Ask me anything (about slots)!

[snorky510238]

Donuts are very bad for your health, so is this slot.
But I actually start to like it, no massive wins yet but I see and feel the potential.
I enjoy this slot more than Bonanza which is for me one of the worst slots ever designed.

Sorry for being off topic there for a second Trance.

By the way if someone does hit donuts big I hope your the lucky one.

 

[BrianGhattas]

How much money is needed to design a slot and what happens if a slot makes no money for the manufacturer? Certainly, Bonanza, Dead or Alive and Immortal Romance have made a shitload of money for their companies but what about a massive bust such as Playboy Gold or any of Net Entertainment’s latest releases?

 

[trancemonkey]

The amount of money a slot costs depends on many variables... but mainly the more features, the more expensive it is. The more graphics, and the better the graphics, the more expensive it is. The more time you put in to maths, the more expensive it is.

You can be like some of the smaller companies online and just get cheap graphics and produce there games with the same maths but different graphics. They can be very cheap to make... but the bigger games, they can easily be up and over the 250k mark to make.

Games need to have a wide release. The more sites you put a game on the more likely you are to cover the costs. Games with staying power are Cash Cows like those you mention... they will cover the cost of am a bad games

 

[VismundCygnus]

On that note, do you have general goals for each slot you make in terms of revenues? After how many days do you need to earn back what you put in for you to consider the game a hit vs average vs bad?

 

[ddt]

Hi,

I am wondering how slot slots producers always obtain those round payouts. It must be ridiculously hard with complex formulas and rigid ROI. Are video slots designed the same way as ordinary slots:
eg. the reel has 50 stops, so each stop has 2% chance of hitting. Or is it like this: the stop with cherries has 2.538787% chance to hit and the stop with bananas has 1.53544% chance to hit, so that the numbers add up?

Thank you in advance for help.

 

[trancemonkey]

On that note, do you have general goals for each slot you make in terms of revenues? After how many days do you need to earn back what you put in for you to consider the game a hit vs average vs bad?

Well of course we want to make our money back and more so on every slot... But not every slot is successful. A lot of the industry expects around a third of the games to be successful. Of course the measure of success is different for every company... But yes as producers we have targets. If we keep making bad games our job is at risk

 

[trancemonkey]

Hi,

I am wondering how slot slots producers always obtain those round payouts. It must be ridiculously hard with complex formulas and rigid ROI. Are video slots designed the same way as ordinary slots:
eg. the reel has 50 stops, so each stop has 2% chance of hitting. Or is it like this: the stop with cherries has 2.538787% chance to hit and the stop with bananas has 1.53544% chance to hit, so that the numbers add up?

Thank you in advance for help.

It's not that hard actually.. And no not every stop will have the same chance of landing (on most games).

 

[nikantw]

I want to ask about the Mega Moolah, since it is at 9 mil ATM.
I remember an old post that said the jackpot hits radomly, but MG can decide when it is going to be paid. That makes sense, having it go so high now to recover from the tournament cancellation disaster.

My question is about the Jackpot Wheel. When is the win decided? Is it the moment you get the feature, or the moment the wheel stops?
If it is when the wheel stops then you need to spin it as fast as possible before someone else gets the prize first!!

Another question would be how the chance for the jackpot depends on the bet size. I mean, they say it does but is it 2x bet = 2x chance? Or 2x bet = 20x chance? Or .....

 

[zap987]

It's not that hard actually.. And no not every stop will have the same chance of landing (on most games).

This is a bit surprising, as pretty much every game where we've seen the reel strips and analyzed it has appeared to have equal chances for each stop with RTP being correct in simulations. What is even the point of long reels if you're then going to add a 2nd factor with weighting the stops? Microgaming had it on some of their really old slots but those also had 10-12 symbols per reel.

 

[trancemonkey]

This is a bit surprising, as pretty much every game where we've seen the reel strips and analyzed it has appeared to have equal chances for each stop with RTP being correct in simulations. What is even the point of long reels if you're then going to add a 2nd factor with weighting the stops? Microgaming had it on some of their really old slots but those also had 10-12 symbols per reel.

Don't get me wrong... I still occasionally do games with even distribution but it's very rare. Especially now games are much more complex.

 

[Reelsoffun]

Would explain why IGT games are not great lol some real stinkers lately lol

 

[trancemonkey]

Would explain why IGT games are not great lol some real stinkers lately lol

How maths are done has no effect on whether the game is good or not...

The maths itself, rather than the logic behind it, is what makes a game. Whether reels are weighted or not makes not one iota of difference.

I'm not at liberty to comment on the quality of IGT games. It's for you as players to determine whether they are good or not. I dont work in the online department so it's nothing to do with me whether they are good or not anyway.

I'm sure there are people checking out these threads so feel free to share your own opinions and thoughts.

 

[goatwack]

How maths are done has no effect on whether the game is good or not...

The maths itself, rather than the logic behind it, is what makes a game. Whether reels are weighted or not makes not one iota of difference.

I'm not at liberty to comment on the quality of IGT games. It's for you as players to determine whether they are good or not. I dont work in the online department so it's nothing to do with me whether they are good or not anyway.

I'm sure there are people checking out these threads so feel free to share your own opinions and thoughts.

But MetaGU is fair game You're always slagging off other designers given half a chance

Always putting your dukes up, ready to rumble. Don't deny it

 

[zap987]

A lot of the time it does affect the quality of a game though, at least for some players like me. It affects the overall feel of play when you see reels spinning with symbols that never actually land at anything close to the frequency it looks like they should, not to mention if they do stuff like landing scatters just above or under. It is perfectly possible to make a complex game while still giving a good visual representation of actual chances of hitting the different wins.

Of course there are lots of game developers taking shortcuts and in the end producing bad games. One of Netents few decent games in past years is Jungle Spirit, and it still suffers from the awful random feature, has anyone ever won anything on this past 30x bet? If you're going to give the player a 10-30x win, then do that, just throw the coins out, don't fake it and pretend the reels spinning matter. One of the worst on abusing this is Elk, pretty much every single game of theirs feels like it just decides on a win and then finds a spin that matches it. The same game could be done with just doing better maths and letting the reels decide and it would just feel better to play, but I guess the amount of players that think that way is small enough to be ignored?

There are some good examples of games being done right out there, for example 3dice have some where you clearly see the odds in features with a ball dropping in a series of 50/50 chances, like Medieval Moolah and Fortune Falls. I'd be very surprised if those games use any kind of weighting for the reels too.

BTG games just feel right, you can look at the reel strips that have been datamined and compare to your own results and you can see that if the stars align you can win really big, not being capped by some arbitrary number some game developer thought was good enough. If you need something to be rare, just make 150 stop long reel strips like Donuts?

 

[slotmaster]

Trance is going to hate me but I don't like most IGT games and have never been able to do anything on them, My folks, on the other hand, enjoy more titles than me from IGT. Unless IGT is with WMS or aristocrat or is those swear words?.

 

[trancemonkey]

Trance is going to hate me but I don't like most IGT games and have never been able to do anything on them, My folks, on the other hand, enjoy more titles than me from IGT. Unless IGT is with WMS or aristocrat or is those swear words?.

Why would I hate you for having an opinion Plus I don't work in interactive so I don't take it personally anyway...

 

[trancemonkey]

A lot of the time it does affect the quality of a game though, at least for some players like me. It affects the overall feel of play when you see reels spinning with symbols that never actually land at anything close to the frequency it looks like they should, not to mention if they do stuff like landing scatters just above or under. It is perfectly possible to make a complex game while still giving a good visual representation of actual chances of hitting the different wins.

Of course there are lots of game developers taking shortcuts and in the end producing bad games. One of Netents few decent games in past years is Jungle Spirit, and it still suffers from the awful random feature, has anyone ever won anything on this past 30x bet? If you're going to give the player a 10-30x win, then do that, just throw the coins out, don't fake it and pretend the reels spinning matter. One of the worst on abusing this is Elk, pretty much every single game of theirs feels like it just decides on a win and then finds a spin that matches it. The same game could be done with just doing better maths and letting the reels decide and it would just feel better to play, but I guess the amount of players that think that way is small enough to be ignored?

There are some good examples of games being done right out there, for example 3dice have some where you clearly see the odds in features with a ball dropping in a series of 50/50 chances, like Medieval Moolah and Fortune Falls. I'd be very surprised if those games use any kind of weighting for the reels too.

BTG games just feel right, you can look at the reel strips that have been datamined and compare to your own results and you can see that if the stars align you can win really big, not being capped by some arbitrary number some game developer thought was good enough. If you need something to be rare, just make 150 stop long reel strips like Donuts?

150 stops isn't long...

 

[gerilege]

Don't get me wrong... I still occasionally do games with even distribution but it's very rare. Especially now games are much more complex.

Can you please share some examples why it may be preferred to use uneven distribution of reel stops?

 

[deucebag]

A lot of the time it does affect the quality of a game though, at least for some players like me. It affects the overall feel of play when you see reels spinning with symbols that never actually land at anything close to the frequency it looks like they should, not to mention if they do stuff like landing scatters just above or under. It is perfectly possible to make a complex game while still giving a good visual representation of actual chances of hitting the different wins.

Agreed. Reel stops and displays have to "feel" random for me to like a game. Some games are just so obviously weighted you just feel like you're playing a rigged game.

 

[dionysus]

Agreed. Reel stops and displays have to "feel" random for me to like a game. Some games are just so obviously weighted you just feel like you're playing a rigged game.

hey, at least you're clever enough to recognize the distinction between weighted and rigged - i think that took up 20 pages

 

[goatwack]

It took me 79 pages to learn what random means

It's when the casinos let you win for a bit

 

[paul7388]

It took me 79 pages to learn what random means

It's when the casinos let you win for a bit

No have you not took in anything that has been posted in the last 79 pages.

What you are describing is Rigged not Random

 

[goatwack]

No have you not took in anything that has been posted in the last 79 pages.

What you are describing is Rigged not Random

Ok, got it!

So what's compenrigged then

 

[paul7388]

Ok, got it!

So what's compenrigged then

That my dear friend is similar to Randomsated. Keep up will you

 

[TheAddict]

Ssss