The significance of innovating the gaming industry is a topic that needs to be discussed as technological advances and quicker internet speeds mean the slower-reacting operators around the globe will soon be left behind.
The digital world is experiencing significant growth and the awakening of emerging markets increases the business pool, with billions of potential consumers down the line becoming more tech savvy.
The gaming sector is one of the fastest growing industries in the tech sector and the potential for dynamic, visionary growth is evident. But, unfortunately a sense of sameness has started saturating the market.
The simple truth is that there are very few original suppliers of world-class products in the betting sector, and a host of companies are trying to replicate their business model. This is not a sustainable model, especially for invention and innovation.
BetGames.TV COO Aiste Garneviciene is a team leader of arguably one of the more innovative live betting and gaming operators. The company has twice been named as being in the top 50 tech companies in Europe.
Garneviciene extrapolates the topic of the need for innovation across the board – and dissects the notion of who is driving invention in the gaming sector, be it the supplier, the client or the end-user.
She believes the axis is complete when all three stakeholders play an equally valuable role in the innovative process. “I would say the best partnership to drive tech and new ideas forward is to take the 3 stakeholders and forge them into one team,” she added.
“As business leaders we have to be brave”
“The players are one of the first telling points of a need to create something new in the space, and operators/clients can learn valuable feedback through their end users … this feedback then goes full circle back to the supplier.”
All businesses are driven by the user-end experience and this is evident in the gaming sector. It is no secret that consumers want products, ‘quicker, better, faster’ and as such the industry must adapt at a rapid pace.
“It is of crucial importance that we should increase the need to innovate and not sit back on our laurels … as business leaders we have to be brave, because the truth is without innovation there will be nothing new and that halts progress,” explained a determined Garneviciene.
The course of the next three years will be important in shaping the customer experience and providing them with a unique, fresh and vibrant range of games, where the feeling of prediction supersedes the notion of guessing. These fresh-thinking games provide the users with a more interactive experience, and psychologically it is important for the end-user to feel more involved in the outcome of the hand.
The needs of the consumers are constantly changing, and this is a generational factor, considering the consumer grew up in a world of video game platforms. Slot play for example, is often considered not graphically enhanced enough, and has even been labelled boring.
The new millennial market is more tech savvy, but also crave human interaction. Finding the balance between tech and the human-experience factor is innovation at its finest. The live betting experience is gaining much traction.
Garneviciene addressed innovation in live gaming at last week’s CasinoBeats Summit alongside Ciara Nic Liam, product director of gaming at Betsson Group, Ross Parkhill, director of casino at Gaming Innovation Group, Cristiano Blanco, head of gaming at Kindred Group, Stanley Willers Ho, CEO of HoGaming and Neil Walker, founder of Live Casino Comparer, as moderator.
For a snippet of the discussion check out the video below.