As you may be aware, the iGaming industry is fiercely competitive. There are now hundreds of developers around the world desperately competing with each other for the attentions of players. But these days, it’s not quite as easy to satisfy a world-weary audience that’s now kind of familiar with the manure that gets shovelled out by the big software houses. So in order to hook players into the lucrative and potentially destructive risk-reward loop, slot developers need a compelling and appealing theme.
Greek Ruins
Days of antiquity are a particular favourite, especially when it comes to ancient Greece. Allow us to elaborate.
In the past decade, gamers have been subjected to God of the Sun, Age of the Gods, Age of the Gods: Goddess of Wisdom, Age of the Gods: Furious 4, Fortune of the Gods, Casino Gods, Greek Goddess, Gods of Olympus, The Legend of Olympus, The Prince of Olympus, The King of Olympus, The Rise of Olympus, Olympus Glory, Pandora’s Box, Medusa I, Medusa II, Medusa, III and Medusa IV: Total Lack of Imagination.
Ok, so we made the last one up. But it’s fair to say that Mediterranean days of lore have been done to death. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Greek god-bothering is not quite as popular amongst developers as it once was. Instead, many now focus on Hollywood for inspiration (somebody had to). In fact, movie-themed slots can spell big-bucks for the major studios.
Retro Signalling
Although they’re not exactly cheap to create (acquiring the rights can be an expensive business), movie themed slots tend to go down very well with gamblers. Some of the most popular examples include Man of Steel, Planet of the Apes, Halloween and Terminator 2, and you will find full reviews of these great games at Inside Casino Canada. These games often boast polished imagery and branding taken directly from the movie. Sadly, this isn’t always the case though. The Gremlins slot, recently launched by WMS, was besmirched with cartoon-renderings of the main characters which weren’t exactly to everybody’s liking.
The Past is a Foreign Country
But games like Gremlins, Halloween and to a certain extent, Man of Steel represent an increasingly popular niche within movie slot development, namely, retro. Yep, our yearning for the good old days is now being gleefully exploited by those who want us to blow our money playing online slots. In addition to the titles already mentioned, there’s Top Gun, Rambo and the Goonies. You can even try your hand at a slot based on Ghostbusters – mercifully the original, not the crap remake with the all Female cast, praise-be-to-Gozer.
The Cult of Celebrity
As well as creating games designed to take money from people with impulse-control problems, slot developers are very keen to attract those looking to escape, of which there are plenty. It should also be kept in mind that many of these classic movies enjoy cult followings. ‘Cult’ is probably the wrong word to use here though because a lot of these films have millions of fans. So you can probably see why the market is now flooded with them.