Where Are The Innovations In The Igaming Industry?

Many igaming companies today say that they innovate and have a player driven development. But why doesn’t it show when it comes to the player experience?

From my experience, as a UX-professional with great experience from the igaming industry, the player experience hasn’t changed much in the last five years. We still see the same kind of gaming portals which offer the same bingo, casino and poker games.

Where is the personalization? The portal which adapts depending on my behavior? The complete player experience independent of which form factor I am playing on?

It seems to be a race to add new functionality and to catch up with the competitors. Instead I would love to see a igaming company focusing on building nothing but great player experiences!

To be fair. There have been a couple of innovations over the years like live betting and ”Rush Poker” by Full Tilt. Everybody in the poker industry is now offering ”fast poker” or will in the near future (the catching up game).

But what about mobile?

Mobile is the future. Every potential player uses a mobile phone and bring them with them almost everywhere. So the igaming company that will be able to build great software and experiences around the mobile will be successful in the future. But don’t just copy your solution on one form factor to the next, read more about that in Why is bwin just copying the iPhone app when launching an iPad app?

Keys to success

A few keys to consider when you design player experiences:

• Personalization

• Design for the complete player experience

• Prioritize your players and don’t design for everyone

• Design with different form factors in mind

• Put the player in the centre

• Don’t play the catch up game (when it comes to features)

• Design for different form factors

• Have a clear vision of what you want to achieve

What do you think? Are there any innovations in the igaming industry?

/Staffan