Yossi Barzely, Chief Business Development Officer at Pragmatic Play discusses the growing clamour for innovation within the industry and why making the community the heart of gameplay seems the next step for the iGaming industry.

It is no secret that the iGaming market has become progressively more saturated in recent years. Be it more games being added or more suppliers developing standout content than ever before, there is an ever-increasing demand amongst players for providers to differentiate. If this is done strategically and with insight, suppliers can get immediate cut-through and appeal to players with different interests, which is well looked upon by operator partners. As a global industry, iGaming is one that focuses on innovation, with all stakeholders striving to develop entertaining and engaging products. 

As things currently stand, games that provide a real sense of community, with unique features and opportunities to interact with other players from across the globe, are having their moment in the limelight. This phenomenon has been developing for a while but may have been accelerated further by the drastic reduction in physical social interaction experienced across the globe during the recent pandemic. Developers and operators are now increasingly tapping into the player’s desire to see more community aspects in their gaming experiences.

Enhancements, trends, and differentiation

For us, it’s all about riding the waves of change and delivering exactly what our customers and players want when it comes to entertainment. After all, business is about agility and the ability to evolve with the needs of a client. However, when it comes to creating titles, or enhancing existing games with new features, our approach is to create games that will add to the market, rather than just create filler content. We have found that a game can only be truly successful if it has the right mathematics and immersive gameplay behind it.

At Pragmatic Play player engagement is key to our value proposition. This is why we created our Drops and Wins promotion. Not only we are giving away €1,000,000 per month across our award-winning games, we have also expanded it to Live Casino titles for the first time – paying out prizes in both Weekly Tournaments and Daily Prize Drops. Tournaments are an important gamification feature in many supplier’s portfolios, encouraging a healthy competition among participating players, while Prize Drops randomly reward players. Drops and Wins is a vital part of our offering as we look to give back to the community while enhancing the gaming experiences of thousands of players.

Pragmatic Play is committed to delivering the next engagement solutions that will resonate with a wide range of players. There are so many topics that seem to dominate the discourse at the moment, from pays anywhere content to multiplayer products, RNG-style games and even Web3 and the Metaverse. The possibilities for iGaming are so immense, that the only boundary is seemingly imagination. While we keep tabs on all of this, we only create products when we know we can make a positive difference in the space. 

Flexibility and ability to evolve

One entertainment that has generated huge excitement in recent months both in terms of enjoyment and engagement is Crash games. The simplicity of these experiences and community aspect they provide are facilitating the growing popularity of the genre. Crash-style games provide an abundant source of fun with the entire experience built around suspense, which influenced our decision to design our first game of this type, Spaceman. 

Available from 24th March, Spaceman is set to provide players with a multiplayer experience, providing speedy outcomes, interactive features, and striking visuals. Increasing the engagement further are live leaderboards and chat functionalities, so players can enjoy the interstellar experience together, while intuitive gameplay combines with an optimised UI for a retention boost. A key feature of the title is the unique 50% cashout option, which allows players to bank a portion of their bet, giving them the opportunity to provide their own strategy in this unique title.

It is a space that truly brings the iGaming community together, with players winning or losing together, braver ones potentially winning more, but risking more, or those that play it safe enjoying small wins and witnessing the action.

Looking ahead

The online slots world is increasingly become diversified, making it harder and harder for a supplier to provide overarching content enjoyed by everyone. Players are separated by preferences for cascading games, high volatility 3×3 titles, crash games or multiplayer content. What makes this industry so exciting is the breadth of it, and the next 12 months will see further segmentation of the industry. A major focus for us will be continuing to diversify our portfolio, of both slots products and our wider multi-product offering, where we continue to add value as a leading supplier of numerous verticals in key markets. 

We believe it’s all about truly listening to feedback and delivering customers and players exactly what they want when it comes to engagement. 2022 will see exciting innovations, familiar mechanics resurge in popularity, and above all, content evolve around player preference. It will be an exciting time for all, and those that achieve real progress will be those that aren’t afraid to be bold and listen to players.