PlaynGo has hit the floor....

[SlotsBlogger]

...the casino floor!!!

No folks your eyes are not deceiving you, I took the below photo on my recent trip to Genting (Resorts World) Birmingham. I had a little go on my favourite (Reactoonz), the gameplay was a little janky but ok for the most part. It just felt sooooo wrong. RTP was a paltry 90%, is it the sign of the times? I mean, i'm an avid Novomatic fan but the game packs are getting drastically reduced almost to the point where its just boring and there's nothing decent to play. Even the classics are disappearing. I know things move on but removing staples of your game library and replacing them with utterly unplayable games with dog s**t pay tables does not bode well. Are Novomatic slowly getting out of the UK Market? A few of the local Grosvenors have installed some Aristocrat cabinets (Mo Mummy), which is ok but after a few features its boring as hell.

The split used to be 80% Novomatic 20% IGT, it's now 50% Novo and 50% IGT and Aristocrat at my local.

Would be interested to know if anyone has any insights into where landbased casinos are heading.

 

[Siohmy]

Aristocrat you say? Now I know many on here probably have a dim view on them but if they bring over Buffalo Gold/Revolution then I’m in (then out again when I go skint).

 

[Guntis]

I see around 80% Novomatic and 20% IGT across London casinos too. Those IGT slots seem totally useless to me because i have never seen people win anything decent on them. They sound like crazy when you play - but the actual win is just some 3 or so quid, plus most people don't understand what's going on.

On Novomatic's, all is straight and clear, and you sometimes get 2 jackpot types in a casino: one that's locally connected across all machines with 2 shuffling cards that appear on the left, and jackpots on each machine. I hit them many times, except for the top one.

Play'n GO Book of Dead i think it's something that land based casino people need. It's familiar to most from Book of Ra, but looks more modern. I'll try it if i see it.

 

[Siohmy]

I see around 80% Novomatic and 20% IGT across London casinos too. Those IGT slots seem totally useless to me because i have never seen people win anything decent on them. They sound like crazy when you play - but the actual win is just some 3 or so quid, plus most people don't understand what's going on.

On Novomatic's, all is straight and clear, and you sometimes get 2 jackpot types in a casino: one that's locally connected across all machines with 2 shuffling cards that appear on the left, and jackpots on each machine. I hit them many times, except for the top one.

Play'n GO Book of Dead i think it's something that land based casino people need. It's familiar to most from Book of Ra, but looks more modern. I'll try it if i see it.

Ah yes, makes me long for the days when big win actually meant a win that was somewhat big. Bring back the WMS, 25x, 100x and 250x brackets. Those were proper big, super big and mega big wins.
Ironically, based on how much stick they get on here, BTG are the only ones who even remotely have this structure, not playing big win tunes until you hit 25x or more. Cue, “I’ve never heard a BTG big win jingle” joke here.

 

[dunover]

I won't play land based any more, the 90% or even 92% is simply pernicious. I remember playing IGT's Cleopatra in the Empire a few years back and wondered how they actually lowered the RTP i.e. less features etc. I very quickly realized that when getting two scatters you don't get the 2x stake win. There was my quick answer.

 

[slot_zombie]

...the casino floor!!!


View attachment 204544

Thanks for posting this. I live within striking distance of this casino, although pretty much stopped going in when they nerfed all the RTPs to 90% and dumped the 4 Scientific Games terminals.

Would try those out of morbid curiosity on low stakes, just for the experience of playing P&G in land based. But 90% is just too low to pull up a chair and start rowing. 94% would be perfect.

 

[Reelsoffun]

Maybe that’s a hint to all of us that even the slot providers are seeing that UK online is dying and want to recover some of that lost revenue from land based, which I’m stunned it took them so long. As long as they don’t tone them down to the same crappy 300-400x max wins that the IGTs struggle to exceed, I think some titles will do very well.

It’s a shame they will be on around 90% which seems the norm for land based, and they wonder why slots aren’t as popular now.

I remember a time when you struggled to get on a slot sometimes as all in use, that is never the case now from my last visits over the last few years.

 

[Glunn11]

I wish the average land based slot player was just more discerning and smarter: Mo Mummy and all slots like it suck, lol. I'm glad to hear from another source in the industry that IGT has gotten poor returns from it. Good: stop it!

My favorite casino is still Barton's Club 93 in Jackpot, NV, because the majority of their games are older Aristocrats, WMSs, and IGTs that all play a hell of a lot more fun than what all these providers are shoving in massive QLED cabinets these days.

I have never had a positive experience with Konami slots, so I don't touch them even though I know a lot of people swear by them.

But I, too, have largely just stopped playing slots at B&M. Until the casino industry stops telling themselves lies like "players don't notice RTP" I will stick with video poker and tables (and Barton's still has excellent choices for both, thankfully.)

It's funny how the problem with new online casino slots is pretty much the opposite: the variance is TOO high. Thankfully games don't get purged from online sites nearly as quick as they do from B&M's, and the selection is way better, but i make a point of sticking with the older games from Thunderkick, NetEnt, and Microgaming. Sometimes Play n' GO.

 

[Siohmy]

Well they’ve still just got a vast majority of Novomatic’s near me. God they are boring but clearly the reliable coin feeders like them so who am I to complain as I rarely visit.
As for 90%? They can get away with that in Vegas as they at least give out free proper drinks. It’s a bloody crime over here. Reducing them from 94% to 90% in one hit is brutal. People will stop playing.

 

[spindoctor99]

Out of curiosity are the playngo slots actually brought out by PlaynGo or has some other manufacturer brought them out and just using PlaynGo games.

In Australia we mainly have Aristocrat, IGT, Aruze etc.