Gamification in Online Casino Games Explained

Gamification is a technique developers use in the online gambling industry to make online casino games more appealing to players. It is the application of elements from traditional video games.

Implementing gamification in online casino games is a trend that started some years ago and has shown great results. Players love the fact that what were once games depending on luck purely are now games where you could use your skills to win.

What Gamification Is Actually?

Gamification was first introduced in online gambling as a marketing tool. Operators and developers would partner to create some of the best promotional offers for players which would include the participation in some tournaments or competitions for a particular prize.

And while these promotions were really interesting to take part in, imagine the players’ excitement when they saw actual online casino games with gamification elements in them?

One cannot really pinpoint which developer first included gamification in its games, but we can say for certain that giants like BetSoft, NetEnt and Microgaming started the trend.

In addition to the main game in their slots, these developers started including elements in the gameplay where with one mission completed, players would receive points or badges or level-ups to a bonus game or a mini-game. This significantly increased players’ engagement levels and made them want to return to these games, as they were extremely interesting and challenging to play.

How would that actually go? Say, for instance, the game offers Multi-Level Free Spins. You need to land 3 or more Scatters to trigger them, and once you do, you’re awarded your number of Free Spins. Now, during the Free Spins, for each Wild you land, let’s say, you get a new bar on the meter. Once you fill the meter, you go to the next level of the Free Spins, etc. This is just one of the simplest examples of how gamification works.

But basically, gamification is game within a game. Today, most software developers include gamification elements in one way or the other. Usually, the gamification part is included in the bonus games. These bonus games can be based on the following gamification types: competitions, quests, rewards, levels, goals, challenges and many other unique types.

Why Is It so Popular?

As mentioned, with gamification, both players and developers gain something. Players get to experience incredible gambling where they can use their own skills to achieve something and have at least a little control over the game. Developers, on the other hand, get players’ engagement and the return of ex-users. As soon as players get amazed by these gamified games, they almost always get back to them, especially millennials. The video games elements make the online casino games more appealing to players, that’s for sure, and that’s the developers’ main objective.