Synergizing Casinos and Arcades

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October 14th, 2017
Back Synergizing Casinos and Arcades

Once upon a time, I was quite an avid gamer. As the needs of adulthood have burdened me, that has become decreasingly less the case. In fact, I haven’t played a new video game at all in the last five years.

I am reminded of a character named, “Syzygy,” from a cool action game (sort of an FPS) called, Unreal Tournament whose tagline was, “Liandri: Bringing you the world of tomorrow...today.” Anyway, it’s a great game that opened to fabulous reviews. For those of you who enjoy that sort of game, I highly recommend it, and it has actually aged fairly well.

I’m not here to talk about video games, though. In fact, what brought that character and quote to mind is a company called, “Synergy Blue,” who is bringing a concept of Hybrid Active Wager-based Gaming (HAWG) to casinos across America and the world. Basically, they are hoping that they can bring us the casinos of tomorrow...today!

Synergy Blue is a company that is focused on developing hardware and software that will deliver Video Game/Arcade experiences to the casino atmosphere. If you want, let them say it in their own words here on their website.

Essentially, Synergy Blue believes that they have identified a weakness in the current realm of casino gaming. That weakness, as proven by the demographic-based and general machine revenues, is that casinos are having difficulty attracting Millennials to their properties and getting them to actually gamble.

Unreal Tournament Video Game

Granted, this is not necessarily as much of a problem in some casinos as it is in others. For example, casinos along the Las Vegas Strip have focused on clubs and party-type atmospheres in order to get the target market to spend their money in other ways. Unfortunately for most casinos, they do not have the luxury of being located on the Las Vegas Strip, so the only thing they really have to attract the younger market is game selection.

As we all know, and as has been reflected in other studies that I have published here, Millennials tend not to have the discretionary income and average annual gambling spend as do those more well-established older adults. However, Synergy Blue understands the need to focus on the future as well as the present, and as a result, realizes that these Millennials WILL EVENTUALLY BE the older adults with disposable income. That being said, it is important to develop, manufacture and distribute games that will attract this generational demographic for years to come.

The fact of the matter is that, of the disposable income that these Millennials do have, many of them are not spending it in casinos. This generation prefers a much more interactive experience and will not be entertained by sitting in a chair and passively hitting a button just to see what results. This age group is going to need something more than that to keep them interested, at least, for longer than five minutes.

Millennials-and-Gambling

It is not that Millennials are a difficult market to cater to, it is simply that they are a different market. They have grown up, in many cases, and witnessed rapid changes to technology and increasingly have become accustomed to interactive experiences. Essentially, Millennials are not passive individuals, they are active ones. They have grown up with games and toys (Video Games, phone apps, computer games) in which there is a direct interaction between player and device. Therefore, Synergy Blue understands the need to combine direct user interaction with gambling devices for the future.

Synergy Blue may not be the first developer to pursue active casino type gaming, but they are a pioneer in the field. Quite frankly, if they have the funding, I believe that they can eventually become one of the most successful companies in the field over the long run. The reason I say that is because much of the skill-based gaming developers have interactive components, but many of those components involve gameplay mechanics and graphical quality that existed prior to Millennials even being born. Basically, many other developers are trying to bring Atari into casinos.

Synergy Blue is much more forward focused than that and shows a clear understanding of their target demographic. What they are striving to do is bring enhanced technology, exciting graphics and compelling gameplay to merge with existing system-types, and in some cases, to have a type of gameplay that is ENTIRELY interactive.

In order to comply with all applicable state laws, Synergy Blue is pursuing gaming options of both the skill-based and non skill-based varieties. Showing a full understanding of the law, Synergy products are going to be customizable in order to adhere to jurisdictional Class II and Class III minimum and maximum return gambling codes in all of the states, as well as abroad, if it comes to that. (I hope it does!)

Synergy-Blue

Additionally, they are focused on providing a wide variety of arcade gaming types in order to attract different segments of the market who have different game preferences. These include platforming games (think Mario), first-person shooters, puzzle games, word games and driving games, to name a few.

Naturally, Synergy has taken the needs of the casino into account as well. In addition to providing interfaces that can easily be adapted to extant manufacturers and game titles, they also feature a fully customizable hold percentage and bet rate settings so that the casinos may enjoy the percentage House Edge that they want and the rate of play they want. In fact, the goal of Synergy is not to try to revolutionize the actual process of gambling, considering that they endeavor to offer games with the same hold/volatility as traditional reels, but rather to revolutionize the way that the gambling is done.

The only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not the casinos themselves will choose to join Synergy at the forefront of technological innovation to cater to a market that they seriously need to start appealing to in a major hurry. If you cannot get that generation interested in casino gambling now, then unfortunately, the casinos will be facing an even more difficult challenge in getting them interested when they are the demographic with the most discretionary income.

“Synergy Blue is pursuing gaming options of both the skill-based and non skill-based varieties”

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