create the proper context for you to collaborate and share concept ideas with the artistic team, sound specialists, and game designers.
In the state of the industry at the moment, there is actually a lot of science behind creating and launching the perfect casino game. You can call it “the secret recipe” if you want. The majority of the biggest studios out there are using it, and after several dialogues, in order to create a casino game, there are 6 stages you have to go through:
- Target Audience Research
- Create The Concept
- Develop The Technical Parts
- Test Your Product
- Promote Your Game
- Launch Day
Research And Establish Your Target Audience
At this stage, a developer or a team of developers does not even know what they should work on or what kind of game to develop. So, a thorough research session has to take place. After multiple brainstorming stages, the developer has to be aware of what type of game the next product will be, what the main mechanics are, and establish the basic concepts like “classic game,” “fruit-themed slot,” “jackpot-based gameplay,” and so on.
This is more of a decision-making process that helps developers establish what they should focus on. It’s not a stage where they should create the concept, but establish what the framework is. All the other designers, developers, programmers, and marketing departments will receive their tasks as well.
Create The Concept
In this stage, the game finally takes shape because the entire team is working on giving the game its personality, elements, and, basically, the whole look of the game. Considering how similar all casino games are, it is also the most important step of the entire process.
Creating the concept is vital for the success the game is going to have. In the conceptualization stage, big studios that have enough budget and resources will always aim to create the next most successful game in history. This is how games like Shining Crown, Gates of Olympus, and Sweet Bonanza were born.
Here is a short list of actions developers have to take in this stage of the process that will help you achieve a clearer image of how important the concept is:
- Choosing a theme
- Writing the storyline
- Creating characters and symbols
- Deciding on how the atmosphere of the game should be
- Picking the most important identity elements like colors, sounds, voice lines, graphic effects, and celebration animations.
- Establishing what the special features are.
- Choosing to collaborate with big brands in order to put their artistic products in a casino game and signing deals or obtaining licenses.
The Development Stage
This is probably the process stage that will take the most time to conclude. This is where developers get to actually build the game from scratch, assemble all the pieces, and optimize the game for desktop and mobile devices.
Also, if the new slot game will be subject to promotional campaigns, developers must also integrate certain messages, functionalities, and software so the game can be compatible with online casino bonus promotions.
HTML5 is the state-of-the-art technology at the moment, which is the back-end part of the project. Everything has to link and work seamlessly with the front-end part. At the end of development, the slot should work on all devices, have a working payment system and a pay table, and be ready to be tested.
Testing
Testing the game happens on multiple levels. The first testing session has to be done internally by the testing team. These testers will still be in touch with the development team to make sure any technical flaws are solved.
However, there is still another testing step that has to be done by an official institution that has to certify that the game is working properly, it is fair, and that it will not harm the user in any way. eCOGRA is one of those bodies in charge with game testing and ensuring that the RNG system works properly and delivers a fair RTP.
For your information, RTP stands for Return To Player, and it is basically a measurement that dictates how much of the money invested in a slot will be returned to the users. RNG stands for Random Generated Number, and it is a system that guarantees that each spin or bet will have a random result no matter how many bets were placed before.
Promoting The Game
Promoting a game actually starts quietly because developers have to negotiate and partner with operators to make sure players have a place where they can go and actually play the game.
So before the actual marketing, social media, articles, and paid campaigns, developers have to make sure their game is available for the entire world to see, try, and play.
Game Launch
This is actually not so important because the game will be available if the developer starts its marketing campaign. Or you can ask yourself if you were ever excited for the countdown of a certain casino game.
Officially, any game has a launch date, and if you are truly curious to see when the next game from a certain developer is going to launch, you might just check their website. Other than that, it is not worth it for them to invest in promoting the launch date.
They focus more on promoting the game features, theme, RTP, and jackpots, if there are any.
Would You Start Your Own Studio?
Considering everything we have explained above and the fact that big studios are able to launch a new game every week, what do you think about the industry now? Would you be able to build your own game that millions would love playing?
