Interactive
US – Report highlights potential of facebook to slot player migration
By Phil - 13 March 2014
Huge investments into social games on Facebook could yet pay off with one report confirming that almost half of free-to-play social gamers interviewed would pay to play a fully-fledged gambling version of their favourite slot.
Traffic Generation surveyed a focus group of social slots users and found that 44 per cent of players answered ‘yes’ when asked if they would ‘pay to play for their favourite Facebook games online or at a physical casino.’
Traffic Generation CEO Andy Caras-Altas said: “Land-based operators should be encouraged by the player’s desire to play social games in a
land-based casino. For suppliers with land-based content (IGT, High5, Aristocrat etc) this provides a compelling case for pushing their digital content into the online space. There is clearly a demand and opportunity to build land-based players out of their social play. Operators with the capability to bring their games to land-based casinos would have to make decisions about partnering with land-based providers.
“This response also validates the now widely accepted position that land-based social casino content performs, in the US market at least, better than pure online content,” he added.
The study also asked players ‘why do you like to play social casino games on Facebook?’ with 46 per cent stating ‘because I can play with/against friends.’
Mr. Caras-Altas added: “The social aspects associated with Facebook are still clearly important motivators for players. Given that all Facebook casino apps have the core social hooks already (basic leaderboards, invite friends, shares) then operators have the opportunity to become more attractive to players by enhancing this shared experience. This can be through providing higher visibility to friend’s play, multi-level tournaments across devices, team-based activities or any other feature that would cater to both the competitive and cooperative players.”
