Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | Oct 2007 30 they became popular. While men played table games, their wives would often occupy their time by playing slots. It was never really meant as a revenue stream. But over time, slot machines started to consume the ma- jority of the casino floor. So chances are that in Macau, Chinese gamblers will eventually learn to appreciate slot machines, but it’s go- ing to take several years.” Old versus young Visit a Macau casino hall—especially in midweek—and the slot players are nearly all middle-aged, with a significant propor- tion of westerners present. Visit an Internet café or computer-games café on the Chinese mainland on a midweek evening, and the users are nearly all young people—predom- inantly males. PC-style gambling games may not currently be popular with Macau gam- blers, but demographics change over time. The potential of harvesting slot revenues from a new generation of computer-literate Slots Future and, perhaps more significantly, computer- loving Chinese visitors could be enormous, provided the content offer is right. In Macau, manufacturers such as Aris- tocrat are already testing new products on samples of consumers in their showrooms. “We have done some research with one of the concessionaires to bring their players into the showroom to find out their likes and dislikes. That research is Aristocrat-centric. We have spent time and money to do that to help us understand what to deliver to the market,” says Mr Jolly. In future, the research effort on con- sumer responses to slot games is likely to be continuous and in the field, rather than merely executed pre-launch. Server-based games will leave an electronic ‘signature’ of play patterns, allowing researchers to anal- yse in detail how consumers interact with games on a day-to-day level, and enabling the researchers to develop the next genera- tion of products. Game styles Mr Jolly describes Macau as currently a “gamblers’ market”, and says that this tends to mean high-volatility games are popular. “There are a number of products we have rolled out successfully across the globe. However, we have brought out some games specifically for this market that are very spe- cifically Asian or Chinese in terms of graphic depictions. Also, we have some games here where you can get a larger number of bets and a larger number of lines than you would typically see in other jurisdictions. “In Macau it’s generally a gambler’s mar- ket rather than say in the US, where people tend to look for entertainment.” Mr Jolly explains though that while it’s true that some of Aristocrat’s higher volatil- ity games perform well in Macau, the spread of machine styles is wider andmore complex than observers might imagine. “Volatility is different in every game, and depends on how the mathematicians have designed it.You might expect you would see more volatility in games in a gambler’s type market [such as Macau] but you can’t say that’s the definite rule to every game. “Macau is a very important market for Aristocrat and we do our research with care. We believe in giving our mathemati- cians and research and development peo- ple the right information to help them de- velop better games.” Broadcast versus narrowcast There may be some parallels between the current state of the slotsmarket inMacau and how the television market worked 10 or 15 years ago. Then, terrestrial television companies were ‘broadcasters’ helping ad- vertisers by producing ‘software’ (i.e.,TV pro- grammes) appealing to as wide an audience as possible. In today’s more fragmented TV market, with scores of satellite and cable channels, TV companies have become more like narrowcasters, offering carefully target- ed content to reach a certain audience. Ken Jolly says though: “If you take the arcade game concept as an example, some manufacturers do have games with warriors fighting each other. This won’t necessarily work for the current demographic in Macau. “It’s difficult for Aristocrat to go after one market segment. As the largest player in the