It's just a culmination of things really - back when everyone was becoming sick of 243-ways games flooding the scene, and the likes of DOA and its kind were getting players wanting Hollywood Hits to be attainable in other slots, it was becoming obvious that high-variance was the way things were headed.
So with BTG filling that void, albeit fraudulently, with years of unrealized potential, designers took note, and followed suit with every modern slot having to have more fantastical
win potential than what preceded it.
With streamers' taking to this new format, we soon found encaptivated audiences wanting to emulate their on-screen heroes, with blistering wins attainable for anyone wishing to 'invest' enough into these high-varianced games.
There's no great secret to it, when all's said and done. Megaways both saved and ruined slotting to make it 'something else', and spending £50 to play a prolonged scratchcard is not 'it'. And as players pour more into these modern slots to even get a semblance of having played at all, the rewards tend to yield nothing at the end of it. What fun!!
I binned slots off near the tail-end of 2020, when the rot had already set in, and have seen nothing improve in all that time. With the ludicrous SoW clown acts being introduced, to go with Affordability ass-hattery, it was clear the powers-that-be have lost their minds, and so I happily stay in hiatus until slotting doesn't feel like undertaking a criminal enterprise (could be a while).
And whilst 'default' higher-RTP versions of games still abound, the very notion that lesser-RTP games are even greenlit and put out for consumers smacks of greed, not to mention disdain for the hapless punters forced to wallow in that slop. That was the turning point, that was what irrevocably damaged the pastime, with no one intent on stopping these practices.
Despite all that, it is worth bearing in mind that things weren't always as rose-tinted as we like to remember. It wasn't unheard of to lose £20 on any number of Netent, MG or Playtech slots in record time, so the notion that deposits would eke out multiple sessions are somewhat subjective - but the thing that definitely saved many sessions was the now-defunct 100% reloads, without which we'd have been lamenting the same things we are now I believe....
Fact is, slotting in the UK's become unviable and a hassle that's just not worth enduring. If it takes punters to seek offshore gambling in their droves before change is implemented, then by all means. And when enough revenue is haemorrhaged, perhaps the UKCG will be forced to re-evaluate their 10-year plan to ruin slotting.
Still, what it
won't do is make modern slots any less boring, will it?