Your Input Please MG Tournaments - the end of the road?

vinylweatherman

You type well loads
Joined
Oct 14, 2004
Location
United Kingdom
I noticed today that no new tournaments are showing up in the download lobby of MG casinos. I would have expected the July accumulator and the mid week moolah to have shown up by now at least, but the only playable tournaments now showing are the player pots and the last 12 hours of the monthly monster.

Is this the end of the road for the MG tournament system, or indeed a sign that the download client is going to be allowed to fade away in favour of the browser platform based casinos.

Which casino does the best tournaments that work like the MG ones, as in buy ins rather than wager challenges through playing the normal lobby games?
 
Casino Rewards still have them, if you don't mind the pending time for withdrawals...
 
Hi VWM,

I’m afraid your observation is correct, MG advised us last week that they are decommissioning the multi player tournaments. As far as I know, the Viper software will continue though.

Sorry to confirm your suspicions! We were looking to communicate this next week.

Mark
 
Hi VWM,

I’m afraid your observation is correct, MG advised us last week that they are decommissioning the multi player tournaments. As far as I know, the Viper software will continue though.

Sorry to confirm your suspicions! We were looking to communicate this next week.

Mark


Did they say why?

Other casinos followed MG who were one of the pioneers of these kinds of tournament. The original Intercasino software was the first place I saw this kind of tournament, but that is long gone.

It's not at all good that MG lets players see the obvious signs in the lobby before they can be bothered to let their customers know. They seem very good at letting players know well in advance when a new game is being released.

I remember the same lack of engagement with customers when MG decommissioned the "Fruit machines", even though to this day the empty category remains in the "Slots" menu. Funnily enough, MG were also pioneers when it came to UK Fruit machines. Unlike the offering at Intercasino, the MG ones really did a good job of replicating the experience of a proper machine one might find down the pub.

What else is MG decommissioning but can't be bothered to tell the players, such as the multi-player slots?
 
Mg tourneys have been dead for years, this is just the final nail in the coffin. hardly surprising when they have the stupid timer not allowing enough time to play all spins especially if you have a slower computer, and the dumbass rebuy/addon based model where a 1000x win can easily be outbid by buying 999 addons.
 
Poor Vinyl. His two pleasures in life, MG AWP's and Viper tourneys have bitten the dust. :(

I told you guys years ago Viper was obsolete, antiquated and not competitive with modern multi-software casinos and would stop eventually. The download client will be next, you'll have flash/html5 only.

Notice how few actual MG new slots there are nowadays, most are developed by smaller independent providers and released via QF.
 
Poor Vinyl. His two pleasures in life, MG AWP's and Viper tourneys have bitten the dust. :(

I told you guys years ago Viper was obsolete, antiquated and not competitive with modern multi-software casinos and would stop eventually. The download client will be next, you'll have flash/html5 only.

Notice how few actual MG new slots there are nowadays, most are developed by smaller independent providers and released via QF.

MG did develop an online version of the tournament lobby, and it's available at 32Red. It wasn't at all well publicised though, and rather difficult to find on their website. MG could have revamped their tournaments so that they could be added to browser based casinos, which would have exposed them to a much bigger player base.

I made a fair bit from the MG tournaments as they lay on their deathbed, which is the main reason I will miss them. I won't miss all the bugs and other technical problems though.

I have found that HTML5 comes with a big problem, it needs a powerful processor to produce what Flash can manage on a basic PC. My fans speed up whenever I am using HTML5, but I don't get this using Flash, or indeed the Viper client.

MG will soon be just one of many game providers if they ditch the Viper download.
 
More bad news concerning tournaments live chat on 32 red have just confirmed they no longer have freeroll tournaments at all :mad::mad:! Only paid ones! Absolutely ridiculous and rather greedy if you ask me!

Those tournaments begun going downhill 1:when uk was excluded from numerous casino vipers with amazing tournaments such as Red Flush, Lucky Nugget, Europalace etc and 2: When 32 red got rid of the £250 daily Avalon which was bonus money prizes anyway!

I said to her why not have a release threshold such as turnover £100 and deposit 20quid for use of freerolls for a week or a few days or something. They'd get more deposits, It's getting less and less appealing to play these casinos now to be honest. Just about no incentives any more :(

Ok quick update to this turns out it's MG who control these tournaments, So I'm gathering they pay the prizes to players from tournaments. Shame on you MG as if it wasn't enough for them to release either clones or piss poor new slots, this as well just takes the cake.
 
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More bad news concerning tournaments live chat on 32 red have just confirmed they no longer have freeroll tournaments at all :mad::mad:! Only paid ones! Absolutely ridiculous and rather greedy if you ask me!

Those tournaments begun going downhill 1:when uk was excluded from numerous casino vipers with amazing tournaments such as Red Flush, Lucky Nugget, Europalace etc and 2: When 32 red got rid of the £250 daily Avalon which was bonus money prizes anyway!

I said to her why not have a release threshold such as turnover £100 and deposit 20quid for use of freerolls for a week or a few days or something. They'd get more deposits, It's getting less and less appealing to play these casinos now to be honest. Just about no incentives any more :(

Ok quick update to this turns out it's MG who control these tournaments, So I'm gathering they pay the prizes to players from tournaments. Shame on you MG as if it wasn't enough for them to release either clones or piss poor new slots, this as well just takes the cake.

I was told by Mark, as posted above "I’m afraid your observation is correct, MG advised us last week that they are decommissioning the multi player tournaments. As far as I know, the Viper software will continue though.".

The individual "casino specials" went a while ago, so all we have had for several months are the MG controlled network tournaments. Now it seems to just be the "player pots" running. The better ones like the midweek moolah and weekend whopper were decommissioned at the end of June, and it seems that all the others have gone.

It seems the decommission isn't a sudden thing, it looks like they have taken down all the decent tournaments, but the software is still generating these player pots for now. I expect the plan is to shut down the tournament servers completely, and then for some while we will just see an empty tab under "tournaments". The "fruit machines" tab hung around for years, completely empty, before it began to disappear from the lobbies. This is untidy programming and presentation.
 
The download only ever existed to 'capture' the player. After all, would they search for another casino if they already had one installed on their desktop? The tourneys were a good idea to keep the player using the client, even when not depositing. Nowadays the punter is far more fickle and will shop around for new sites and developers. It's pretty much had its day, it was a good concept at the start and with limited space on most mobile devices it's useless for them. It will go in the next couple of years, forever.
 
The download only ever existed to 'capture' the player. After all, would they search for another casino if they already had one installed on their desktop? The tourneys were a good idea to keep the player using the client, even when not depositing. Nowadays the punter is far more fickle and will shop around for new sites and developers. It's pretty much had its day, it was a good concept at the start and with limited space on most mobile devices it's useless for them. It will go in the next couple of years, forever.

I think it’s partially to do with the convenience of having the icon on the start menu, but IMO the Viper casino exists because back in the day internet speed wasn’t quick enough. Having the games locally meant just a small packet of data for the spin result being transferred. Remember when casinos used to send out CD’s? Blimey!

For what it’s worth I understand that MG have no short term plans to decommission Viper and it’s still very much part of their portfolio. As you say, I can’t speak long term but I know it’s still a revenue generator and won’t be gone any time soon.

Regards
Mark
 
^^ Pleasing read^^

IMO, and I've also read from others, the viper/download provides a much better feel and overall experience, much more enjoyable and slots the way you'd find them on land based machines etc.

Perfect examples are Spring Break and AJB, lovely on viper, bloody awful (that bad as if my kids had made them) in browser.
 
I think it’s partially to do with the convenience of having the icon on the start menu, but IMO the Viper casino exists because back in the day internet speed wasn’t quick enough. Having the games locally meant just a small packet of data for the spin result being transferred. Remember when casinos used to send out CD’s? Blimey!

For what it’s worth I understand that MG have no short term plans to decommission Viper and it’s still very much part of their portfolio. As you say, I can’t speak long term but I know it’s still a revenue generator and won’t be gone any time soon.

Regards
Mark
I dunno, I still managed to lose just as fast on dial-up lol...
 
The tournaments can also be played in a browser, so lack of players using the Viper download would not cause the tournaments to no longer be worth running.

As a UK player I got the boot from Royal Vegas and it's decent tournaments:mad:

As UK persons are prolific gamblers, losing them, and knowing that the US players have been lost also, may not have been a good move for those like Royal Vegas that just couldn't be arsed getting a UK licence.

Tournaments of this type are not in themselves unpopular as I have found two other casinos that run their own versions. Both are browser based, not download, and will be something I will look at shortly. I will need to collate a decent set of SoW documents as one of these is Videoslots, and they seem to want "everything", not just a cursory declaration and a couple of supporting proofs. I am one of the "awkward" players whose SoW is mostly past winnings, not income.

I just logged on, and now NO tournaments are showing as in play, open, or scheduled. There is only ONE entry on the list, the results of the last ever Monthly Monster.
 
I would like to know from the reps here from CR, Digimedia, 32Red and othe MG groups, what the drop in traffic and revenue is without the tournaments.
Is it 70% drop in traffic and 30% drop in revenue? Is it more?

There have been some download MG casinos that didn't have tournaments in the past. All of them closed or got tournaments. I think MG underestimated the impact.
 
I would like to know from the reps here from CR, Digimedia, 32Red and othe MG groups, what the drop in traffic and revenue is without the tournaments.
Is it 70% drop in traffic and 30% drop in revenue? Is it more?

There have been some download MG casinos that didn't have tournaments in the past. All of them closed or got tournaments. I think MG underestimated the impact.

I don’t think anyone will share revenue figures with you, but I think it’s fair for me to say that Microgaming wouldn’t decommission a product which is generating a lot of profit for them and their operators.

Mark
 
I don’t think anyone will share revenue figures with you, but I think it’s fair for me to say that Microgaming wouldn’t decommission a product which is generating a lot of profit for them and their operators.

Mark

It is not only about the direct revenue. I am talking about the promotion value and traffic generated from them. Things like that are not easy to estimate and the impact will only show when it is too late.
VS seems to get that very well. ;)

My guess is right now many don't really know they are gone 4ever. Next weeks they will look them up in other casinos and after a month or two they will move their deposits to VS.
 
I don’t think anyone will share revenue figures with you, but I think it’s fair for me to say that Microgaming wouldn’t decommission a product which is generating a lot of profit for them and their operators.

Mark

They have in the past, they have removed popular games without notice, and they must have been popular due to the fuss it created (I do NOT mean the fruit machines here). They also release endless clones that just clutter the lobby with a dozen variants of the same game. This is generally unpopular with forum members.

Rather than decommission these tournaments, MG should have brought them into the modern age. They were easy to find in Viper, but damn hard to stumble upon when playing on the browser platform, so this would be one reason for a fall in participation. Making them easy to find in browser casinos would have been a better move.

If this format was not popular in general, how come other platforms are introducing and expanding slot tournaments.



This is possible because we have migrated the casinos to a new platform, and with that comes other improvements, such as faster loading, slots tournaments (daily, weekly, monthly), and adding additional currencies and languages to some casinos. Such as No Bonus which was previously only in English and Euros, is now available in GBP, CAD, SEK and many other currencies and supports Swedish, Norwegian and German in addition to English.


L&L Europe Opens Single Account Policy


Whilst Viper will remain for now, it does seem that MG are moving away from being a platform provider (Viper) to being a game provider for other platforms.
 
They have in the past, they have removed popular games without notice, and they must have been popular due to the fuss it created (I do NOT mean the fruit machines here). They also release endless clones that just clutter the lobby with a dozen variants of the same game. This is generally unpopular with forum members.

Rather than decommission these tournaments, MG should have brought them into the modern age. They were easy to find in Viper, but damn hard to stumble upon when playing on the browser platform, so this would be one reason for a fall in participation. Making them easy to find in browser casinos would have been a better move.

If this format was not popular in general, how come other platforms are introducing and expanding slot tournaments.



This is possible because we have migrated the casinos to a new platform, and with that comes other improvements, such as faster loading, slots tournaments (daily, weekly, monthly), and adding additional currencies and languages to some casinos. Such as No Bonus which was previously only in English and Euros, is now available in GBP, CAD, SEK and many other currencies and supports Swedish, Norwegian and German in addition to English.


L&L Europe Opens Single Account Policy


Whilst Viper will remain for now, it does seem that MG are moving away from being a platform provider (Viper) to being a game provider for other platforms.

I will bow to your superior knowledge of Microgaming.

Mark
 

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