Solving the Biggest Question in Social Casino | Al Thomas
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Delivered at Casual Connect Europe 2017. In this lecture, industry veteran Al Thomas will discuss the ins and outs of social slots design and answer the biggest question often asked by social casino newcomers and veterans alike: “If the games don’t pay, then why do they play?”
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Solving the Biggest Question in Social Casino | Al Thomas
- 1. Secrets Revealed: Answering the biggest question in social Casino Al Thomas Managing Director, Product Consultation Eilers & Krejcik Gaming
- 2. Introduction My first conference as a game developer. 1983 CES Consumer Electronics Show Las Vegas, Nevada
- 3. Secrets Revealed: Four Big Myths and Misconceptions about Gamblers
- 4. Understanding the PSYCHOLOGY of GAMBLING is important…
- 5. …but the NEUROSCIENCE of GAMBLING helps us truly understand the motivation of gamblers
- 6. The casino gaming industry hates this word…
- 7. “Addiction” is a very specific, clinical term and should not be used lightly
- 8. Technology allows us to peer inside the gambler’s brain while they are playing a gambling game
- 9. The same regions of the brain of a gambling addict are activated during a reel spin as when a person with a chemical addiction is anticipating a “hit”
- 10. Just because we know how players become addicted doesn’t mean we should turn to the dark side
- 11. SLOT DESIGN SECRETS: How to turn players into mindless, money spending, gambling robots
- 12. Social casino game mechanics may inadvertently interfere with the spiral of addiction
- 13. Players want their money close… just not too close!
- 14. Having a gambling addict in your casino is NOT a good thing.
- 17. You want to create an experience that will “figuratively” scares people to death…
- 18. …not one that actually does!
- 19. Don’t Forget: Gamblers are a moving target Veteran players may out grow the thrills that first excited them
- 20. With careful player research you can really see what players like and don’t like
- 22. “Australians”
- 25. The “Serious” gambler regularly commits blocks of time and are not afraid to monetize. They’re not ADDICTS, they’re FANATICS
- 27. Four Myths and Misconceptions about SERIOUS Gamblers
- 28. Myth #1 They have FUN Gambling
- 29. Players don’t have fun GAMBLING They have fun WINNING
- 31. A fun, engaging experience can distract you from the potential negatives
- 32. Pleasure may not be the same thing as FUN, but it feels pretty good
- 34. Why have ENOUGH when you can have TOO MUCH
- 36. This is the face of PLEASURE
- 37. The PAIN of LOSS, the JOY of WINNING and the ANTICIPATION of an UNKNOWN OUTCOME all combine to create TENSION. And it’s the RELIEF from this TENSION that creates the PLEASURE of GAMBLING
- 38. Pleasure comes from the SCRATCH …not the ITCH!
- 39. Myth #3 RELEASE of TENSION is the most important part of a Casino Game
- 40. Just because players love the SCRATCH doesn’t mean they seek out the ITCH
- 41. OUR job is: To Provide a FUN and ENTERTAINING experience, driven by a mathematical cycle of TENSION and RELIEF, that ENGAGES players LONG ENOUGH for them to feel the COMPULSION to come back and play again and again. Until it’s a HABIT
- 42. If a movie is engaging enough then eating popcorn becomes automatic
- 43. •Hardwired for Pattern Recognition •BF Skinner’s Variable Ratio and Schedule of Rewards •Zeigarnik effect of Incomplete Tasks
- 44. Myth #4 If you can’t win MONEY, then it’s NOT GAMBLING
- 46. Gambling is not about WINNING money, and it’s not about LOSING money, it’s about RISKING something of VALUE.
- 50. “Cookie Jar Gamblers” don’t use winnings to pay bills or buy food… Gambling winnings are used for more gambling!
- 51. A SERIOUS GAMBLER who LOSES, will put more money in to “RECOVER” losses. But when they WIN, they often INCREASE their bets and take bigger RISKS to win some “SERIOUS MONEY”
- 52. There’s a reason why casinos prefer to use “tokenized” chips for wagering
- 53. There’s very little difference between money and “money” in the mind of a gambler
- 56. THANK YOU for your ATTENTION …and apologies to any Australians in the audience
- 57. For information on design, research or consulting services, please contact: D.J. Leary, Director of Business Development - dleary@ekgamingllc.com
- 58. Addiction can lead to cheating, negative press, criminal behavior and the potentially of strict, regulatory oversight
Notas del editor
- I have the unique honor of not only being today’s Emcee, but I’m also the next speaker so I have the rare pleasure of introducing myself. Ladies and Gentlemen, our next speaker is not only amazingly talented but also incredibly, incredibly humble. Please welcome me.
- When I say talented what I really mean is OLD. I’ve been working in computer games from the early 80’s, moved to casino games in the early 90’s and for the last several years really focused on Free to Play social/mobile casino.
- Today I’ll be talking about FOUR MYTHS & MISCONCEPTIONS about Gamblers that are still being perpetuated today. And I believe the last one will answer the question “If FREE to PLAY SLOTS don’t PAY OUT, why do players PAY to PLAY them?”
- At the very first casino track for Casual Connect, I gave a presentation on this that I think was very popular. In fact in the years since then the video of that presentation has been posted to YouTube it has been viewed nearly ONE… DOZEN times! I spoke about the PSYCHOLOGY of GAMBLING…
- But this time I’m going to talk on the NEUROLOGY behind it. Because you’re not just making a casino game for a player’s mind, you’re also making it for the player’s BRAIN. Because, it turns out, that the act of gambling has a PHYSICAL and MEASURABLE AFFECT brain.
- We KNOW that PHYSICAL CHANGES occur in the brain because of this word, which is rarely, if ever, discussed among casino game professionals... ADDICTION. Not only do casino Marketing People and Politicians hate the word “addiction” they also hate the word “gambling”.
- I use the word addiction in a VERY specific and CLINICAL way. This is the DSM-5, the Manual of Mental Disorders used diagnostically by psychiatrists and therapist all over the world. Originally, gambling addiction was considered an impulse control disorders like food” or shopping addiction. But in the DSM-5 gambling was reclassified a clinical addiction.
- It was reclassified, in part, because of the research that showed that PHYSICAL CHANGES occur in brain of a person addicted to gambling. Some studies have placed gamblers inside an fMRI scanner while they played a casino game, and the results were quite astonishing
- The research showed that the brain didn’t just light up DURING the actual gambling, it lit up at the mere THOUGHT of Gambling, of the ANTICIPATION of gambling, and ANTICIPATION is a hallmark of addiction.
- One of the primary reasons the casino industry doesn’t like to bring up the topic of addiction is they think that once people hear that a professional casino game designer like myself knows exactly what causes gambling addiction, they think that I will use my powers for evil and dive into player’s brains and reprogram them into mindless, money spending, gambling robots. In fact…
- …you can learn more about this idea my upcoming book… I’m kidding
- I'm not a fan of gambling addiction, and I really believe that F2P casino may provide a safer alternative to real money gambling, The vast majority of players in F2P casino stay in the realm of “The Healthy Habit”. And I think that it is probably due to the nature of social mobile games. The managed player progression and shorter play sessions of mobile games, regulate the consumption of a casino game in a way that is unique from brick & mortar casino games.
- For many years I ran a player research facility and one thing players players told us, year after year, was that having to go to a cash machine for more money when credits are low FORCED them to RATIONALLY consider if they were playing within their budget. They would NEVER want a slot machine where they could add credits directly from their bank account.
- This idea of a “Healthy Habit” is important because it’s just not good business to have a gambling addict in your casino. You want players for the long haul who build up RISK TOLERANCE over time, steadily increasing their gambling budget, and having a good time. NOT a player who goes immediately out of control, quickly goes broke, and is forced to quit.
- You want to go into an exciting bar where everyone is having fun, interacting with each other, even if it does seems a little dangerous…
- …not a bar where people are sitting by themselves and sulking over their own drinks, only there to get drunk alone.
- You want your game to be like an exciting , thrilling rollercoaster that FIGURATIVELY “scares people to death” …
- Not one that actually kills them. One side not on this point. All your players are different and they all evolve over time, so what is fun and exciting to new players…
- …may not be that exciting to some of your veteran players.
- The reason I want to talk about the elephant in the room of ADDICTION in the room is not to show how social casino games are addictive, or how to get people addicted (sorry to disappoint you.) But to once again ILLUSTRATE how changes in the brain of real money gamblers ALSO occur in free-to-play casino as well and why that’s important.
- There’s a fairly… derogatory term used privately among many casino professionals that describes hard-core gamblers who, while they AREN'T addicted, are definitely NOT playing for fun or entertainment, they are there to GAMBLE. They're often referred to as...
- Australians. (I’m joking, I’m joking.) The derogatory term I’m referring to is DEGENERATE GAMBLERS
- These are PLAYERS who straddle the line between VICE and socially ACCEPTABLE behavior. They have unfairly been given the negative label of DEGENERATE, simply because it’s hard for people to understand the behavior of someone who isn’t playing for FUN or ENTERTAINMENT
- What other people call DEGENERATE GAMBLERS I refer to as SERIOUS GAMBLERS.
- It’s really important to understand these SERIOUS gamblers because they are by far the people who are bringing in revenue. We don’t want to treat them like ADDICTS, we want to treat them like FANS
- Now I just said that SERIOUS GAMBLERS don’t play for fun or entertainment, so it’s a good time to get into the meat of this presentation and bring up four of the biggest insights I've discovered as a long-time casino game designer…
- Myth #1- They have FUN gambling
- Players don’t have fun GAMBLING, they have fun WINNING. But since a casino game is designed to have players lose more than they win, what is exactly driving the them? Let me use an analogy now to show that gambling is NOT FUN, it’s PLEASURABLE. So what do I mean by that?
- Swimming and playing on the beach all day may be FUN, but at the end of the day…
- …when you’ve got a terrible sunburn, the fun is all over. Now imagine what it feels like...
- when you get when you rub some cool, smoothing sunburn lotion on your sunburn. How wonderful does that feel. It’s not FUN, but it feels fantastic. The RELIEF of PAIN, or STESS, or TENSION, is PLEASURABLE. It’s not FUN. For the SERIOUS GAMBLER, gambling isn’t FUN, It’ PLEASURABLE.
- I know I just said that it was, but let me explain. It’s not the actual gambling itself that’s pleasurable, it’s the RELIEF from the PAIN and TENSION CREATED by gambling that’s pleasurable. You’re not going to get near the pleasure from rubbing sunburn lotion on yourself if you don’t actually have a sunburn. When you spend money on gambling, spin after spin, card deal after card deal, you are building up PRESSURE and STRESS and TENSION. And that all DEMANDS RELIEF.
- In America, the gas stations sell these HUGE cups of soda, I’m talking like the size of a bucket with a straw in it. Now IMAGINE you drink one of those before a long drive to work and THEN...
- THIS turns out to be your morning commute. While you’re stuck in traffic all this PRESSURE in your bladder building up. You get to work, you rush into the building BARELY make it to the nearest toilet. EVERY ONE of YOU know the PLEASURE of RELIEF I’m talking about. In fact…
- You even know the face that kind of relief brings. If you’re playing Candy Crush on the bus and you make this face every time you cleared a level, I’m pretty sure the bus driver is going to ask you to leave.
- The PAIN of LOSS, the JOY of WINNING and the ANTICIPATION of an UNKNOWN OUTCOME all combine to create TENSION.
- So if all of this pleasure is coming from RELIEF, what about the money? This brings up the next myth…
- If the RELIEF of TENSION is the most important thing, then why do we go to all the trouble to create great sounds and graphics and use famous brands when we create new slots.
- Saying that people love to gamble because the RELIEF of winning feels so good after the PAIN of losing is like saying that you should hit yourself in the head with a hammer because it feels so good when you stop. So, what is driving players to voluntarily put themselves in this state where they need relief? Do they want an itch, just so they can get the pleasure of scratching it? And the answer is, they don’t.
- Think about it this way. The entertainment and math experience of a slot machine is like a movie. And mindlessly hitting the spin button is like eating popcorn.
- If a gambler plays long enough, the INHERENT PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISMS present in all successful casino games will compel players to return. The brain’s natural COMPULSION for PATTERN RECOGNITION, B.F. Skinner’s VARIABLE SCHEDULE of REWARDS,, or the ZEIGARNIK EFFECT of INCOMPLETE TASKS will eventually create that “itch” (which are all present in every top casino grossing casino game.)
- This is the biggest point of contention between myself and my associates in real money gambling. I believe that the social casino player is every bit as much a gambler as a real money player, THEY believe that free-to-play social casino is pale imitation of the true gambling world.
- THEY continue to argue that this is just something for casual or novice players to consume until they can get their hands on the real thing, comparing free-to-play to “candy cigarettes” in a real tobacco world.
- I’ve said it time and time again… gambling is not about WINNING money, it’s not about LOSING money, it’s about RISKING something of value. That value can be money, or time, or even just pride. But RISKING is what makes it GAMBLING. We all know this is TRUE because EVERYDAY social casino players risk REAL money, with ZERO opportunity of winning any REAL MONEY. No one does that unless there is SOMETHING to be gained, some sort of upside.
- This kid is GAMBLING. He just bet his friends he could pull off a really cool trick. And, by the way, he’s RISKING more than just PRIDE..
- …a couple things more actually.
- If you take a close look at the BEHAVIOR of gamblers, you’ll see that the winning of “fake” money, isn’t all that different from winning real money. When you analyze the behavior of real money gamblers, you find that there’s MONEY, and then there’s “MONEY."
- Often, in a real casino there are players that we call “Cookie Jar” gamblers. These are players who gamble with real money, but when they win, they add that cash to a bank roll to gamble with later. They don’t tell anyone about this gambling bankroll, not their spouse or friends or family because they don’t want to advertise just how much they enjoy the VICE of gambling. This is their FUN MONEY
- A SERIOUS GAMBLER who LOSES money, will almost always put more money back in to “RECOVER” losses. But when they WIN, many of them view this as an opportunity to INCREASE their bets, take bigger RISKS and then win some “SERIOUS MONEY.”
- Once REAL CURRENCY becomes a CASINO CHIP, it’s basically the same thing as the credits in a social casino game. But when real casino winnings are cashed out, that REAL CURRENCY has undergone a change in the player’s mind, and it’s now become part of a BANK ROLL, and gamblers treat that money very differently from other money.
- For the SERIOUS GAMBLER, gambling winnings are used for MORE GAMBLING. Which is the EXACT SAME PURPOSE of winnings in free-to-play casino, to continue gambling. Whether it’s real money, or free-to-play, the “Winnings” hold the same BENEFITS, and the losses hold the same DETRIMENTS. It’s the same in their minds.
- I’d like to end this talk reiterating one final thought. For those of you that still belief that free-to-play casino is the “Candy Cigarette” version of real money gaming. Trust me when I tell you that it is absolutely not…
- It’s the e-cigarettes of gambling. It’s the “vaping” of gambling. And if you’re on a plane, it's the nicotine gum, of gambling. It’s a convenient, high tech version of a product that scratches the same itch.
- Thank you for listening to me…
- Any Questions?
- A game that promotes the “healthy habit” enjoys predictable revenues and provides a long-lasting experience for players. ADDICTION brings unpredictability, cheating, criminal behavior, negative press and potential strict regulatory oversight. Coming from the highly regulated world of real money gambling, let me tell you, we really don’t want to invite that into the social casino world.