SiGMA News, spoke to Slots Temple CMO, Fraser Linkleter, about the affiliate’s latest offering
Slots Temple Tournaments are here, and Fraser Linkleter – Slot Temple’s CMO – is hoping that they will be a smash hit with competitive and casual slots players alike.
Italian slot developer, EURASIAN Gaming, was chosen to develop the product because, as Linkleter explains: “…they really believed in the product when it was just an idea and have been great development partners. However, we believe any slot from any Studio would work well in our tournaments; we have designed our tournament engine so that we can work with game developers to give each game a bespoke scoring system. So, whether a slot is high or low volatility we can tailor how points are won to ensure the leaderboard experience is entertaining and closely fought.”
Currently in Beta and offered as daily, weekly and monthly competitions, players enter a tournament for free and get a set number of spins on a slot. They collect points for events that occur during gameplay (e.g. wins, consecutive wins in a row or hitting a big win multiplier) accumulating points and competing against other players via a live leaderboard. “The excitement comes,” says Linkleter, “as players move up and down the leaderboard with every spin, knowing that hitting a huge win multiplier could take them to the top of the leaderboard.”
The player with the most points at the end of the tournament tops the leaderboard and wins a prize (regulations in jurisdiction allowing).
Linkleter elaborates: “While the tournaments are 100% free and users cannot make a deposit with us, we still took legal advice on what you can and can’t do with prizes in each jurisdiction to ensure we stay 100% compliant both for us and for our game studio partners. Some jurisdictions will not have any prizes at all, some will have money or monies-worth prizes, and others will have promotional/memento style prizes depending on regulation.”
Not ‘just another promotion’
Linkleter is confident the tournaments will be embraced as more than ‘just another promotion’: “It’s a real competition against others; tournaments gamify the slot and offer players the chance of winning a tangible prize without risking anything. Each tournament players enter will not only be engaging in and of itself, but in a wider context as well. Players will earn ‘Experience Points’ in every tournament they play; these will contribute to a monthly leaderboard where players can unlock special tournaments or avatars.”
Because the tournaments are so engaging, 99% of players play until the end, typically enjoying around 200 spins on the tournament slot. This gives the player time to truly experience the slot, hit bonus rounds and have a couple of nice wins. “By the time they’ve finished their spins, they will really know the slot, understand how it plays and have enjoyed a positive, risk-free experience.”
Linkleter hopes this positive introduction to the slot – and increased slot-brand awareness – will make players more likely seek out the slot in competitive casino operator lobbies.
The mechanic and point systems have also been designed so that players will stay in contention right until the last spin. Hitting a massive win has the potential to catapult a player to the top of the leaderboard from even the lowliest of positions. “We’ve tried to harness the adrenaline you feel when hitting a big win and ensure that you shoot up the leaderboard when this happens! More generally, if you love slots, it gives you the chance of winning a prize, testing out a slot you may not have seen before and competing with others. It’s a more social experience than traditional slot play.”
Regarding the social experience, Slots Temple looked closely at social products when developing the tournaments and – at the time of writing – is about a month away from releasing an over-arching social aspect that it hopes will engage customers even more. “We really want to create a community of slots fans;” says Linkleter, “Players who will chat to each other about the tournaments, their experiences of the games they are playing and whatever else they fancy shooting the breeze about (as long as it’s within community guidelines!)”
Slots Temple believes tournaments will be the main reason players come to the site in the future. “They will be able to trial new slots, win prizes (in compliant jurisdictions) and we can promote casinos that offer the same slot and maybe have free spins or bonuses,” says Linkleter. “A player who loves the slot and enjoys the tournament is likely to want to play the same slot for real money, and a well-targeted incentive in a good advert after the tournament can be very effective.
“We will soon be working with a well-known slot aggregation platform, which is very exciting as it gives us the chance to talk to lots of game developers. The idea in the long term will be that we become the go-to platform for game studios to market new games and get them in front of hundreds of thousands of avid slots fans.”
During Beta, Slots Temple has been offering free tournaments with no prizes, only recognition in the form of the published leaderboard. “We’ve seen thousands of players enter tournaments, and on average they are playing multiple tournaments which is a great sign. We also had a feedback-form running at the end of each tournament for the first few weeks of launch where we received lots of positive feedback as well as some cracking ideas to make the product even better.”
Development of the game mechanics wasn’t a simple process though… “Getting the timings between the tournament console and the slot game was a challenge,” explains Linkleter. “We needed to make sure that when the result of a spin completed on the front end of the slot, the tournament console reacted at the same time – not easy but we got there! Creating a system so that each game could have a bespoke scoring stem was essential, but it took a bit of time.”
Needless to say, Linkleter believes the benefits greatly outweigh the pain of development: “We will create a huge community of slots fans, and this will fuel a big rise in traffic that we send to online casinos. We will also be a destination for the best game developers who want to market their new slot games to a highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic group of slot aficionados and who want to cement their relationship to their casino licensees.
“We want to tie up with top game developers and run big prize tournaments on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. We have hundreds of thousands of loyal, repeat visitors to Slots Temple so we think with top game developers and free–to–enter prize tournaments the sky is the limit.”
For more information on Slots Temple’s Tournaments, visit: https://www.slotstemple.com/tournaments/
About SiGMA Europe Virtual Expo:
SiGMA Group is excited to announce the launch of their November event, SiGMA Europe Virtual Expo. The online event, which runs from the 24th to 25th, will focus on the European gaming and tech marketplace.
For more information about how to sponsor this event please contact Hamza and to explore speaking opportunities get in touch with Jeremy. To register for the expo click here.
