For casino market server-based gaming still in the cards

High-tech slot machines should get a big-shot in the arm with the beginning of Vegas' CityCenter later this year. However, a lot of rewiring remains to be done.nby Daniel Terdiman February 3, 2009 12:01 PM PST nFollow @GreeterDan nIn summer time of 2005, the casino industry was abuzz with excitement over what was then viewed as the next great thing--server-based gaming, a significant technological shift in how slots work. nEssentially, this innovation was going to make it possible for the machines to present a broad selection of games, all opted for immediately by players, and served up from back-office sources. This was a sea-change from your old-fashioned style, where a product had just one game included in it. As a result, I wrote then, the technology was 'planned to become the greatest information at (the September 2005) Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, the casino industry's large annual trade show.' nFlash forward, but, for the November 2008 version of G2E, the place where a technology panel entitled 'Server-based gaming: Beginning to begin' promised a rousing discussion to the matter, and one which belied the powerful optimism of four years before. 'While it may possibly nevertheless be uncertain when and how server-based gambling will be introduced widely across the business and to the consumer,' the panel's information stated, 'the question of if it will is not any longer.' nnLong regarded as the next best part within the casino business, server-based gambling may eventually be ready for primetime. These machines, from WMS Gaming, are enabled with the technology, which allows individual machines on a casino (Read the Full Guide) floor to obtain new activities on the fly, in addition to give the casino a way to present people promotions.n( Credit: WMS Gaming) nSo yes, the market was jumping the gun with its 2005 excitement. And obviously, considering that track record, any new excitement has to be viewed through a significantly suspicious contact. nBut now, business executives say, the time is ultimately appropriate for sever-based gaming, and the first signs of the technology--albeit a brand new form of it that has been re-worked substantially from what it was originally--may actually be on the horizon. Another best part may at long last be here. nThat suggests a host of new slot machine-based innovations might be on their way. Included in this, explained Rob Bone, the vice president of marketing for WMS Gaming, one of the casino industry's big-four manufacturers, is a community-gaming system that will allow multiple visitors to play games across a series of machines. And another, referred to as 'adaptive gaming,' could make it easy for the machines to keep an eye on a player's development and allow them rejoin their game, even in a different area. nFor each one of the four suppliers, then, the inventions that will come as part of a bigger server-based gambling activity are diverse and wide-ranging. At its core to-day, however, the technology is about systems by which the machines can speak to databases on back-room servers, rendering it possible to download new information and information to a device at any time, as well as to change the denomination of games on the fly to react to casino occupation numbers. nThe world's first all-server-based gaming floornAnd in case a new technology needed to be openly rolled out with a splash, the casino industry could not have chosen a better solution to formally introduce server-based gaming for the world: CityCenter, a mammoth, $8 million, shared MGM Mirage/Dubai World growth project now under construction on the Las Vegas Strip that includes thousands of rooms in hotels, luxury condominiums and soccer fields' worth of casino space. And the world's first all-server-based gambling ground. nThis release, that'll include 2,000 machines, is scheduled for late 2009, and may, after all these years, eventually lead the way for server-based gaming to end up being the new industry standard. nBut the delay was caused by what? nAccording to industry executives, shortly after the 2005 G2E, there is a major philosophical shift, in which the major vendors--International Game Technology (IGT), WMS, Bally Technologies, and Aristocrat--came towards the conclusion, along side specialists, that rather than each wanting to develop their own private designs of the technology, they would place their heads together and devise some new technology standards. n'In 2005, there have been no requirements, and no protocols by which we're able to generate assistance software,' said Javier Saenz, the vice president of product management for network programs at IGT. 'We needed to produce methods, interfaces that labored, and some formalized engineering.' nAround that time, then, a brand new standards body emerged, the Gaming Standards Association (GSA), and what occurred were standards that would make it possible the casino employees to immediately tube in communications to players--promotional communications, notices of free buffets and the like--in pop-up windows to the monitors, regardless of which manufacturer's devices they were playing. Formerly, it'd not have been possible. nFor companies like IGT and WMS, this change in philosophy was nothing short of a significant retrenching, but one they felt they no choice but to adopt. n'Pretty significantly, IGT had to.abandon all past progress that leveraged old, private protocols,' Saenz said. 'It was a massive enterprise.' nInstead, he said, the four companies have used what they call open networks, a new term for server-based gaming built around methods designed to provide casino operators the variety of new server-based technology they want, while also meeting the security and communications objectives of the GSA. nGetting the standards set up was the first step, needless to say, and based on Mark Lipparelli, an associate of the Nevada Gaming Get a grip on Board--which manages casinos in that state--they were applied in November of 2005, just months after that year's G2E. nThe bigger question, then, was how long it would simply take for the outcomes of the standardization to manifest in industry-wide roll-outs of server-based gaming. n'The common adoption and implementation of the protected network technologies,' Lipparelli said, 'will be more of a market function.' nOne unanticipated--at the time, at least--result of the philosophical shift is that the industry's major producers attended around, for the very first time, towards the understanding that their technology must be interoperable, in at least some fundamental ways. nBanking on customer loyaltynThese days, a huge part of successful casino operations is better determining how not only to get a player to bring their income onto your floor, but also how to get that person to join your loyalty program and come back to one of your attributes again and again. nFor companies like MGM/Mirage, as an example, that sort of customer acquisition and retention is important, particularly in a town like Las Vegas, where in fact the giant already owns ten main properties--including Bellagio, the MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Luxor and others--and will soon start City Center. Making it feasible for its clients to play games and feel welcome and valued at all its casinos is just about the most significant point MGM/Mirage or some of its competitors can do. nAnd that's why, while an IGT device still will not run games from Bally--at least not any time soon--the four manufacturers seem to have come around to the idea that their technology had to give the casino operators a great deal more get a grip on over the messaging people would see on those machines. nAdditionally, Saenz said, the gaming machines will need to be able to access the casinos' databases of customer names and information, regardless of who made the device, so as to serve up information that's specific to each user. nnA schematic of a server-based gaming console from WMS Gaming.n( Credit: WMS Gaming) nBut whilst huge businesses like MGM/Mirage buy into server-based gaming, the use of such models will be slow. nAs of today, Bone explained, WMS has about 1,500 server-based products started around the globe. He imagines that casinos will quickly roll-out server-based gaming over a 'bank by bank' basis, indicating one part of products at a period, rather than by replacing whole surfaces at once. nThat means, Bone said, that the technology is going gain grip throughout the casino industry within the next 2-3 years. nIGT's Saenz agreed with that assessment. nAt the minute, he explained, the organization has five server-based gaming discipline trials, two in Nevada and one each in California, Missouri, and Michigan. nLots of hosts, plenty of rewiringnOf class, the approaching City-center beginning will likely be the big developing party IGT's--and the industry's--server-based gaming technology has been looking forward to. But while that release will mean that as much as 2000 models seriously line simultaneously, Saenz said that there are functional reasons why the technology will be slow to spread, nonetheless. nPart of the could be because of structure. So that you can move out server-based games, Saenz pointed out, casinos need to have Ethernet networks deployed on their floors. That is something that few casinos have achieved up to now, he explained, adding that people who do have a much quicker road to the new technology. n'Historically, there was an expectation that when server-based gaming appeared, (casinos) would magically improve their complete floors,' Saenz said, 'and instantly there would be server-based gaming. But that is not practical.' nThat is excatly why he wants to determine roll-outs 100 machines at the same time through the industry, although not faster than that. n'In a few years,' Saenz said, 'many casinos will have some server-based games, and (a few) will be completely' rolled-out.