Netent are far too formulaic, there's too many unexciting and dreary, juvenile games. Then you have the 'myth' of Netent Variance, a pernicious way of making the games SEEM low in variance with a maximum win of 400x bet and yet all seem to have my 'egg timer' effect when you play them and they constantly behave like you've just won 2500x...... Playing them is usually death by a thousand cuts. Jungle Spirit they NEARLY got right, but somehow made the base game so eye-wateringly bad that I can't play it any more. The Bullshit Butterflies, same old win multiples of 10.5x, 11x, 13.5x, 18x, 22x 27x, 36x and the rare 45 or 80x. They missed a trick there by restricting the random in-play feature to 80x and thus removing all hope which you may have in say the WD feature. Bonanza made the base game good with some huge potential, and rarer FS but with an average of 100x bet in the final results, in some ways like DoA works.
Thunderkick and Play'n Go continue to make better games that appeal more to the experienced player rather than churn out crap that seems to be aimed at newcomers who try a casino online for the first time so have ELC graphics to ease their new visitors in with. How many Netent games have 400x as the max win, based on the same math model with a few tweaks? They need to start making exciting games, I mean WHAT THE F*CK DID THEY DO WITH TWIN SPIN??
There was the chance to maybe make it high-variance and even give a possibility of a full bar/diamond screen for nearly 8000x, but oh no! we got some shit html5 graphics tossed off onto a near-clone of that Oriental-themed block-pay game (the forgettable name escapes me right now) to make a decent slot awful. When push comes to shove they seem to be using the same basic algorithm/math model for all their games nowadays and they all have the same effect - get 50 credits down, you're buggered 95% of sessions.
Big Time Gaming seem to 'hand build' few but good quality games, Netent are production-line dross mainly, the polar opposite. If you look at Netent's first 100 slots you have about 60-70 'new' models, look at their last 100 you have about 15 - this is where they're coming unstuck, players have got wise to it. The innovation has gone and they spew out game after game because they feel they're expected to do so, rather than the fact they enjoy doing it. They get the odd one right like Warlords or The Turd FTUT, but it's a scattergun approach.
Now take Southpark slots for example, popular games both of them. So they lose the license for the theme, so why not (like Playtake did with the Marvel games via the Age Of The Gods series) use the same mechanic and use a bit of imagination for the graphics so their fans get a cheap and exact replacement? No, they're too busy at Mothercare buying books to inspire their next run of game artwork. At the moment other smaller developers are feeding on their bloated corpse.
Some salient ideas Netent! (pass me my fee in used Sterling at ICE next week):
1. Redo South Park Reel Chaos. Players like the game.
2. Don't be afraid to rip-off other developers for proven winners, re. Book Of Dead. This game is popular as the original BoRe Deluxe is a big hit but not many casinos offer Novo, but they all for some reason offer YOUR slots and many offer Play'n Go too - go figure!
3. Why not have rehash some existing games with more potential, i.e. 'Twin Spin Six' again look what Novo did with BoRe......OK admittedly I could drop a bollock here because knowing my luck they'd give us 'St*rb*rst Six' but at least it's a new mechanic.
4. Ditch the pathetic juvenile infantile graphics. It's beyond a joke now and with the games having to be removed from Free Play due to Licensing/RG rules your exposure is being limited.
5. Don't be afraid to do a controversial game like Bonanza - yes, players will come on here and bitch because they're not getting a 150% RTP and a 1000x win every 500 spins, but it's exciting.
Come on!
If you ask nicely I will consider applying to be your Product Director and will seriously improve your revenues with relatively little expense.
It's a really great company with some tremendous potential and people. Just sty tuned. In the meantime feel free to hurl abuse at me for our games, but constructive feedback is better of course!
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